We cannot go to war just because Saddam is a liar - he must also be a threat
20 January 2003
argument.independent.co.uk
Twice now the United Nations inspectors have not discovered the "smoking gun" in Iraq. The chemical warheads found last Thursday were not it, as Hans Blix, the head of the inspection team, was at pains to point out.
Not that they were exactly evidence of Saddam Hussein's innocence. The Iraqi defence – that they had been "forgotten" – might have been comic had the subject matter not been so unfunny. Had they been overlooked because the Iraqi regime once had so many chemical weapons it could not keep track of them all? Or because it was now so focused on acquiring nuclear weapons that the attempts to make weapons of slightly less mass destruction had slipped its mind?
The discovery of papers relating to the enrichment of uranium, revealed at the weekend, was also not the trigger for war, according to the inspectors. "It is not that we have discovered a smoking gun," repeated Mohamed al-Baradei, head of the nuclear side of the inspections. "But it raises the whole question of transparency."
Transparency is a polite way of putting it. But we cannot go to war just because Saddam is a liar. We knew that anyway. Of course, Saddam's evasions must be exposed. While empty warheads or old documents are not important in themselves, the failure to disclose them in the "full and complete" inventory fulfils one of the conditions for war in UN resolution 1441. But the crime of omission is only one of the possible triggers for war, and the wording of the resolution is quite clear that, although it would constitute a "further material breach" of Iraq's obligations, it must only be reported to the Security Council for "assessment".
What we do not know is whether Saddam's lies cover up an advanced programme to develop hideous weapons of mass murder, or merely a broken-backed attempt to bolster his authority by threatening to do so. That is what the UN inspectors are charged with finding out. For the world to be convinced that Saddam poses a threat serious enough and immediate enough to justify military action, there must be obstruction as well as omission. Only when the regime tells the inspectors they cannot enter a particular building can we assume it has something to hide of which we should be afraid.
If no such moment arrives in the run-up to the spring window for US military action, however, the UN faces a difficult choice. It must then decide what the purpose of its inspection regime is. On this question, a chasm is opening up between Mr Blix and President Bush. For Mr Bush, the purpose of inspection is to say yes or no to invasion, with the outcome heavily prejudged.
For Mr Blix, on the other hand, speaking yesterday as he arrived in Baghdad, inspection is a "process" that is the "peaceful alternative". That, surely, is the position around which the world should unite. Whatever Saddam's intentions, ambitions and evasions, he would find it virtually impossible to build a nuclear device while the white jeeps and helicopters of the UN inspectors have free access anywhere in his country. Chemical and biological weapons manufacture may be slightly easier, but still difficult.
"Containing" Saddam indefinitely would hardly be a happy outcome. It would be better for the people of Iraq and its neighbours if his regime should collapse. But maintaining an aggressive inspection regime for the foreseeable future is preferable to war. Opposing war in the abstract is easy; the opponents of this war need now to focus on the practicalities of Mr Blix's "peaceful alternative".
21 January 2003 01:11 |
