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CounterPunch
December
2, 2002
A Nightmare
to Love:
How the Peace Movement
Can Use Bush's "Almost Desperate Attempts" to "Destroy
the Arms Inspection
By JEREMY BRECHER
A nightmare scenario is facing the Bush Administration.
Imagine that Iraq continues to let UN
arms inspectors inspect without impediment. By the December
8 deadline for reporting on its weapons of mass destruction,
the Iraqi government makes an extensive declaration of activities
and materials that might be used to make such weapons but also
might have other purposes. The Iraqis then allow the inspectors
to inspect all the sites they wish to enter. If the inspectors
find some materials that might be used for weapons of mass destruction,
they destroy them. The inspectors report to the Security Council;
then most countries except the US and Britain declare that, whether
or not Iraq once had weapons of mass destruction, it no longer
does. Enforcement of sanctions begins to crumble and world pressure
to lift them builds.
To prevent this scenario, the Bush Administration
is working frantically to discredit the inspection process.
As former assistant secretary general of the UN Hans von Sponeck
recently put it, "No one, not even the casual reader, can
miss the almost desperate attempts by the US authorities to destroy
the arms inspection before it's properly begun. "
Bush Administration officials have systematically
tried to smear the inspectors professionally and personally.
They are maintaining that even the most trivial actions by
Iraq would justify an attack. As the inspectors entered Iraq,
US and British warplanes fired on Iraq; when Iraqi anti-aircraft
returned the fire, the US (unsupported by any other country,
even Britain) maintained it was a "material breach"
of UN resolutions, something it claims would justify war against
Iraq.
The Bush administration is claiming that
it, not the Security Council, has the right to determine whether
Iraq has complied with the inspection requirements. "The
UN can meet and discuss, but we don't need their permission,"
says White House chief of staff Andrew Card. It is claiming
the right to decide what will replace the existing Iraqi government;
indeed, it has even proposed to install an American general as
Iraq's ruler.
The Bush Administration is opposing anything,
such as the lifting of sanctions, that would give Iraq an incentive
to cooperate with inspections. Indeed, it abruptly insisted
that the UN Security Council place new restrictions on the "oil-for-food"
program. According to The New York Times, "Other
Council diplomats were frustrated that the United States insisted
on the revisions to the list as the deadline approached. . .
Most Council nations were hoping to avoid getting into it again
until sometime next year, to avoid undermining the weapons inspections."
Evidently the Bush Administration is not so averse to "undermining
the weapons inspections."
Finally, the Bush Administration continues
preparing for war. It is pre-positioning planes, tanks, and
fuel in the region and conducting a stealth mobilization of the
reserves.
Its top officials are running around the world cutting deals
to buy support with a share of the spoils of war as a bribe.
The Bush Administration is undoubtedly
preparing to escalate this strategy after December 8. With stunning
cynicism, it declined to make its intelligence information on
Iraq's weapons programs available to the UN inspectors until
after December 8. Could it possibly be planning to then
release intelligence designed to show that the inspectors have
been conned by the Iraqis?
Of course, if the inspectors then inspect
Iraq and don't find the weapons that the US government has alleged
are there, it will be a bit embarrassing for the US. But the
Bush Administration has a remedy. There's no need to find an
arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to justify attack on Iraq;
all that's necessary is for Iraq to continue denying it has such
an arsenal. As President Bush recently put it, Should Saddam
Hussein "again deny that this arsenal exists, he will have
entered his final stage with a lie. And deception this time
will not be tolerated. Delay and defiance will invite the severest
of consequences."
There is one problem with this strategy:
The overwhelming majority of Americans, not to mention the peoples
and governments of the rest of the world, want the inspection
process to work. The "almost desperate attempts by the
US authorities to destroy the arms inspection before it's properly
begun" could boomerang if war opponents make an issue of
them. Those desperate attempts provide us a golden opportunity
to appeal to the American public. Peace advocates can lay out
what the US can and should do if it really wants inspections
to work:
Stop smearing the inspectors.
Stop claiming that trivial inspection
problems justify war.
Stop military operations and provocative
overflights against Iraq.
Stop claiming that the US, not the Security
Council, has a right to determine what's a violation.
Recognize that the US does not have the
right to decide who will govern Iraq.
Halt the movement of war materiel to
the region.
Stop mobilizing the reserves (something
many reservists and their families will welcome).
Stop bribing other countries by promising
a share in the spoils of war.
Provide full disclosure to Congress and
the American people of all offers made to other countries regarding
oil rights, construction contracts, defense commitments, debt
reduction, immigration policy changes, and any other valuable
considerations offered in exchange for war support.
Stop threatening to go to war over what
Iraq does or doesn't put on a piece of paper.
Laying out what is necessary to make
the inspection process work provides a positive alternative to
current policies. Equally important, it sets in relief all that
the Bush Administration is doing to ensure the inspectors' failure.
The Bush Administration is hardly likely
to accede to any such demands. But it doesn't have to for the
peace movement to win.
Starting with Kofi Annan's response the
day after George Bush's September 12 address to the Security
Council, the UN and the countries opposing a war have carefully
preserved a face-saving way out for President Bush. They have
repeatedly praised him for forcing the international community
to deal with the "Iraqi problem" so that he can claim
credit for the success of the inspection process. If he does
so peace advocates may shudder at the hypocrisy, but we'll know
the super hawks have lost a round.
Of course, instead of claiming the inspections
as a success, the Bush Administration may go on sabotaging the
inspection process, even though the American people and the whole
rest of the world want it to work. But if they do, they will
court political isolation abroad and at home.
Kofi Annan recently observed that "poll
after poll" showed Americans were eager for the President
to act with the United Nations. Going to war on a flimsy pretext,
Annan pointed out, would draw opposition not only from Security
Council nations but also from ordinary Americans who have expressed
a desire for Mr. Bush to work with the United Nations in confronting
Iraq.
The "almost desperate attempts by
the US authorities to destroy the arms inspection" give
those "ordinary Americans" good reason for opposing
the drive toward war. The anti-war movement should not ignore
this gift.
Jeremy Brecher
is a historian and the author of twelve books including STRIKE!
and GLOBALIZATION
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