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CounterPunch
December
21, 2002
A Cynical Exercise
in Iraq
UN Inspections
a Side-Show
by MILAN RAI
The presence of weapons inspectors in Iraq could
delay and perhaps derail the US drive to war, therefore they
are part of the problem, not part of the solution, so far as
the US is concerned.
A top US Senate foreign policy aide observed
in May 2002 that: "The White House's biggest fear is that
UN weapons inspectors will be allowed to go in."
When he addressed the UN General Assembly
on 12 September, President George W Bush demanded the elimination
of "all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles,
and all related material" in Iraq, "if the Iraqi regime
wishes peace."
He also demanded an end to Iraqi "support
for terrorism", an end to Iraq's "persecution of its
civilian population", and an end to the oil smuggling which
is the lifeblood of the regime.
Nowhere did the president demand or even
mention the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq.
The message seemed to be that even if
weapons inspectors were re-admitted, the US could find another
justification for a war against Iraq.
Pressure
Secretary of State Colin Powell said
in May, "US policy is that regardless of what the inspectors
do, the people of Iraq and the people of the region would be
better off with a different regime in Baghdad. The United States
reserves its option to do whatever it believes might be appropriate
to see if there can be a regime change."
There is pressure on UN weapons inspectors
to instigate a confrontation  that can be used to justify war, perhaps
over the US demand that inspectors take weapons scientists and
their families out of Iraq for questioning (where they will be
offered asylum by the US).
Iraq is expected to refuse to permit
this, creating a ''justification" for war.
Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix is
reluctant, having said: "We are not going to abduct anyone.
The UN is not a defection agency."
The abduction of scientists is not necessary
to verify whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction,
but disarmament is not the goal. The US goal is to bring about
the replacement of Saddam Hussein.
Regime change
Thomas Friedman, diplomatic correspondent
of the New York Times, said in July 1991 that economic sanctions
would continue until there was a military coup which would create
"the best of all worlds": "an iron-fisted Iraqi
junta without Saddam Hussein".
A return to the days when Saddam Hussein's
"iron first" held Iraq together, "much to the
satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia".
This is not "regime change"; this is "regime stabilisation/leadership
change."
In October, Ari Fleischer, White House
spokesperson, tried to deflect a question about the multi-billion-dollar
cost of a US invasion by observing that the expense of a war
on Iraq could be saved by the "cost of a bullet". Asked
if he was calling for Saddam Hussein to be assassinated, in contravention
of US law, Mr Fleischer said, regime change was welcome "in
whatever form it takes".
This clarifies the meaning of "regime
change" beautifully: delete the Supreme Leader, and slot
in another Iraqi general in his stead.
In this viewpoint section on 12 December,
Daniel Neep of the Royal United Services Institute commented
that, in the event of war: "The ideal scenario is someone
within Iraq, preferably within the army, killing Saddam and taking
control. That would mean that entering Baghdad would not be necessary
and would also solve the problem of who will govern once he has
gone."
The search for a replacement for the
Supreme Leader has not gone well. The exiled general possessing
the most "credibility" with the Iraqi military, General
Nizar al- Khazraji, is being investigated in Denmark in connection
with the war crime of gassing 5,000 Kurds in 1988.
Another US favourite is Brigadier General
Najib al-Salhi, who has called for multi-party democracy in Iraq.
The general rather gave the game away, however, when he stressed
the need to encourage Iraqi military leaders to switch sides
by promising that no more than 20 of Saddam's closest henchmen
would be treated as criminals by a new Iraqi Government.
The United States is not committed to
the weapons inspection process, has never called for the return
of weapons inspectors, and is interested in the inspectors only
insofar as they can be manipulated into creating a war crisis.
That war has as its immediate goal the
assassination and replacement of Saddam Hussein and his immediate
entourage, and a continuation of the same regime (with minor
modifications).
"Regime stabilisation with leadership
change" will reinforce the stability of Washington's clients
in the region, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and re-establish US dominance
of Iraq's huge oil wealth.
This is a deeply cynical exercise, as
well as being illegal and immoral.
Milan Rai is
author of War
Plan Iraq: Ten Reasons Against War (Verso, 2002) and
a member of Active Resistance to the Roots of War (Arrow). He
is also co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness UK, which has
worked for the lifting of UN sanctions in Iraq.
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