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Politics : Pres. George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (543)	4/11/2003 11:33:04 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 601

April 11, 2003 Why U.N. can't handle the job William C. Triplett II People's Exhibit 1 in the case for limiting U.N. control over the future of Iraq is the "Roland 2," France's best man-portable air defense weapon. Capitol Hill has been told that soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division have found a stack of these weapons at a military depot attached to Baghdad International Airport. Some of them had "2002" manufacturing dates. Germany's Der Stern reports that additional Rolands were found when U.S. and Kurdish forces overran the Ansar Al-Islam terrorist base in northeastern Iraq last week. According to the Pentagon, it was a Roland that destroyed a USAF A-10 aircraft on Tuesday. These weapons pose a significant threat to allied aircraft. It is also interesting, given the debate over whether the Saddam Hussein regime had connections to terrorists, that the Iraqi Army and the Ansar Al-Islam group were armed with the same weapon. Iraq has been under a U.N. Arms Embargo since 1990. In addition to the Rolands, allied forces are turning up a number of foreign weapons or other military gear, most of which violate the embargo. This is the flavor of an ever-growing list: * Russia: GPS jamming equipment, sea mines, night-vision goggles and the "Kornet" anti-tank missile. Russian arms magazines and marketing brochures brag about the Kornet's "thermobaric warhead". Moscow is a world leader in this technology. * China: Fiber optics for Saddam's command-and-control system and chemicals for his WMD projects. * Germany: The Financial Times reports the Drager firm of Lubeck sold gas masks to Saddam's fedayeen terrorists. U.S. Marines found the masks with instructions in Arabic. Drager even has an English-language Web site that describes the firm. When British troops raided Chemical Ali's villa, they found he had left behind his "German gas mask," perhaps a Drager model. People's Exhibit 2 for limiting the U.N. role in Iraq is the group of Saddam palaces now appearing on television. Allied soldiers and Marines take stunned newsmen inside to view a level of opulence not seen in centuries. In one case, even the toilet bowl brush was gold-plated. Contrast this with the physical condition of the Iraqi people, particularly in the southern part of the country. The U.N. oil for food program was not supposed to produce weapons and palaces for Saddam and starvation for his people, but it did. The level of corruption in the program clearly ran into the billions of dollars. The People's case against the U.N. closes with its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) inspection and destruction regime. Certainly one part of the issue here is the incompetence of the U.N. system. This is demonstrated by what is being found by combat soldiers and Marines as they finish up the regime. Former U.N. Inspector David Kay predicts the allies will find, not a "smoking gun", but a "smoking arsenal." None of us who had the misfortune to deal with chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix 12 years ago can be surprised at what is coming out. There is a larger question; beyond finger-pointing at Blix and Co.,what do we do now? As David Kay has noted, Saddam's WMD program is noted for its redundancy. There are just tons and tons of this stuff out there in leaky drums and barrels. Because Saddam's henchmen rightly fear being hanged as war criminals, WMDs are buried under new concrete, dumped into rivers and so forth. Cyanide is already being found in the Tigris River, the prime source of drinking water for millions of people. If Saddam's hidden WMDs are not found, contained and destroyed in a sound and competent manner, the environmental damage will be incalculable. Not only would the Iraqi people's drinking water be poisoned, if it leeches into the ground water, it will poison the very soil of the country for generations. Further, as the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers drain into the Gulf, we cannot even estimate what kind of damage it could do downstream and out to sea. The basic health of tens of millions of people is at risk. Having inflicted some pain on the Iraqi people in order to liberate them, we cannot now abandon them. The WMD clean-up program in Iraq must be done by properly motivated, trained and equipped personnel. As a practical matter, this means the specialists of the allied militaries, not the United Nations. Someday the files of Iraq, and the United Nations, will be opened and the full details of this ghastly period will be known. But enough is already known about the phony arms embargo and the corrupt oil for food program and the incompetent WMD inspection system to say, "Enough is enough." • William C. Triplett II is a defense writer in Washington. URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030411-98894060.htm