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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (69640)	1/28/2003 11:05:36 PM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Egypt : Thanks Lindy I hadn't a clue as to the society. So different from Iraq, they probably have difficulty understanding the Iraqis despite being closer Sig .

To: LindyBill who wrote (69640)	1/28/2003 11:43:43 PM
From: Rollcast...	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Searching for the UN's spine chicagotribune.com Published January 28, 2003 In an indictment laden with particulars and devoid of spin, United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told the UN Security Council what it knew but perhaps didn't want to hear: Saddam Hussein has failed to comply with much of the council's direction. The council, you'll recall, voted 15-0 last November to back Resolution 1441, demanding yet again that Hussein disclose his most dangerous weaponry and disarm. If he did not, the resolution said, he would face "serious consequences." On Wednesday the Security Council will debate how Blix's report influences that threat. Resolution 1441 was unequivocal. But now several governments are, as in the past, skittish about making the resolution stand for anything other than the latest in more than a decade of flimsy delays. Those who say inspections have not had time to work need to explain what kind of epiphany they expect from Hussein. As Blix's report makes abundantly clear, Iraq's game is deception, not disclosure. Iraq has not accounted for its chemical weapons. Iraq has not accounted for its store of anthrax. It has not accounted for its delivery systems. " . . . Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace," Blix said. Remember, the burden in 1441 and in a sheaf of earlier resolutions is on Iraq to disarm--not on the Security Council to try to contain him or on inspectors to find the weapons that, as Blix well knows, Hussein continues to hide. How difficult, exactly, can Hussein's subterfuge be? Imagine small numbers of inspectors, trailed by press packs, trying to find compact caches of deadly materials in an area the size of Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and northern Indiana combined--while government "hosts" camouflage facilities and move mobile laboratories. Fat chance. As some European governments cling to the fiction that inspectors may find whatever exists, the Bush administration has some more time to give. But not a lot of time. If there is to be a war--a question that should rest squarely on Hussein's shoulders--it cannot be preceded by treating the region around Iraq as long-term parking for U.S. divisions and flotillas. If Resolution 1441 pretended to stand for anything, it was a last chance for Hussein to disarm, followed by decisive action if he refused. In short, any further time extension needs to be limited in scope and accompanied by a fixed deadline--not for the inspectors to find what they probably cannot, but for Iraq to come clean. Last autumn the Bush administration did as its international and domestic critics demanded: The president took his case to the Security Council. What his critics hadn't expected was that he would humble that body with the growing evidence of its irrelevance. The Tribune has argued repeatedly that the president needs to lay out a more explicit case before proceeding to war. That stance has not changed. He has an opportunity to do that Tuesday night in his State of the Union address. But it would be easier to encourage restraint if the governments that supposedly supported 1441 would react in good faith to Blix's evidence that Iraq has added 1441 to the list of UN resolutions it has scorned. Good faith means enforcing those serious consequences. In recent years, many European populaces have embraced multilateral initiatives, arguing that nations acting in concert offer the best way to guide world affairs and punish wrongdoers. Many Americans have reacted with suspicion, wondering if multilateralism is a decoy strategy for hamstringing the world's only superpower. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has counseled diplomacy but now appears frustrated by some governments' disingenuousness over 1441, spoke the obvious Sunday: "Multilateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction." So as the Security Council reacts to Blix's report, its members face two urgent questions. Will those who embraced a multilateral approach toward Iraq now honor their word? Or was 1441 a stalling tactic worthy of Saddam?