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C O M M E N T A R Y
U.S. WOULD NOT GIVE IRAQ A CHANCE

MOSCOW, September 18. /From RIA Novosti's political analyst Vladimir Simonov / -- Iraq's agreement to admit the United Nations military inspectors without conditions has made the majority of the international community to give a sigh of relief, touched off scepticism in Britain and Israel, caused unhidden vexation in the United States. Officials in Washington have begun to prove that inspections have already been held to no avail, the process is "too drawn-out" and, eventually, what really matters is not inspections but the disarmament of Iraq, restoration of "the economic freedom" there, human rights and what not.

Indeed, military inspection is not a one-time procedure. The UN Security Council Resolution No 1284 gives inspectors 60 days for drawing up a plan of work in Iraq and another 6 months for drawing a preliminary conclusion as to whether or not Iraq is in real fact developing weapons of mass destruction. Thus, in a clearly personal duel between George W.Bush and Saddam Hussain a pause until the next summer is surfacing. This timeframe is not what America has hoped for. During this time the international anti-Iraqi coalition, which the United States is trying hard to create in the United Nations, may vanish in thin air. What is most important, the November Congressional by-elections will not fall on the peak of military hysteria but on a relatively calm period of awaiting the first reports from the UN inspectors.

This very much rids the Republican Party of a chance to use the militarist fever for restoring its former position in the Senate. Of course, President Bush cannot like such developments. He has more than once voiced the desire to gain the legislators' OK for a war in Iraq before the November elections, on which a lot depends who will keep the Congress in hand. James Jordan, director of the Democratic election campaign, said the other day: it catches the eye that the recent haste with a war on Iraq has coincided in time with shifts in election opinion polls and the waning Republican hopes for a majority revival in the Senate. I don't think it was just an attack by a political opponent.

Iraq's agreement to fling open doors before arms inspectors has not told yet on the American fixed idea - to make the UN Security Council pass a new tough resolution on Iraq. And what's more, a resolution that would necessarily include a use-of-force sanction in case Baghdad proves to be too stubborn. Britain has echoed the position of its leader. France and China, for their part, gravitate towards Russia's viewpoint: the military scenario has been crossed out and there's no more need for a new UN resolution.

So far, the UN Security Council is noticeably disquieted and Washington is going to sow war in the field and in the minds. Military hardware is being brought from European ports to the Persian Gulf area. On the British island of Diego Garcia military hangars for American B-2 Stealth bombers are being built. The military departments of the United States and Britain have just coordinated new targets in Iraq within what is called no-fly zones - not only radars and air defense systems will, as before, be attacked but also command centers, airfields and communication lines. Iraq is going to face war toothless and deaf.

In the last few weeks the Pentagon has also been trying to lure NATO into its anti-Iraqi military campaign. The cheese in the trap is the proposal to create in the North Atlantic Alliance "permanent reaction forces", made up of European forces to be joined to the United States' as military operations unfold outside Europe. The Pentagon is so much possessed by this idea that it would like to put it in focus at the upcoming NATO summit in Prague. The preset NATO expansion theme may be outshadowed by debate on expanding the range of participants in the anti-Iraq operation.

The broader the range, the less the financial burden for the United States. The Persian Gulf war 11 years ago cost 58 billion dollars, of which the United States paid only 10 billion, the rest being shouldered by its co-thinker countries. Now nobody except Britain is proposing to share the cost. This may be the reason why American tax-payers are being persuaded that a second Persian Gulf military campaign will cost "a trifle" for America. This is what Lawrence Lindsay, chief of the White House national economic council, said the other day. To him, the Iraqi war will breach a tiny hole, not more than 1 to 2 percent, or 100-200 billion dollars, in the United States' gross domestic product of 10 trillion dollars. A year of such additional expenses will not punish the country with an economic downfall, the White House adviser has estimated. What's more, he sees an economic boon in the war on Iraq, saying it will eliminate a roadblock in the way of global economic development. This is something new, isn't it. Poor Saddam Hussain has until now been accused of whatever else but sabotage of our planet's prosperity. On the contrary, the International Monetary Fund warns that the Iraqi war will not very much rehabilitate the world economic system and may touch off panic dumping of shares.

Against this background, Baghdad's agreement to admit UN arms inspectors may appear something like concern for the economic well-being of the international community, including the United States. Washington refuses to see in this step anything else but "an attempt to gain time". One of the oft-used official theses in favour of this point of view is this: remember how Baghdad was making a fool of the UN military inspectors before 1998. Those who are making use of this argument now forget how the American intelligence service was trying to present the Baghdad mission of the UN special commission as an espionage base.

Scott Ritter, former UN senior expert and one of the biggest American specialists on Iraqi armaments, recalls in this connection. He spent seven years in Iraq as one of the UN inspection group and in 1998 ostentatiously tendered resignation. In a recent interview Ritter said that the United States was pressuring the military inspection programme throughout the seven years of his participation. Ironically, everybody is paying attention to only the inspectors' struggle against Iraq and only a few are talking of the struggle between military inspectors and the United States. It was waged so as to suppress the forces of the American intelligence service, which tried to penetrate into the inspection programme and use the inspectors' unique access for goals other than disarmament, he said. Ritter directly cites these goals - the Central Intelligence Agency was shadowing Saddam Hussain and drawing plans to depose him.

Repetition of the same story is unforgettable. The new inspection in Iraq should not repeat past blunders.

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