The Gulf Options for Peace

By Lisa Beyer

For Saddam Hussein, the hostage card proved recyclable last week. When he first made captives of thousands of foreigners trapped in Iraq and in occupied Kuwait, he reckoned he was reducing the chances of an attack against himself. He was wrong. When he promised to send all the hostages home last week, he made the same calculation. This time he may have got it right.

From a military angle, the release of the hostages makes a war against Iraq more manageable. With these innocents out of the line of fire, Saddam's opponents have a clearer shot at him. But, as the Iraqi leader surely anticipated, this unexpected show of goodwill makes it harder for the Bush Administration to sell an offensive action to the American Congress and public, which were already proving to be tough customers.

While no one is about to argue that Saddam's concession absolves his hostage taking in the first place -- his apology last week for behavior that "may not have been correct" notwithstanding -- it does demonstrate that he responds to pressure. That somewhat undercuts the belief that nothing short of war is likely to nudge Saddam out of Kuwait. "The Bush Administration ought to have more faith in its own diplomatic skills," said Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd. "Saddam's pledge to release hostages is pretty good evidence that you don't have to pull the trigger to get his attention."

Similar pleadings for patience resounded on Capitol Hill last week. In various congressional hearings, the Administration's gulf-policy point men did their best to convince lawmakers that war was the only way to dislodge Saddam from Kuwait if he did not leave by the U.N.-imposed deadline of Jan. 15. But Democrat after Democrat, including many who early on had heartily supported Bush's handling of the crisis, took the floor to rebut the Administration's witnesses and press them to give economic sanctions against Iraq time to produce results. "If we have war," said Senator Sam Nunn, "we are never going to know whether they would have worked."

Such sentiments were buttressed by the testimony of a chorus of blue-ribbon experts, including seven former Defense Secretaries and two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who all counseled temperance. No witness was more compelling than the government's own William Webster, director of the CIA, who, to the amazement of many, departed from the Administration's line when he projected that the embargoes would begin to bog down Saddam's military in three to nine months.

Saddam's promise to liberate the hostages, not accidentally, reinforced the impression of a softening Iraq. The first batch of releases was expected this week, and Iraqi officials have said all the captives -- who number up to 4,000, including 750 Americans -- should be home by Christmas. In freeing the foreigners, Saddam has little if anything to lose. Apparently, he became convinced that holding on to them was bringing him ignominy the world over, and for no gain. The nations aligned against him had made clear that they were not going to be deterred from military action by the risk of sacrificing those innocent lives.

Saddam announced last month that he would release the hostages in installments from Christmas until late March as long as he was not attacked. His acceleration of the schedule was almost certainly intended to pressure Bush to produce something more than an ultimatum when the President meets with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in Washington. Numerous Congressmen last week urged the Administration to use this session and a subsequent meeting in Baghdad between Secretary of State James Baker and Saddam for genuine negotiations with Iraq. "Negotiations is not a bad word," said Senator Paul Simon. "Either you negotiate a diplomatic settlement or you have a war."

But Bush continued to insist that the sole purpose in meeting with the Iraqis is to convey to Saddam forcefully that he must leave Kuwait unconditionally or face defeat in war. "I'm not in a negotiating mood," Bush declared during a swing through South America last week. While welcoming Saddam's promise to free the hostages, Bush insisted, "We've got to keep the pressure on him."

By sticking single-mindedly to the warpath, the Bush Administration hopes to scare Saddam into accepting its terms for Iraq's capitulation. But the White House knows that Saddam gets much of his news from CNN. He hears the loud and cacophonous tones of dissension emanating from Congress, and they tell him that the American will to fight for the sake of Kuwait is less firm than the Administration wants him to think. Baker acknowledged that point last week, admonishing the House Foreign Relations Committee, "When you say, 'Wait, wait, wait, wait,' that undercuts a strategy that is showing every possibility of working."

Given these realities, there is more pressure than ever on Washington to accept a resolution of the crisis that would enable Saddam to survive. Such a settlement, a deal that does not look like a deal, could take various shapes:

Meet Me at the Hague. In this scenario, Saddam would pull out fully, ! supposedly without conditions but with the understanding that Iraq and Kuwait would then take their territorial conflicts to the World Court for arbitration. If Saddam can produce proof of his claims that Kuwait encroached on Iraqi territory and used slant-drilling technology to take more than its share from the baguette-shaped Rumaila oil field, which straddles the two countries, he could win compensation.

Saddam could also press his assertion that for historical reasons, Kuwait belongs to Iraq. However, he must know that this flimsy claim will not stand up under international law. Thus Baghdad would have little incentive for resorting to this option.

An Outright Horse Swap. More attractive to Saddam would be an arrangement in which he would depart Kuwait, again apparently unrewarded. Kuwait, by prior secret agreement, would grant him concessions. Saddam could be forgiven the $10 to $20 billion he borrowed from Kuwait to wage war against Iran. Kuwait could lease to Saddam the two islands he covets, Warba and Bubiyan, perhaps for many years or maybe in perpetuity.

