NEGATIVE/ROGUES/IRAQ

LIFTING SANCTIONS CAUSES IRAQI NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

NOW IS A CRITICAL TIME TO KEEP SANCTIONS ON TO PREVENT IRAQI NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

DANIEL BYMAN, Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation. Foreign Affairs January, 2000 / February, 2000 SECTION: ESSAYS; Pg. 119 HEADLINE: A Farewell to Arms Inspections // acs-ln-2/4/2000

The greatest difficulty is in shoring up sanctions, which are necessary to block Saddam's WMD programs. Sanctions fatigue is acute. Critics in the region -- and, increasingly, at home -- regularly denounce the humanitarian cost of sanctions.

LIFTING SANCTIONS WILL NOT HELP THE IRAQI PEOPLE, BUT WILL HELP THE IRAQI WMD PROGRAM

DANIEL BYMAN, Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation. Foreign Affairs January, 2000 / February, 2000 SECTION: ESSAYS; Pg. 119 HEADLINE: A Farewell to Arms Inspections // acs-ln-2/4/2000

To counter, sanctions' defenders need to more vigorously and more frequently point out the obvious: Saddam has spent what limited money he controls on arms and lavish rewards for his followers, not on the well-being of the Iraqi people; money earmarked for humanitarian purposes often goes unspent; the regime smuggles humanitarian goods out of Iraq to sell on the black market; and Iraqis living in the parts of northern Iraq under U.N. control fare far better than those under the Baathist thumb. If sanctions were removed, there is little reason to expect that Saddam would spend the new revenue on the Iraqi people and every reason to believe that he would blow it on Iraq's WMD programs.

SANCTIONS AND IMPORT CONTROLS ARE ESSENTIAL TO STOPPING IRAQI NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

DANIEL BYMAN, Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation. Foreign Affairs January, 2000 / February, 2000 SECTION: ESSAYS; Pg. 119 HEADLINE: A Farewell to Arms Inspections // acs-ln-2/4/2000

So both sanctions and strict controls over Iraqi imports are necessary to stop proliferation. Sanctions have cut Iraqi state revenues by $ 10 billion to $ 15 billion a year, slashing the regime's assets. Equally important, sanctions have sharply restricted what Iraq can buy. If Iraq cannot acquire "dual-use" items -- items that can be used for both its WMD programs and legitimate civilian purposes -- developing WMD programs will be far harder. A Baathist Iraq that can trade as a "normal" nation is an unnerving prospect.

IF SANCTIONS ARE LIFTED, IRAQ WILL USE THE BENEFITS TO CREATE WMD

Richard C. Hottelet, long-time correspondent for CBS. March 14, 2001, The Christian Science Monitor SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 11 HEADLINE: Why the UN must hold firm on Iraq //VT2002acsln

What Hussein means by ending UN sanctions is abandoning the UN escrow system altogether, with him then fully in control of the money. He would, without a doubt, use it massively to rearm. Hussein is not Hussein without the weapons to dominate the Persian Gulf and its oil resources. BND, the German intelligence service, says that since UN inspectors were forced out more than two years ago, Iraq has intensified its efforts to make chemical weapons. It notes increased activity in the biological field and estimates that in three to five years Iraq's nuclear program could be restored to the pre-Gulf War level. The know-how is there.

IF SADDAM GETS MONEY HE WILL PROLIFERATE

Agence France Presse March 9, 2000, Thursday HEADLINE: Saddam urges greater effort from arms industry

Iraq's armaments industry must work harder to achieve victory, President Saddam Hussein said in remarks published Thursday after a series of top-level meetings.

"It is not enough to point our weapons at the enemy to defeat them, we must bring together all our capacities so that our weapons are more efficient In the field and so that we can achieve victory," Saddam said. He was addressing a meeting with the minister of military industrialisation Abdel Tawab Mulla Howeish, oil minister Amer Rashid and senior officials from the armaments industry, newspapers said.