"Saddam's bluff is about to be called. Indeed, even the concessions he has made to date are being questioned. The Iraqi dictator recently banned the development of weapons of mass destruction, for example. It turns out that the edict applied only to private individuals, not the government, according to a senior U.S. official. So it would hardly impede any existing or prospective program. Iraq also has failed to produce scientists for private interviews, as the November resolution requires."
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BusinessWeek Online
Why Bush Isn't About to Back Down
Monday February 24, 8:40 am ET
By Stan Crock
Last fall, when President Bush ignored the unilateralists on his team and chose to the path of allowing a U.N. inspection regime to try disarming Iraq, critics predicted a "trap." The question now: a trap for whom?
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The hawks, of course, thought it was a trap for the Administration. They figured that between concealment and strategic concessions, a cagey Saddam Hussein would be able to string out the process until interest waned and support for sanctions withered away. Then the Iraqi strongman would be free to expand his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, these critics feared. After all, that's what Saddam did in the 1990s -- and it worked.
Winter 2003 has seen the rise of bitter French and German opposition to U.S. war planning, millions around the globe marching in antiwar demonstrators, and public opposition from scores of African leaders. Many countries on the U.N. Security Council that initially appeared to be agnostic on the issue of war are also expressing jitters now. Time for the Bush Administration to make a tactical retreat? Don't bet on it.
MARCHING ORDERS. It may well turn out that the "trap" laid last autumn will squeeze Saddam and opponents of military action harder than it does Bush when Washington proposes a second resolution in the next week or so. The U.N.'s November resolution required not just an end to impediments for inspectors but also what Administration officials call a strategic decision by Baghdad to change its behavior. Unable to peer into every nook in a nation the size of California, inspectors were supposed to do little more than watch as Iraq disclosed and destroyed all its unaccounted-for chemical and biological weapons. Based on Saddam's track record, the Administration doubted Baghdad would in fact do this.
What's critically important now is that chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix has been making some of the same points. He has told Iraq that it must destroy its Al Samoud 2 missiles, which exceed permitted ranges, and their engines. Even if Saddam agrees to do that -- the kind of partial, strategic concession Bush Administration hardliners feared -- Baghdad is unlikely to agree to all the actions Blix wants. He's now calling for the sweeping disclosure and destruction that both the U.N. resolution and the U.S. demand.
Saddam's bluff is about to be called. Indeed, even the concessions he has made to date are being questioned. The Iraqi dictator recently banned the development of weapons of mass destruction, for example. It turns out that the edict applied only to private individuals, not the government, according to a senior U.S. official. So it would hardly impede any existing or prospective program. Iraq also has failed to produce scientists for private interviews, as the November resolution requires.
ULTIMATE VICTORY? If an increasingly frustrated Blix outlines all these failures in his report to the Security Council on Mar. 7, it could slow the wave building against the U.S. And it could buttress support for the simple resolution Washington and London will propose, which doesn't have to say much more than that Iraq continues to flout previous resolutions. That's something even French officials concede.
The Administration hopes to wrap up any discussion and negotiation over the resolution's language in a couple of weeks. So by mid-March, it should be clear which way the wind is blowing. I suspect President Bush will be proved right after he all but predicted on Feb. 22 ultimate diplomatic victory in the U.N. While the momentum appears to be moving in the direction of the U.N. trying to block a U.S. military attack, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other State Dept. officials are heavily wooing some of the smaller nations on the Security Council.
The larger powers may come around, too. Britain already is on board, at considerable political risk for Prime Minister Tony Blair. Russia isn't likely to put at risk its relationship with the U.S. over Iraq, especially if Moscow is likely to get some concessions on the debt Baghdad owes it and on oil rights. And China would not want to be an outlier.
LIMITED CAPABILITIES. Even the French may cave. They say they stand on principle, but it's never clear with the French if it's spelled "al" or "le." French oil interests, after all, have a huge potential stake in Iraq. I don't think Paris wants a new Iraqi regime to be asking the indelicate question, "Where were you when we needed you?" [see BW Online, 2/24/03, "Stop Frying the French"].
The critical ingredient for American success could be Blix. All of the opposition is riding on the possibility that an inspection regime will work to rid Iraq of its chemical and biological weapons, and whatever nuclear plans are in train. But inspectors know better than most the limits of their capabilities. In the 1990s, they were ready to give Baghdad a clean bill of health until a defector told them of vast undetected stashes of weapons.
It's clear to anyone who has studied the issue that real disarmament isn't possible if a government doesn't actively cooperate, as South Africa, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan did. Iraq clearly has not cooperated in this manner.
MANDATE TO DISARM. If Blix concludes, perhaps in diplomatic, somewhat obfuscating language, that inspections are a dead end, the case against a U.S.-led effort to take out Saddam and any weapons of mass destruction becomes harder to make. Opponents may say that war to achieve disarmament isn't needed because the inspections produce adequate containment for whatever arms Saddam has. Whatever its validity, that position would leave unresolved the question of the U.N.'s credibility.
After all, the Security Council didn't mandate containment. It mandated disarmament. And that, Washington is sure to argue, is the issue the U.N. must decide.
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