Making War to Keep Peace (8 page)

Desert Storm was carried out not under the command and control of the UN secretary-general, but under U.S. commanders collaborating with those of more than two dozen other countries, several of which were principal U.S. allies. It was a coalition of the willing under American leadership. Javier Perez de Cuellar, the UN's secretary-general at the time, interposed no obstacles; in fact, he helped as he was able. The Security Council passed the resolutions that authorized the war's foundational policies. The Secretariat assisted with coordination. The Gulf War was successful and efficient in achieving its limited objectives, though its slow
start gave Saddam a prolonged opportunity to inflict damage on the people and resources of Kuwait. The war's early end left the Republican Guard intact and Saddam in power and strong enough to impose murder and mayhem on the Kurds and Shiites in Iraq.

Despite the dazzling demonstration of American military power and the professionalism of U.S. forces, the Gulf War displayed some of the characteristics of later, unsuccessful multinational operations. James Baker's five-month-long effort to secure and preserve consensus and to elicit financial commitment came at a very high price, especially considering that a consensus existed in the Security Council for condemning Saddam's invasion from the day of the invasion, and that most of the money to wage the war was contributed by a mere five nations: the United States, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, France, and Great Britain.

Still, Desert Storm was a clear example of collective action against international aggression. By his actions and words, Bush committed the United States to the principles of the UN Charter and the resolutions of the Security Council. The Gulf War was successful, in spite of the disadvantages of war by committee and the difficulties of recruiting a coalition and maintaining a consensus in the Security Council.

Although as a military operation Desert Storm had been a great success, it quickly became clear that the threat posed by Saddam to the region or to Iraq's minorities had not been eliminated. By mid-March through early April 1991, Saddam's forces drove fleeing Kurds from their homes toward the borders of Iran and Turkey, creating great human misery and threatening the always-tense relations in the area.

After the Iraqi withdrawal, the Bush administration had turned its efforts to the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Kurds, Shiites, and Somalis, and the enforcement of the terms of the armistice when the Bush team broke new ground again. Bush returned to the UN, undertaking more intrusive activities through the Security Council, and proposed the passage of Resolution 688 that defined massive human rights violations by their government as a threat to international peace and security. Resolution 688, which passed on April 5, signaled a new era in which UN member states could use force not just to respond to aggression but also for humanitarian purposes, and it provided the Security Council with
the justification for the first time ever to use force when engaging the internal affairs of a nation.
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By providing the Security Council with more power and a wider reach as part of Bush's New World Order vision, 688 may inadvertently have set the stage for future expansionist secretary-generals' fastidious attempts to increase their role and the UN role within the world community. In December 1992, when warring clan leaders, food shortages, and natural disasters threatened hundreds of thousands of Somalis with starvation, Bush again turned to the Security Council, securing authorization under Chapter VII to help create a secure environment in which humanitarian assistance could be delivered to the suffering Somalis. Resolution 794 permitted the U.S. the use of “all necessary means” to accomplish the mission.
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THE NEW PEACEKEEPING

Soon after the Gulf War ended, the United Nations chose a new secretary-general, the French-educated Egyptian Copt Boutros Boutros-Ghali (with George Bush providing the necessary U.S. vote); the Americans chose a new American president, William Jefferson Clinton; and there followed a veritable explosion of UN activities involving the use of force. For the new secretary-general and many governments, including ours, UN peacekeeping became the method of choice for dealing with conflict. The number, variety, and scope of peacekeeping operations grew and expanded. These operations involved the United States and others in unprecedented interventions in the internal affairs of member states, often undertaken in haste, and under new doctrines whose implications had barely been explored.

Some peacekeeping operations after the end of the cold war fit the conventional Hammarskjöld model, but most did not. “Peacekeeping” operations were undertaken in conflicts within states as well as between them, in situations where there was no armistice or cease-fire, and in those in which there was only shaky consent to the mission on behalf of the conflicting parties. Some operations involved new activities: monitoring human rights practices, observing or overseeing elections, and
repatriating refugees. So diverse have the concept and practices of
peacekeeping
become that the term may refer to any activity—diplomatic, military, humanitarian, political, or economic—whose purpose is to contribute to the peace, security, and well-being of a group or people, and which is carried out by a multinational force under UN auspices.

The expansion of peacekeeping operations took place rapidly and haphazardly, in response to pressing, often unanticipated, problems and new, often unexamined, ideas about multinational action. Delivering humanitarian assistance to civilian populations of Kurds, Shiites, Somalis, Croatians, and Bosnians caught in bitter conflicts within or among nations became a principal occupation of UN peacekeepers. The instabilities of the post–cold war period, the Clinton administration's enthusiasm for multinational activities, and Boutros-Ghali's expansive bureaucratic appetite and elastic doctrine of peacekeeping encouraged a dramatic expansion of UN jurisdiction based on new views about the functions appropriate to states, regional organizations, and the UN.

POSTSCRIPT: THE ARMISTICE

As Iraqi spokesmen reiterated tirelessly, the Gulf War victory did not defeat Saddam Hussein. It only drove him out of Kuwait and forced inspections on plants where his regime was believed to be developing nuclear and other weapons. Under extreme duress, Saddam had agreed to the sanctions imposed as a condition of the cease-fire.
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But soon it was clear to all that he was violating a number of the terms. It was also clear that nothing much happened when he did. On February 19, 1992, the Security Council noted that Iraq's “failure to provide full, final and complete disclosure of its weapons capabilities” was a breach of Resolution 687. Nothing happened. A similar Security Council notice on March 11 produced a similar result.
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Iraq violated the cease-fire agreement repeatedly. It refused to participate in the work of the Boundary Commission demarcating the boundary between Iraq and Kuwait, refused to permit delivery of food and medicine to Kurds in northern Iraq, and defiantly used fixed-wing aircraft (specifically forbidden by the cease-fire and the Safwan Accords of 1992) to attack Shiite villages in southern Iraq. And, of course, Saddam
repeatedly refused to provide access to multiple sites for inspection. In the summer of 1992, a confrontation over access to documents took place outside Baghdad's Department of Agriculture between Iraqi government officials and UN inspectors. Some inspectors—but no American, French, or British personnel—were permitted to enter the building.

