Hi all; A prediction on Saddam and inspections:
To predict whether or not Saddam will violate inspections require that we understand exactly what is at stake for him in terms of advantages and disadvantages, and also understand his motivations.
WMDs are military weapons with two military uses, offense and defense. I'm going to analyze these separately.
In terms of offense, WMDs have shown themselves to be almost worthless. The world has been inundated with these things for most of the last 100 years (since poison gas was used in WW1), but their use in other than total war, in terms of offensive actions, has been negligible. The two sides in WW1 used gas on each other, but if it had been included in the Geneva convention prior to the war it is likely that it would have been banned and so not used. The same applies to the nuclear weapons that the US used in WW2. There have been no uses of nuclear weapons other than the two bombs, and there has been no offensive use of gas at all.
The reason for the absence of offensive use of WMDs is due to the fact that their use tends to alienate the neutral 3rd parties in the rest of the world. This is in contrast to their use in defense which doesn't seem to bother other countries as much. When Iraq used them against Iranian soldiers in Iraq (and Iraqi Kurdish rebels), the world didn't suddenly gang up on Iraq. In fact, US assistance to Iraq considered through that use.
Any future Iraqi use of WMDs to gain, for example, concessions from their neighbors will undoubtedly be responded to by overwhelming force.
In short, no nation on the planet has any real use for WMDs as offensive weapons. Iraq in particular has even less use for them due to the extensive networks of military alliances that surround her. All Iraq could do with WMDs is invite a regime change.
WMDs are far more useful in the defense. There is a long world history of WMDs used in this manner. In addition to the topical examples nuclear weapons owned by Israel, India, Pakistan, the US and Russia, there are even more examples of the defensive use of poison gasses. Both sides in WW2 possessed stores of poison gas, but neither side used them (in warfare against each other). This was due to the defensive nature of these weapons. Nazi Germany was deterred from using poison gas by the knowledge that Britain also possessed them.
Begin Aside
It's a little known fact, especially among the "peace now" classes, that there is little fondness in the military for WMDs. If the military had its way, warfare would be restricted to manly weapons like swords (direct action weapons that require skill, strength and training) rather than feminine weapons like WMDs (which act at a distance weapons that allow any weakling to kill a hero). The only reason they don't all disarm is because they can't get their enemies to do so simultaneously. On the one occasion where a military culture had the ability to disarm a complete "world", they did exactly that, and returned Japan to the sword (and what beautiful weapons they were). This eliminated the horror of having a peasant with a firearm killing a Samurai who had trained his whole life for combat.
End Aside
So I agree that Iraq would find uses for WMDs as defensive weapons. But the list of possible invaders of Iraq is short, and that list is growing less powerful as time goes on. Before the Ayatollah, Iran was a dictatorship that was a threat to Iraq, afterwards they became a nation ran by religious fanatics. Both regimes were a danger to Iraq, but the Islamic regime in Iran has grown older and less virulent as time has gone on. Now Iran's youth want to drink beer, play computer games and watch western movies. Iran is now longer a realistic military threat to Iraq, or even much of a threat in terms of supporting an Islamic guerilla war against them.
While Saudi Arabia has a very strong military (easily capable of stopping Iraq from invading), their small population provides an Army that is too small in number to realistically take on the task of conquering Baghdad. There is no reason for Iraq to keep WMDs to defend itself from Saudi Arabia. The other local neighbors are even smaller than Saudi Arabia, or have considerably less military forces than Iraq.
The only real threat to Iraq is the United States. But the US, by agreeing to UN inspections, makes it impossible to attack Iraq if Iraq does disarm. (And no, I don't believe that the US is like Nazi Germany, which faked provocations from Poland in order to begin a war of conquest there.)
In short, WMDs have no real use to Iraq. This makes them a bargaining chip that Iraq can be throw onto the table at very little cost to themselves.
But I've also persuasively argued that the US is not prepared to attack Iraq. Under that circumstance, why shouldn't Iraq simply thumb its nose at the UN?
Iraq would like to see the sanctions placed on it removed. This is the essence of the disagreement between the US and the other veto members of the UN Security Council. That the resolution was passed unanimously (including the vote of Syria) suggests that Iraq got what it wanted out of that resolution. Here it is, with the parts in bold indicating what Iraq got:
...
Decides, while acknowledging paragraph 1 above, to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council; and accordingly decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process established by resolution 687 (1991) and subsequent resolutions of the Council;
...
cnn.com
Once the disarmament procedures are completed ("bringing to full and verified completion"), the sanctions will lose their legal standing at the UN:
...
Decides that upon the approval by the Security Council of the programme called for in paragraph 19 above and upon Council agreement that Iraq has completed all actions contemplated in paragraphs 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 above, the prohibitions against the import of commodities and products originating in Iraq and the prohibitions against financial transactions related thereto contained in resolution 661 (1990) shall have no further force or effect;
...
216.239.53.100
This is the carrot that Iraq has in place before it. Of course they will take it... Unless, Saddam is an idiot.
There are many people who think that Saddam is an idiot. But think about it. You're probably working hard for a living, but Saddam isn't, and despite living in a dirt poor country, he's probably making more money than you are, LOL. Bush #41 got voted out in '92, Saddam is still in power. Saddam is not stupid. And he proved it when he agreed to accept UN inspections a few months ago.
Does the new resolution include any language that would prevent Saddam from retaining power in Iraq? Look through it carefully at the above link. While the resolution deplores repression in Iraq, such activity is not a triggering behavior for war. In short, there is no language in it that prevents Saddam from continuing to use oppression to keep himself in power. The only thing it reads on is in WMDs.
The game is over, Saddam won. Bush will redefine "regime change" to include a sadistically oppressive regime that "changed" in that it got rid of WMDs that were of no earthly use to it.
-- Carl |
