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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (7110)	3/22/2004 11:41:11 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 173976

Published 3/13/2003 8:58 PM upi.com WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- Will the United States find itself in violation of international law in an effort to enforce it? This is the question for Secretary of State Colin Powell as his country moves closer to a war that is opposed by three of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Powell is largely credited with convincing the President George W. Bush in September to seek a U.N. resolution giving Iraq a final opportunity to disarm. All 15 members of the council voted in favor of Resolution 1441 which promised "serious consequences" if Iraq does not come into compliance with the 16 prior resolutions compelling the country to forgo its weapons of mass destruction and many of the means to deliver them. But now that President Bush has decided it is time to invoke those "serious consequences," it is looking less likely the United States can muster a majority of the council to support a resolution that states what Resolution 1441 already says: Iraq "has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions." The vote is crucial to the Security Council hawks because the crux of the American case for war relies on the fact Iraq has failed to meet the terms of the initial cease-fire that ended the 1991 Gulf War. If France and Russia veto a resolution that says Iraq remains out of compliance with its disarmament obligations, the American case for war becomes murkier than it is now. In the face of unexpected resistance, on Thursday Powell raised the possibility before the House Appropriations Committee, that the United States may not seek a new resolution at all. And British and American diplomats Thursday told the Security Council they would not call a vote Friday, despite President Bush's insistence last week there will be a vote. Nonetheless, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said clearly again Thursday that America has the authority under international law for the pending war. The White House argument stems from the belief that the Security Council has in effect already said that Iraq is failing to disarm, most recently on Nov. 8, when the council voted unanimously that Iraq was still in material breach of the 16 resolutions before it. Technically, a war with Iraq would be in compliance with the United Nations charter on Nov. 9, indeed any time after the initial period of disarmament following the 1991 ceasefire that ended the Gulf War. The dilemma for the United States and the United Kingdom is that the Security Council at this moment does not agree that Iraq has failed to disarm. France, Germany, Syria, Russia and China have all argued to one degree or another that Iraq may not have disarmed entirely, but it has begun to disarm, or is in the process of disarming. "What have the inspectors told us?," French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin asked the Security Council on March 7. "That for a month, Iraq has been actively cooperating with them." The Secretary-General himself has said with a council divided on the question of whether Iraq is disarming, the United States would be in violation of the U.N. Charter if it were to invade Iraq with the aim of removing its government. When he asked a similar question in 1998 on ABC's This Week, with regard to the United States using force in Kosovo, Annan did not say the United States was in violation. But on March 11, one day before the opening session of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, he said, "If the U.S. and others were to go outside the Council and take military action it would not be in conformity with the Charter." Article 2 of the charter forbids member states "from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." Furthermore, the Charter states that force may only be used in imminent self-defense or in the case of specific approval from the Security Council. "The U.N. charter prohibits the transnational use of force," Sean Murphy, an international law professor at George Washington University said in an interview Wednesday. "Either you are acting in self defense or you are acting under authorization of the UN Security Council." Even legal scholars who defend the legality of a pending war in Iraq believe Powell's tactics have weakened the American case. Ruth Wedgwood, a professor of International Law at Johns Hopkins University said in an interview Wednesday, "Resolution 1441 muddied the waters. You don't ask the question if you are not going to like the answer." On the facts of the case, it is hard to argue that Iraq has given up its weapons of mass destruction. Despite Iraq's decision to explode several al-Samoud II missiles, despite Iraq's willingness to allow some scientists meet in private with U.N. weapons inspectors, and despite Iraq's proposal to test soil where the inspectors believe Iraq manufactured VX nerve agent--Iraq has yet to dispose of those weapons proscribed in the 1991 cease fires ending the hostilities of the first Gulf War. Indeed, the most recent report of the United Nations Weapons Inspectors found that Iraq had developed unmanned drones aimed at delivering biological and chemical weapons in the battlefield suggest Iraq is not disarming but rearming.

To: PartyTime who wrote (7110)	3/22/2004 1:23:28 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 173976

From a year ago:U.S. Finds Nothing at Iraq Chemical Plant By MATT KELLEY Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON fredericksburg.com. A statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein stands in the middle of an empty square in Baghdad Tuesday, March 25 2003, as a fierce sandstorm sweeps through the area. Visibility is severely reduced not only by the sandstorm but also by the pollution caused by oil set ablaze by Iraqis as a defense against US and British warplanes. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) U.S. military investigators have found no evidence that chemical weapons have been made in recent years at a suspect chemical plant secured by U.S. troops in southern Iraq, a senior defense official said Tuesday. Before the war, American intelligence agencies had identified the site in the town of Najaf as a possible part of Iraq's chemical weapons program, the official said, speaking on condition he not be identified. Indications then were that the plant had not been used for banned weapons activities since 1998, the official said. Preliminary reports from the site indicate that the initial suspicions were true, and it had not been involved in illicit weapons production in the last five years, the official said. The captures Sunday of the suspected chemical site, a cache of documents and two Iraqi generals thought to have knowledge of weapons of mass destruction raised the possibility that American forces had begun to find the banned weapons they are fighting to remove from Iraq. President Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials say all of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons were destroyed shortly after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, a claim that United Nations weapons inspectors say cannot be verified. Finding and eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are major goals of the war, and finding evidence of such weapons would be a boost for President Bush against critics who say U.N. inspections should have been allowed to continue. Pentagon officials continue to worry that Saddam's forces could use chemical or biological weapons as coalition ground troops advance toward Baghdad. The Iraqi capital is protected by the Republican Guards, the best trained and best equipped troops of Saddam's army, which U.S. officials say are the units with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that intelligence agencies were hearing "chatter in the system" indicating that Saddam might have approved the use of such weapons. "But whether it'll happen or not remains to be seen," Rumsfeld said. He and other U.S. officials have urged Iraqi officers not to follow orders to use weapons of mass destruction and vowed that anyone who did would be tracked down after the war and punished as a war criminal. The biggest worries for U.S. commanders are Iraq's chemical weapons, which include the nerve agents sarin, soman and VX, as well as mustard agent of the type used in World War I. Most of the chemical weapons are loaded in artillery shells in rockets, which have a range of about 12 miles or less. U.S. troops have protective gear to deal with chemical weapons, as well as detection equipment that can sniff out a cloud of chemical weapons as far as three miles away. ___