These acts of noncompliance were accompanied by Iraqi demands that the sanctions be lifted. They were met by American, British, and French threats, but these were rendered hollow when the chief of the UN team decided to accept Saddam's conditions for inspection. Saddam's offer of limited access to the Department of Agriculture building, and his demand for a veto over membership on the inspection team, were treated as acceptable, even though the Iraqis had already had ample opportunities to remove any materials they desired to protect from UN eyes.
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Saddam's conditions may have seemed less offensive to the UN team and its leader, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, than they did to most observers because they were similar to the conditions under which the parent body of the inspection team—the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—regularly operates. Many people think the IAEA is authorized to police violations of safeguards and of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). But the IAEA inspection system is not designed to be efficient in catching cheaters; the agency negotiates with member states the conditions of access to their facilities, much as Ekeus negotiated with Saddam.

In regular inspections, conducted under regular rules, the IAEA inspects only facilities
declared
by member states, and these only when nuclear material is present. The agency is not authorized to search for undeclared weapons or facilities. The composition of an inspection team must be approved by the nation being investigated. Members may veto classes of people—for example, Americans—if it judges them unacceptable as inspectors. The number of inspectors and their access to the country can also be controlled. The requirement (imposed by some, but not all, countries) that a UN inspection team procure visas provides early warning of any intention to inspect.
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Saddam sought an escape from the special requirements of the cease-fire—penalties for his aggression in invading Kuwait—and the restoration of Iraq's previous rights as a UN member, and he largely achieved his goal.

The IAEA does not provide much protection against governments
that lie and cheat. The agency is governed by its member states, some of which are themselves actively engaged in cheating on the principle of nonproliferation and lying about it. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, and Syria are all members of the IAEA and sit on its governing board. So are other states that have developed or are working hard to develop a nuclear capacity outside the NPT regime.
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Iraq is a signatory to the NPT and had long served on the governing board of the IAEA—during the same period when it was working surreptitiously to develop a capacity to produce nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction.

The IAEA suffers problems typical of UN and quasi-UN agencies. It is politicized and tends to be dominated by a third world agenda. Its priorities frequently reflect those of developing countries. Technical competence is only one of the criteria for employment in the IAEA.

Try as it will (and it frequently tries very hard), the IAEA can only monitor countries that are willing to be monitored. It does valuable but limited work in monitoring safeguards for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but its capacity to deal with problems like those posed by Iraq, or the broader problems of nuclear weapons proliferation, is limited. Today the agency is unable to monitor, much less to police, the activities of Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and India, among other states. What the IAEA can do in the field of nuclear energy is much like what UN peacekeeping forces can do with regard to peace: it can be helpful when the parties are willing.

By provoking a series of confrontations throughout the 1990s, Saddam sought to undermine and discredit the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire, divide the Security Council, and undermine its resolve. Just as the United States and the United Kingdom had assumed responsibility for forcing Saddam out of Kuwait, they tried to force him to abide by the terms of the cease-fire and abandon his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. The United States repeatedly used force to uphold the Security Council resolutions, which were violated or ignored by Iraq, often with the tacit acceptance of coalition allies and UN officials.

American lives were put at risk and billions of dollars were spent in these confrontations with Iraq. At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee concerning supplemental appropriations for continuing
operations in Bosnia and Iraq in March 1998, Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) estimated the extra cost of the continuing Iraqi headache at $5.3 billion through 1998, over and above the ordinary costs of defense in the Persian Gulf. Each confrontation cost from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. A single cruise missile costs more than a million dollars; in one December 1998 strike, hundreds of the missiles were fired at Iraqi targets by U.S. and U.K. forces. And although these expenses were incurred by the United States to enforce Security Council resolutions, the expenses were not credited to the United States under its UN assessments.

During the Clinton years, Saddam's repeated provocations took on a familiar pattern. When he believed the timing was right to extract a concession, he imposed limitations on the ability of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to carry out its mandate. The Clinton administration would reject Iraq's demand and order a military buildup, and Saddam would check international opinion and tailor his actions accordingly. If he sensed lukewarm resistance, he would make demands that either weakened the sanctions regime or diminished the ability of the inspectors to do their job. Negotiations would then take place in which the U.S. administration, acting through a divided Security Council, would split the difference by granting a concession—for example, allowing an increase in Iraqi oil exports. Clinton would declare that diplomacy, yet again, had triumphed over force. From time to time there were variations—the personal intervention of the UN secretary-general or the good offices of a nation sympathetic to Iraq, such as Russia—but the outcome was usually the same: the undermining of the sanctions regime and the inspectors, and another victory for Saddam.

Again and again, Saddam sought to build support for lifting the sanctions while simultaneously hiding weapons of mass destruction. In each confrontation, the Security Council split over the appropriate response. Often, the United States could not even convince the council to support the use of force to enforce its own resolutions, which demonstrated the council's impotence in the role of sheriff of the new world order. And as the crises continued to occur, the allies, who had shown such unity during the Gulf War, chose to pursue their own national interests at the expense of multilateralism.