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CounterPunch
October
16, 2002
Live from Baghdad
Bush Corleone:
Saddam Hussein Sleeps with the Fishes
by JEREMY SCAHILL
Don Corleone once ordered his emissary to make
someone an offer he couldn't refuse. Later this week George W
Bush is going to push ahead with a UN Security Council resolution
Saddam Hussein couldn't possibly accept. And what's becoming
abundantly clear is that that's precisely the point.
What's unfolding now is so cliche that
it shouldn't even be necessary to spell it out. At the end of
the day, Saddam Hussein is going to reject peace. He will reject
diplomacy. He will invite upon "his own people" a massive
US attack and possible ground invasion. He will once again spit
in the face of the "international community" that Bush
has recently discovered (you know the insignificant folks that
make up that soon to be debating society).
From his prison cell at the Hague, former
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic must be feeling Saddam's
pain. He knows what it's like to reject America's peace pipe.
When Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright and company decided it was
time to attack Yugoslavia in 1999, they gave Milosevic one last
chance. At the talks at Rambouilet prior to the 78-day bombing,
Yugoslavia was presented with a document that read like an occupation
agreement. It said that NATO troops could deploy in Serbia and,
along with their planes and vessels, would enjoy "free and
unrestricted access throughout all of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia," and not just Kosovo. It said that NATO troops
would be immune from prosecution for crimes committed during
their presence in the country.
But back then, when it came time for
"good reporters" to do their duty, they told it like
it was: Milosevic had rejected peace.
Fast forward to this week. Iraq is facing
the possibility of a US-forced security council resolution that
says that if weapons inspectors return, the "teams shall
be accompanied at their bases by sufficient UN security forces
to protect them, shall have the right to declare for the purpose
of this resolution no-fly/no-drive zones, exclusion zones, and/or
ground and air transit corridors, (which shall be enforced by
UN security forces or by member states;) shall have the free
and unrestricted use and landing of fixed and rotary winged aircraft,
including unmanned reconnaissance vehicles..."
Recent reports in the press have indicated
that the Bush administration is developing plans to impose a
military governor on Iraq. This resolution would certainly hurl
the country in that direction. General Tommy Franks is probably
trying on the UN fatigues as you read this.
The resolution then "Decides further
that Iraq shall immediately cease, and shall not take or threaten
hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel
of the United Nations..."
From reading this, one would think that
peacekeepers are being gunned down in Iraq, taken for ransom--that
UN buildings are being stormed by the natives and firebombed.
But in the 11 years since the Gulf War ended, Bush--or for that
matter anyone--would be hard-pressed to name an incident in which
any UN personnel came under attack from the Iraqis, including
the time in 1998 when Baghdad uncovered that the US had infiltrated
the weapons inspections regime with CIA spies. These days most
UN officials here, while deriding the infamous Iraqi bureaucracy,
speak of deep collaboration with the government in attempting
to deal with the devastating impact of the US-led sanctions.
Of course, no resolution put forth by
the Bush administration would be complete if it didn't include
that well-known bedrock of international law--using UN resolutions
to conduct espionage. The remarkable thing about this resolution
is that Washington is actually spelling it out in the draft:
"...any permanent member of the Security Council [i.e. America,
i.e. the Pentagon, i.e. the CIA] may request to be represented
on any inspection team with the same rights and protections accorded
other members of the team, shall have unrestricted, and immediate
movement to and from inspection sites, and the right to inspect
any sites and buildings, including unrestricted access to presidential
sites..."
And then there is the issue of interviewing
any Iraqi the US, pardon me, the UN sees fit. A shrewd Iraqi
friend, who was educated in the US and trained as an engineer
often says: "I could have a great life abroad. All I would
have to do is 'escape' to Europe and claim to be a former technician
on Iraq's covert weapons program." Parts of the US draft
resolution read like a premeditated kidnap doctrine. It mandates
"immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted and private access to
all officials and other persons," saying that the inspectors
may "at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside
of Iraq, facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family
members outside of Iraq..." It doesn't mention in the draft
resolution whether those individuals or their families would
have any choice in the matter. Call it forced defection.
The inner circle in Iraq seems to be
resolved to the idea that a massive attack is a fait accompli
and that this resolution could well be the highly choreographed
trigger. This resolution will ultimately constitute a sprawling
text of fine print that most journalists won't bother to read
and most newspapers won't bother to print. What matters is that
it will be Saddam who has rejected peace. Bush and his cronies
need not worry about any uproar from the media on this one. They
know very well that you don't need to read the manual of a product
you know quite well how to use.
Jeremy Scahill
is an independent journalist, who reports for the nationally
syndicated Radio and TV show Democracy Now! He is currently based
in Baghdad, Iraq, where he and filmmaker Jacquie Soohen are coordinating
Iraqjournal.org,
the only website providing regular independent reporting from
the ground in Baghdad.
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