Kuwait could also acquiesce to a final fixing of the disputed Iraq-Kuwait border that would put its two-mile-long share of Rumaila squarely on Iraqi turf. Alternatively, Kuwait could agree to turn its proceeds from Rumaila over to Baghdad. Though the field is extraordinarily bountiful, its loss would not seriously dent Kuwait's oil riches. Prior to the invasion, Kuwait was extracting some 10,000 bbl. a day from Rumaila, just 0.5% of its total production of 2 million bbl.

If Saddam is not offered anything that appeals to him, there is the real chance he will opt for a partial and unilateral pullout, yanking his forces back to the northern third of Kuwait, which he considers part of Iraq's Basra province. That would free up Kuwait's main population centers and oil fields but would leave four major oil patches, plus Kuwait's part of Rumaila -- which together account for about 10% of Kuwait's production -- under Saddam's control. While the U.S. and its allies could still invade to force Saddam all the way out, popular support for such a move would be extremely difficult to muster.

The No-Link Link. This option might be combined with one of the first two or alone might prove sufficient incentive for Saddam to retreat. In this scenario, Saddam would pull out of Kuwait reasonably confident, if not certain, that relatively soon afterward the U.S. and the Soviet Union would convene an international peace conference that would deal with the plight of the Palestinians, whose cause Saddam has trumpeted lately.

Washington would continue to try to deny Saddam a p.r. victory by maintaining that such a conference was in no way connected to the gulf crisis. The Bush Administration could argue that the Arab-Israeli conflict needed to be dealt with anyway, a position consistent with well-established U.S. policy. But everyone would know the truth -- that the gulf crisis had precipitated the conference -- and Saddam would be able to portray himself as the hero of the Palestinians.

Though it is far from certain that Saddam would return Kuwait in exchange for this prize, the trophy is already within his grasp. Last week attempts to draft a U.N. resolution endorsing a Middle East parley in terms acceptable to the U.S. broke down. But despite its posture at the U.N., and contrary to its publicly stated position, Washington, under pressure from its European and Arab allies, has privately acquiesced to such talks after the gulf crisis is resolved.

Preventing a Repeat. Whatever other trade-offs might be struck, the U.S. and its allies could press Saddam for concessions on his military capabilities: a drawdown of his troops, destruction of his chemical and biological weapons, inspection of his nuclear facilities to ensure that he is not building a bomb. Washington's position is that these measures could be enforced through a treaty. But, notes a senior British diplomat, "that is a hell of a difficult proposition." Such compromises would be extremely hard to win from Saddam through any means but a military defeat.

If disarming the criminal is impossible, Washington might eventually settle for more policing. Though politically nettlesome for any Arab state, a permanent U.S. force of perhaps 20,000 troops might be supported on the soil of a liberated Kuwait. They would serve as a trip wire to a recidivous Saddam. Otherwise the U.S. might pump up its naval presence in the Persian Gulf and position U.S. military equipment at various bases in the region. Other Arab forces would probably man outposts in Saudi Arabia and other gulf states. At a minimum, Washington would also want to retain an embargo on arms and equipment that Iraq might use to make advanced weapons.

For any of these scenarios to work, Saddam would require an assurance that if he brings his troops home, they will not be pursued. He now has it. Last week Baker announced that the U.S. would not attack Iraq if Saddam quit Kuwait unconditionally. This seems to be a policy shift. Although Washington has never made demolishing Saddam and his military an explicit goal, it has sworn to guarantee the future security of the region, a deliberately vague objective widely interpreted to mean defanging Iraq.

Saddam would also want immunity from other punishments, and it looks as if he will get it. Though the permanent members of the Security Council will not say so publicly, they are willing to set aside the U.N. resolution requiring Iraq to pay reparations to countries adversely affected by the crisis. And Britain has quietly dropped its lobbying efforts for a new resolution calling for Saddam and his cohorts to be tried for war crimes.

Baghdad would want a lifting of the economic sanctions too. Washington and its closest allies would prefer to use a continued embargo to coerce military cutbacks from Iraq. But that position might not prevail in the Security Council, which imposed the sanctions to force Iraq's retreat from Kuwait, not its demilitarization.

The extent to which any of these points might be explicitly discussed in the upcoming U.S.-Iraq talks is a mystery. Bush and Baker may indeed keep the sessions short and pointed -- if only because they have said they would. But Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's hawkish National Security Adviser, tartly observes that if all Baker says in Baghdad is " 'Get out, and then we'll talk . . .' he's going to tempt Saddam to take Baker as a hostage." In any event, unless these meetings end in anger, they will be only the opening gambit. The French, Soviet and German foreign ministers have all suggested that they will go to Baghdad. Many other players are bound to jump in. "The bazaar has finally opened," said a Middle Eastern diplomat in Washington. "Now the trading can begin."

The prospect of an unchoreographed diplomatic pageant featuring myriad actors makes many of Saddam's detractors uneasy, since it could lead to a resolution dangerously kind to Iraq. Yet the intervention of other capitals, particularly Arab ones, could serve U.S. interests by preventing war, yet insulating Washington from the opprobrium of having brokered a foul-smelling deal. Of course, having to yield to such a compact would be a distasteful experience. But it might prove a tolerable one if the alternative is thousands of American soldiers killed for the sake of the Kuwaiti Emir.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: NO CREDIT

CAPTION: THE ELEMENTS OF A DEAL

With reporting by William Mader/London, J.F.O. McAllister with Bush and Christopher Ogden/Washington