home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback

CounterPunch March 13, 2003 Crunch Time for the Security Council by Col. DAN SMITH In his March 6th prime time news conference, President Bush made his case for why, with or without UN authorization and support, the United States remains adamant that Saddam Hussein and his regime will be removed from power. The reasons proffered were not new: a threat to regional and world stability and peace; disregard for the human rights of Iraqis; links to terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda; and, failure to fully and immediately comply with UN resolutions dating back to 1991. The motive for the news conference seems to have been twofold: reverse the steady slide in support for war, especially a war without UN sanction; and a pre-emptive strike to nullify the effect of an overall positive report to the Security Council by Hans Blix, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and Mohamed El Baradei, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief. And this latter reason once again brought to center stage the question of the real motive for war: disarmament, in which case the president should have waited for the inspectors to report, or regime change. Bush left no doubt about the real motive: "We will be changing the regime of Iraq for the good of the Iraqi people." Commentary by news analysts seemed quite guarded as to the probability that many minds had been changed to support the White House. And Bush's ultimatum to the Security Council that "It's time for people to show their cards, let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam" is sure to deepen the split among the permanent members over the wisdom of going to war when the inspection regime is gathering momentum. Indeed, even before the presidential news conference, China expressed its support of the French-German-Russian declaration, and Chile, one of the rotating Council members, said it would not support the U.S.-British draft resolution if it came to a vote. Meanwhile, France was appealing to traditional allies to support its no-war-now position. Last month, a summit meeting of 52 African nations issued a statement supporting France's stance on an Iraq war. Three of the countries signing the declaration--Guinea, Cameroon, and Angola--are also current members of the Security Council. Thus four of the six "swing votes" necessaryy for passage of a resolution (nine are needed, with no veto from any permanent member) are on record opposing the United States' position. Thus the March 7 reports by the chief inspectors may be crucial for determining how quickly the Bush administration can move. El Baradei has already reported categorically that Iraq possesses no nuclear weapons, and that position did not change--nor will it. Bush effectively challenged Hans Blix by flatly declaring that "The world needs him to answer a single questionn: has the Iraqi regime fully and unconditionally disarmed, as required by Resolution 1441, or has it not?" Blix of course could not affirm this, nor was this his intent. Instead, even as he commended Baghdad for improved cooperation on both process and substance, he provided a "cluster list" of disarmament issues that remain open because Iraq has failed to provide detailed documentation about or to make available for interviews the scientists involved in destruction of chemical and biological weapons and components. Each cluster ends with recommendations for action by Iraq that could be used as a yardstick of Baghdad's level of cooperation. Blix also revisited the allegations that Iraq uses mobile bioweapons trucks to evade inspectors and has extensive underground facilities. His intent here was, like the Bush news conference, double-barreled. He reaffirmed that inspections of trucks (used for food testing) and of buildings and soil (using ground penetrating radar) had found no proscribed activities. But he also implicitly criticized Council members with advanced intelligence capabilities for the scarcity of information being provided for the inspectors to investigate. Information, Blix said, would be more valuable than a doubling of the UNMOVIC staff. The inspectors' reports were sufficiently telegraphed ahead of time to induce hesitation among the pro-war party, especially Britain, which proposed compromise language modifying the original <U.S.-British> draft. That modification will be discussed over the next few days, giving Iraq a further small window of opportunity to improve measurably its cooperation with the inspectors. How much time? Blix reminded the Council that although inspections can be carried out quickly, disarming and monitoring Iraq cannot be accomplished overnight. Monitoring is a long-term effort. Disarmament needs not years, not weeks, but months. The British modification is unlikely to suggest even that much time. Nor can the White House be expected to allow it--unless unrelenting pressure to comply with the international will and international law is brought to bear on both Baghdad aand Washington. Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus is a retired U.S. army colonel and Senior Fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. He can be reached at: dan@fcnl.org. Yesterday's Features Bill and Kathleen Christison On the Road to Iraq: First Stop Amman Uri Avnery An Approaching Emergency Ray Close A CIA Analyst on Forging Intelligence Michael Neumann An Unfounded Rush to Cynicism: a Rebuttal of Perry Anderson Gary Leupp Bush's "Press" Conference Kurt Nimmo Perle's Slurs: Smearing Sy Hersh Terry Jones Bush Goes in for the Kill CounterPunch Wire Vietnam 2 Pre-Flight Check Alexander Cockburn What Will the US Find If It Invades Iraq? Robert Fisk Blix Undermines Bush War Plan Website of the Day The Blix Report Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /   CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers: CounterPunch Special: The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies and the FBI; Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer? Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel Prize; Sullying Mario Savio's Memory; Lynching Then and Now; Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor; The Case of the Pompous Professor; The Class Struggle in Boston: All that Effort, But What Did They Get? Remember, the CounterPunch website is supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683 home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /

Take a Bite Out of Phil Knight's Bottom Line: Buy No Sweat Apparel! March 8 / 9, 2003 Edward Said Who's In Charge? Bruce Jackson Elegy for Two Giraffes and a Zebra Perry Anderson The Casuistries of Peace and War Joanne Mariner Patriot Act II's Attack on Punishment William Lind A Warning from Clausewitz on 4th Generation Warfare Sam Husseini Why So Long for Iraq to Comply? Follow the Policy Forrest Hylton Business as Usual in Bolivia? David Lindorff Race and the Death Penalty in Pennsylvania Ben Tripp Is There a Eurologist in the House? Anthony Gancarski W's Personal Jesus Jon Elmer An Interview with William Blum Douglas Valentine The Clash of the Icons Norman Madarasz Radical Politics and the Writer: Maurice Blanchot Gordon Solberg There's Got to be a Better Way Poets' Basement Guthrie, Engel, Bernard Weekend Website The White House   February 28, 2003 Alexander Cockburn Meet the New Yorker's Chief Hack: Jeffrey Goldberg Saul Landau Now It's Personal Michael Neumann A Plea for Hysteria Karima Bennoume The UN: Tool for Peace or War? The Black Commentator The Rev. Sharpton and the Soul of the Democrats Jennifer Loewenstein Don't Turn Off the War Richard Levins Cuba's Biological Weapons: Why the World Needs More of Them M. Shahid Alam Is This a Clash of Civilizations? Clay Conrad Juries and Judges: What's Relevant? Ben Tripp Speaking in Tongues: a Guide to Gibberish in the Age of Bush Eliot Katz To Declare Preemptive War is to Declare a Bankrupt Imagination Kurt Nimmo Paying Through the Nose to Kill Iraqi Kids Matt Vidal George W. Bonaparte Mark Zepezauer Why the Right Hates America Mickey Z. The Anti----War Talk I Never Gave Jerry Kroth Jung and the Space Shuttle Revisited Shyam Oberoi Chronicle of a War Foretold Ron Jacobs What If the Firebombing of Baghdad Were a Nightclub Fire? Poets' Basement Eliot Katz and Jim Cohn Website of the Weekend Defense Tech   Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch Read Whiteout and Find Out How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden Whiteout: CIA, Drugs & the Press by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair