TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2001 — With Osama bin Laden either dead, pinned down in the mountains of Afghanistan, or on the run, the focus of the war on terrorism is shifting, in some circles, to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In the latest issue of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports on the Iraqi National Congress’s plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein. He lays out the INC’s plan, which involves using a combination of Iraqi opposition forces, US Special Forces on the ground, and American airpower to remove Hussein.

In his piece, Hersh recounts the usual arguments against the plan: that INC leader Ahmad Chalabi is said to lack support within Iraq (an assertion nobody can verify because Hussein doesn’t exactly allow Gallup to come in and conduct polls), and that the instability in Iraq following Hussein’s removal would be worse than allowing him to remain in power (how can this be?). However, Hersh fails to adequately characterize Chalabi’s advocates in Washington. He labels US supporters of the Chalabi plan as "congressional Republicans" and "political conservatives." In doing so, Hersh neglects two facts: the original 1998 Iraq Liberation Act — a law that first expressed support for the Iraqi opposition — passed in the House by 360 to 38 with strong Democratic support, and there is a growing Democratic push for removing Saddam Hussein.

In a speech to the New Democratic Network on October 15, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut declared that the US must be "unflinching in our determination to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq before he, emboldened by September 11, strikes at us with weapons of mass destruction." During a December 1 CNN appearance, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana said, "We have to decide whether to take this moment to do something about this rogue regime [Iraq] or not. If not, then I suspect that we’ll be dealing with Iraq at a later date, when it won’t be as convenient or as easy to deal with him as it is now." Later Bayh stressed the need for the US to help rebuild the Iraqi opposition.

It’s fair to make the point that support for removing Saddam Hussein is not yet a majority position within the Democratic Party. But it’s also fair to note that Democrats are painfully aware of the mistakes of 1990, when only a handful of Democrats in the House and Senate voted in favor of the first president Bush’s war against Iraq to liberate Kuwait. In his October speech, Lieberman noted, "I can still taste my bitter disappointment with my party in Congress during late 1990 and early 1991 as a majority of Democrats spoke and voted against" the Gulf War. It’s no accident that both Democrats on the 2000 presidential ticket — Lieberman and then-vice-president Al Gore — were two of the 10 Democratic senators who had voted for the Gulf War. How the Democrats come down on phase two may serve as an important test for potential challengers to Bush in 2004.

Lieberman has already put his marker down. And here in Massachusetts, Senator John Kerry has won praise for his decisive leadership since September 11. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, spoke eloquently at the funeral of Special Forces sergeant Daniel Petithory, who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this month. But Kerry has not yet moved to embrace the plan to remove Saddam Hussein. Speaking to the Phoenix after his Wang Center fundraiser, which featured James Taylor, Carole King, and Don Henley, Kerry stressed the importance of working with the international coalition and keeping "a lot of attention on the weapons-of-mass-destruction issue." Kerry added that he had been one of the early Democratic voices to "criticize the Clinton administration for dropping the focus on Iraq."

Former New York congressman Steve Solarz, a Democrat who sponsored the original legislation authorizing the Gulf War, says he believes other Democrats will come around on the Iraq plan. Before the Hersh story came out, Solarz, who is quoted in the New Yorker piece, spoke to the Phoenix about the Democrats and plans to remove Hussein. "A lot of the opposition on the part of Democrats to Desert Storm was part of a deeply rooted concern that we would end up in another Vietnam," said Solarz. He added that those Democrats thinking of presidential politics ought to be aware of the new dynamic: "I think [support for the first Gulf War] made Gore a more attractive candidate. There may well be Democrats who would be hesitant about whether we should go after Iraq, but when push comes to shove and Bush decides to use forces there, I don’t think there’s going to be a great deal of opposition."

Sources close to the INC note that Kerry, for example, visited Chalabi at the group’s London headquarters in 1998 and believe he may now be willing to offer even more support. If as prominent a Democratic leader as Kerry were to come out in favor of the plan to remove Hussein, it would mark another step forward in the war on terrorism. It would also provide Kerry — watchful of his neighbor to the south, Lieberman — with even stronger credentials as he moves toward a 2004 presidential run. And it would be another nail in Hussein’s coffin.