Hunting Saddam’s weapons economist.com
[elsewhere at The Economist , this bit of analysis on what may or may not be going on with the inspections issue ]
As talks open between Iraqi officials and United Nations weapons inspectors, America and Britain are continuing to lobby for a tough new UN resolution covering the inspectors’ return to Iraq. But they still face resistance from other countries, who fear that both Iraq and America want inspection to fail
[oops, that last sentence sure looks accurate to me -WS]
AFTER keeping them out for nearly four years, Iraq at last seems to be preparing to let United Nations weapons inspectors back in. Talks in Vienna between Iraqi officials and Hans Blix, head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic), are intended to settle some of the practical details of the inspectors’ return in just a couple of weeks time. But America and Britain remain determined to equip the inspectors with new, more robust and intrusive powers before they go back, and to arm themselves with a mandate for military action if the inspectors are blocked. Iraq seems equally determined to resist this, making a war between it and America—with or without the UN’s formal backing—still seem more likely than not.
The talks in Vienna are the result of an about-face by Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, on September 16th. A speech four days earlier to the UN’s General Assembly by President George Bush had succeeded in galvanising the UN into a frenzy of diplomatic activity. An international consensus was emerging that it was unacceptable to allow Iraq to continue to flout the many UN resolutions that have demanded it abandon its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes. By offering to let inspectors back “without conditions”, to enjoy, in the words of subsequent Iraqi statements, “unfettered access” to relevant sites in Iraq, Mr Hussein hoped to disrupt that consensus.
To some extent, he has succeeded. America, with British backing, insists that, if the inspectors are to go back, it must be on new and tougher terms than those which have governed previous inspections. In the past, some Iraqi sites have been regarded as sacrosanct as far as unannounced spot checks were concerned—mosques, for example, or, more controversially, “presidential sites”, some of which cover compounds big enough to house a dozen huge palaces, and any number of weapons laboratories.
So a new draft UN Security Council resolution has been prepared. It reportedly tries to avoid the often-futile game of hide-and-seek for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that inspectors have had to play in the past. Instead it puts the onus on Iraq to prove that it has complied with UN resolutions. To this end, the inspectors would have truly “unfettered access” to all the places, documents and people they wanted. In a clear sign that they were not to be trifled with, the inspectors would also be backed by armed guards.
The resolution would reportedly give Iraq an ultimatum of seven days to accept its provisions, after which it would have a further 30 days to produce a complete inventory of its illicit WMD programmes. If Iraq failed to comply with the resolution, then “all necessary means”—jargon for a war—would be authorised to enforce its disarmament.
On September 28th, Iraqi officials again said they would accept no new rules for the inspectors, and that Iraq would defend itself fiercely if attacked. Their defiance is bolstered by awareness that passage of the resolution is far from assured. Of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which have a power of veto over its decisions, three—France, Russia and China—remain sceptical.
Russia in particular has argued that Iraq’s latest offer should be put to the test before a new resolution is drafted. On September 30th, a Russian statement criticised Britain and America for renewed bombing raids in Iraq, after the second attack in a week on the airport at Basra. Russia said these would “create obstacles in the search for a political-diplomatic settlement”. France is less opposed to giving the inspectors new powers, but still insists that the consequences of Iraq’s non-compliance are a matter that should be dealt with later, in a second resolution.
To judge from what is being said in public, visits by senior British and American diplomats to Paris, Moscow and Beijing have so far done little to dent the opposition to their draft. But Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister, has said he remains confident of securing a new resolution, whose terms, he said, were “probably not quite as definite as it might appear from some of the papers”. He did not rule out the two-resolution approach favoured by the French—and, nor, in his UN speech on September 12th, did Mr Bush.
But both Mr Blair and Mr Bush insist that, whatever the UN Security Council decides, Iraq will be disarmed: “It will happen either through the UN inspections route,” said Mr Blair, “or it will happen otherwise. But it will happen.” The implicit threat of American-led military action without the backing of the UN makes many other countries uneasy. They note that, although the UN discussions focus on Iraq’s flouting of resolutions concerning disarmament, Mr Bush and his senior officials repeatedly refer to many of Mr Hussein’s other crimes: his persecution of many of his own people, for example, and alleged links with the al-Qaeda terrorist network. American policy is explicit: Iraq needs a “regime change”.
In that sense, Iraq represents a test case for a new national-security doctrine spelled out in a document submitted by Mr Bush to Congress on September 19th. This argues, in the light of the September 11th terrorist onslaught on America, for “pre-emptive” action against emerging threats. This is alarming not just to those countries, such as Iran, that have reason to fear they may also find themselves in the American firing-line. Even some of America’s allies worry that, once one country has claimed for itself a right of pre-emption, others might follow. They also worry that, as applied to Iraq, the policy implies that any inspection regime is designed to fail, and provides justification for a war that will happen anyway. |
