Iraq: Use of force is unavoidable
Extracts of an article by Marc Erikson in the Asia Times
In two days of sometimes hectic and contentious negotiations, a bipartisan group of US congressional leaders and White House aides on Monday and Tuesday hammered out a resolution (click here for full text) authorizing US President George W Bush to use military force against Iraq should diplomacy fail. There may be some modifications as debate in the US Senate and House of Representatives continues. But it is certain that at the end of the day the Congress (early next week) will pass a resolution with large majorities in both houses giving Bush a free hand to launch military action against the regime of Saddam Hussein - unilaterally if needs be.
Contrary to apparent majority opinion in Europe and Asia, Bush has a strong case for taking Saddam out by force, and for doing it now. Iraq has attacked two of its neighbors without provocation. To find examples for the brutality of Saddam's domestic rule in contravention of any and all UN human rights standards one must look back all the way to Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China. After a broad UN-authorized coalition chased Saddam's troops out of Kuwait in early 1991 in what the grandiloquent Iraqi dictator had termed the "Mother of all Battles", Iraq signed surrender terms laid out in UN Security Council Resolution 687 (April 3, 1991) which unambiguously stated that,
(Section 8) "Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; (b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;" and
(Section 12) "Iraq shall unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material or any subsystems or components or any research, development, support or manufacturing facilities related to the above; ... [and] accept ... urgent on-site inspection and the destruction, removal or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items specified above; ..."
To all but Iraqi government spokesmen it is as unambiguously clear that Iraq is in flagrant material breach of the 1991 surrender terms. The only serious questions are 1) why the UN did not act decisively at any time over the past 11 years to rectify obvious Iraqi breaches; and 2) why the US did not prior to the past several months adopt a pro-active attitude to prod the UN to do so.
The 1991 surrender terms as explicated in Resolution 687 could be construed as a contract under international law. In commercial law, there exist the concepts of "estoppel by laches" and "estoppel by conduct" - the notions that undue delay to take legal action to enforce a right and, respectively, inducement by course of conduct and dealings of the belief that certain contractual clauses cease to be valid "estops" or bars future action. But the 1991 "contract" between Saddam and the UN was hardly commercial in nature. Nor, of course, did the contract contain a statute of limitations, a specific date beyond which the UN could not pursue its aims. Further, the US and UK have continued to enforce no-fly zones (and been illegally shot at), so that no Iraqi claim of de facto lapse of enforcement of UN resolutions could hold water.
But legalisms aside, why now and why, critics say, with undue haste and lethal force? And where, critics ask, is the "smoking gun"? The latter question, a take- off on 1974 US Senate Watergate hearings into President Nixon's misconduct, is an uncautious one and has too easy a devastating answer: A smoking gun is one that has been fired, and we can't wait for that to happen. The Bush administration argues that September 11 proved that there exist terrorist organizations and states supporting them and their aims and that this unique and uniquely horrifying event imparts the urgency to its pursuits and the need to go to war if unfettered inspection and destruction of Iraqi weapons-of-mass- destruction capabilities is not complied with by Saddam. Bush's insistence on a new UN resolution giving greater powers and enforcement capabilities to UN weapons inspectors follows the same logic and, of course, references numerous 1991-98 efforts of Iraqi obstruction.
Former US vice president Al Gore, who criticizes Bush's course, has said that "Iraq does, indeed, pose a serious threat." Senator Edward Kennedy, another nay-sayer, says that Saddam Hussein "must be disarmed". They both said, too, that "we may reach the point where our only choice is conflict" (Kennedy), and that UN authorization is not absolutely necessary since "there's no international law that can prevent the United States from taking action to protect our vital interests" (Gore). Thus, in principle, neither of these two leading Democrats disagree with Bush. The only alternative to Bush's policy they propose is a "go slow" approach and a return to the Clinton days of looking the other way when facing clear and present danger proves somehow politically inconvenient.
This will not happen. "Delay, indecision and inaction could lead to a massive and sudden horror," said Bush in his Rose Garden address. The great majority of the US Congress agrees with him. Bush has also challenged the UN to either act decisively or find itself consigned to the role of the ignominious League of Nations in the period between the two world wars. At this juncture, there are only two possible outcomes: Either the UN Security Council significantly tightens the weapons inspection (and destruction) regime and Saddam fully and unconditionally complies with that regime, or the US (and UK) will go it alone and remove Saddam from power. |
