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

To: Win Smith who wrote (71547)	2/5/2003 4:24:39 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 281500

True enough, they were not kicked out. However, they were made to function under unacceptable conditions, that made a mockery of the inspections: Visiting U.N. weapons inspectors depart Iraq December 14, 1998 Web posted at: 2:28 p.m. EST (1928 GMT) BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Two of the last three visiting U.N. inspection teams left Baghdad on Monday, ending their current series of searches for Iraq's illegal weapons, a U.N. official said. The final team will leave later Monday, said Caroline Cross, spokeswoman for the United Nations Special Commission. Up to 140 resident experts, however, will remain in the country to continue to monitor Iraq's weapons programs. The latest inspections were the final test of Iraq's compliance with UNSCOM before chief weapons inspector Richard Butler reports to the U.N. Security Council this week on whether Baghdad has fully cooperated in the search for banned weapons. The United States and Britain called off threatened air strikes after Iraq pledged to resume cooperation with UNSCOM on November 14. Washington and London maintain that military strikes remain an option to compel Baghdad to submit to the inspections. The Security Council must decide that Iraq is fully cooperating with inspectors before it will undertake a comprehensive review of Iraq's compliance with U.N. resolutions. Iraq hopes the review will convince the U.N. to ease or lift sweeping economic sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Before the Security Council can lift the sanctions, UNSCOM and the International Atomic Energy Agency must certify that Baghdad has eliminated al research and production for biological, chemical and long-range missile weapons. Iraq wants 'objectivity' in report Iraq's Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said on Monday that weapons inspectors should declare that it had met all its obligations, but Iraq had limited expectations of the report. "We will wait and see. We are not pinning our hopes on it," Sahaf said. "We want objectivity which acknowledges that we have implemented all our obligations...and that the time came long ago for sanctions to be lifted," he said. UNSCOM, which suspects that Iraq has concealed elements of prohibited weapons programs, has cited a number of recent incidents that cast doubt on its commitment to cooperate. Butler reported a number of incidents, the most serious of which concerned an attempted inspection of ruling Baath Party offices last week. An Iraqi official let only four inspectors in and UNSCOM withdrew its team, saying a "credible, effective inspection" would be impossible. Butler said Iraq had attempted to impose conditions on other UNSCOM teams. In one case Iraqi officials tried to stop inspectors photocopying documents and filming an inspection, he said. cnn.com

To: Win Smith who wrote (71547)	2/5/2003 4:30:58 PM
From: slacker711	Respond to of 281500

That's in the realm of very improbable hypotheticals at this point. Actually, it is simply a matter of history repeating itself....not what I would call "improbable". But in 1998, Iraq did not kick out the inspectors. They were withdrawn a day or so before bombing commenced. I'd guess that's the most likely scenario wrt the inspectors being "kicked out" this time around, too. The part that you conveiently left out (which I think you probably knew) was that Iraq had stopped all cooperation with the inpsectors. Straight from the UN.... un.org A couple of years after that sharply worded rebuke, the world was ready to ease sanctions without any concessions from Iraq. You are right though....technically we withdrew the inspection teams after Iraq had stopped allowing them to inspect anything. I dont see much of a difference but I assume that you do.... Slacker