Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991 TAG: 9103130514
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: RUTH SINAI ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
U.S. officials say they'll be more careful with Saddam's neighbor, Syrian President Hafez Assad, who joined the anti-Iraq coalition last summer. But for now, the administration appears to have adopted the Arab maxim that "any enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Officials say they have few illusions about Assad, but they also view him as a key player in attempts to reduce Mideastern terrorism, obtain the release of Western hostages in Lebanon, provide a long-term deterrent to Iraq and bring about peace between Israelis and Arabs.
The Bush administration has accused Assad of providing a home to some of the world's most vicious terrorists, of executing dissidents and torturing prisoners, of manufacturing hundreds of tons of poison gas every year.
And on the eve of today's visit to Damascus by Secretary of State James Baker, officials said Syria took delivery of 20 launchers and two dozen North Korean-made Scud missiles that easily could reach neighboring Israel, possibly with chemical warheads.
Some observers fear the Bush administration will do the same with Assad as it did with Saddam, whom the United States supported in Iraq's long war with Iran.
"They pulled up next to Saddam Hussein, called him an ally, and pretended he wasn't a bad guy," said Jack Healey, director of the U.S. section of Amnesty International. "They'll end up with exactly the same thing with Assad," the human-rights monitor warned.
Healey said Syrian torture methods were so ingenious in their cruelty that Syria has become "almost a research center for torture." The London-based Amnesty has counted 35 methods cited by victims, among them the so-called Syrian chair which snaps the spine of anyone strapped into it, he said.
The United States has pressed Syria to reform, and human-rights officials say the number of prisoner disappearances and executions has diminished in recent years.
It peaked in 1982 when Syrian troops drove tanks into the town of Homs looking for members of the fundamentalist Moslem Brotherhood who had killed some soldiers. The Syrians razed buildings and sealed up others, gassing those inside with cyanide.
Estimates of the dead ranged from 10,000 to 25,000.
The State Department says Syria still allows radical Palestinian groups to operate out of its territory, and the country remains on a list of seven countries ineligible for U.S. aid and most trade because of their support for terrorism.
But a State Department official noted that despite warnings from Iraq that its Palestinian proxies would ignite a worldwide terrorism campaign against Americans, few attacks actually occurred during the six-week allied war with Iraq.
"We surmise Syria put a lid on it," one official said.
"That's probably true," said Vincent Canistraro, until recently the CIA's top counterterrorism official and now a private intelligence analyst. "But that just proves how much control they can exert over these groups when they want."
He said Syria had declined to use its influence with the radical Moslems of the Hezbollah organization who hold 13 Western hostages, among them six Americans.
Baker intends to ask Syria for its help - again - said one official.
The hostages were moved in recent weeks from Beirut to the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon, which is controlled by the Syrian army, according to security sources in the Lebanese capital.
Baker also hopes to persuade the Syrians to agree to peace talks with their archenemy, Israel. Syria might be willing - if Israel agreed to give back the Golan Heights it captured in the 1967 war.
Baker also will discuss with Assad his commitment to join an anti-Iraq military force being set up to deter future Iraqi designs on its neighbors in the Persian Gulf.
Syria has much to gain financially and diplomatically from the thaw with Washington. At a cost of 15,000 troops sent to the gulf who saw little action in the war, Syria was promised $3 billion by Saudi Arabia and its gulf neighbors.
The money will ease the economic crunch of the government, which owes Western banks and governments some $4 billion and the Soviet Union - until recently Syria's main arms dealer - some $9 billion, said Patrick Clawson, an expert on the Syrian economy.
Syria desperately needs credits from the West, and its membership in the U.S.-led coalition eased its pariah status in Western eyes.
by CNB