Hi Jochen Jansen; Re: "Outwit? Bush did a great job strengthening the role of the UN, I thank him for it."
I agree that what Bush did was good for the UN, but Saddam has now set Bush up in a situation where Bush must either choose peace, or risk much worse diplomatic isolation.
Since Saddam is allowing inspections, I'd say that it's highly likely that Ritter was right, and that Iraq doesn't have any WMDs. The facts are that Iraq is letting inspectors in a long time before they had to. Past history suggests that it would have taken the UN several months to agree on the wording of a resolution and Saddam could have agreed to the ultimatum at any time until the ultimatum ran out, probably a month or two after that.
If inspections were so painful for Saddam, he would have waited another couple of months. The point is that Saddam never said that inspections were painful, just that Iraq wasn't getting anything in return for them. The timing of this letter suggests that this is true.
This letter suggests that what Iraq wants is not WMDs, but instead to have the sanctions and over-flights ended. In other words, Ritter was right. The great debate in the UN will not be over allowing the US to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, but instead over when to end sanctions and US involvement. Regime change, as a subject at the UN, is dead, dead, dead.
-- Carl
P.S. I believe that the way things have fallen out are good not just for the UN, but also for the US, Iraq, and the rest of the world (and particularly good for Saddam). |
