We Should Sit Out This War
US Credibility on Iraq Has Eroded to an Extent That It is Becoming Hard to Believe Anything from the Bush Administration
by Haroon Siddiqui
Published on Thursday, March 13, 2003 by the Toronto Star
It was said the war on Iraq was coming after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. That was three months ago. Then it was supposed to be coming right after the annual Muslim pilgrimage of Haj.
That was a month ago.
The delay is instructive.
People power can propel governments to gum up the works of the world's biggest war machine, even if briefly.
Now that the threat of a veto has forced the United States to postpone a United Nations vote, if only temporarily, the Canadian compromise, or a version thereof, is back in play.
But as reasonable as Jean Chrétien's, and now Tony Blair's, proposal to give Iraq a new deadline may sound, it is deeply flawed.
It only postpones war. In fact, it guarantees it by pre-authorizing war in case Iraq does not disarm. We know now what the U.S. will say then: that Iraq has not complied.
More than a new deadline — which only the inspectors should set, anyway — we need clearer rules to end Iraqi dodging on the one hand and American rush to war on the other.
Chrétien has been courageous in stating categorically that Canada is not in the business of "regime change."
Also, that Canada will not join the war without U.N. authorization.
He needs to clarify three more points, to light our own path ahead.
It is the U.N., not the U.S., that should set the "benchmarks" for Iraq and also make the final call on whether Iraq is in breach.
The U.N. authority to go to war must be clear, not implicit.
Should the Canadian/British proposal go nowhere, the Americans and the British will likely revert to their current position, which is to not ask the Security Council to vote on the use of force but rather on whether Saddam Hussein is in breach of U.N. resolutions. That would not constitute a full U.N. mandate for war, the way most Canadians would understand.
Canada should refuse to join the war under such a circumstance.
In case the Anglo-American resolution is vetoed but does win a majority of nine votes, Canada should not accept the predictable American spin that the outcome somehow legitimizes unilateral American action.
A veto is a veto, whatever one thinks of this outdated mechanism. In having to swallow it, America will taste its own medicine.
It has cast more vetoes than any democracy. Only the Soviet Union and its successor state, Russia, have cast more, 117 to 73.
Chrétien needs to hold firm to his commitment to the international rule of law.
He should not be offering to hold the back door open for George W. Bush to rush out to a war which lacks both legal and moral legitimacy.
The Bush administration's staggering dishonesty can best be seen in the number of times the U.N. inspectors have had to shoot down its unsubstantiated assertions.
Both Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei are seasoned international civil servants who understand the value of non-partisanship.
But they felt compelled to set the record straight.
First, Blix:
No, his inspectors were not spied on. No, the Iraqis could not have had advance knowledge of the sites to be inspected. No, he did not think Iraqi agents were posing as scientists, or that real scientists were being whisked out of the country to avoid interrogations.
No, he found no evidence of Iraqis hiding or moving banned materials in or out of the country.
No, he did not believe that Iraq had cleaned up some sites before inspections, as Colin Powell alleged, using before and after satellite pictures that Blix exposed as having been taken "several weeks apart."
No, the trucks that Powell identified as mobile labs producing biological weapons were not in the germ warfare business; they were carrying food-tasting and seed-processing equipment.
No, Iraq had not hidden the long-range missiles that the inspectors ordered destroyed: "These weapons were declared; they were not clandestine."
No, he found no evidence that Iraq was producing and storing chemical or biological weapons in underground bunkers.
No, he saw no persuasive evidence of Iraqi links to Al Qaeda. "There are other states where there appear to be stronger links."
Now, ElBaradei:
No, there was no uranium bought from Niger. Documents purporting to show that were forged.
No, the International Atomic Energy Agency found no evidence that high-strength aluminum tubes were imported for uranium enrichment.
Even if they were, it was unlikely that Iraq had the capacity to redesign them for such usage.
No, there is no evidence of Iraq using imported high-strength magnets in its nuclear program.
No, there is no evidence of a resumption of "prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities."
Despite being contradicted on so many fronts, Powell is now saying with a straight face that he has "new information" that Iraq is building new missiles as the inspectors are destroying the old ones. That's quite possible.
But does anyone believe him, or America, any more?
The evaporation of American credibility is a tragedy whose effects may outlast the war.
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Haroon Siddiqui is The Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday.
Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
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