It is a good idea when leading a charge to
occasionally stop and look behind to see whether
anyone is following. President Bush needs to do
that now in his march to the "inevitable" invasion
of Iraq. He would see some of his staff, a vaguely
supportive Congress, a nervous Defense
Department and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair.
That's about it.
The ominous rhetoric issuing from the White
House and appearing in the news media gives the
certain impression that the road to military action
against Baghdad is being prepared for this winter.
It's the right road, but why make it an
expressway? Invasion is the wrong immediate
aim. What the U.S. needs by the end of this
summer is an inspection crisis, not a military crisis.
So far, U.S. support of the demands that Saddam Hussein grant the U.N.
Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission access to suspicious sites
in Iraq is halfhearted and fatally pessimistic. Washington instead should be
pressing to get U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country.
The third meeting this year of an Iraqi delegation with U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Hans Blix, executive chairman of the
U.N. inspection effort, ended in failure after two days of talks in Vienna this
month. The State Department said the administration was not surprised that
the talks had failed because Iraqi statements before the meeting
foreshadowed the outcome. If any statements undermined U.N. efforts, it
was the pervasive U.S. rhetoric on invasion plans, preemptive attack policies
and authorization for the CIA to use all means at its disposal to eliminate
Hussein.
The Bush administration understands, after Afghanistan, the strength of
coalition forces and the power of unified world opinion. If Bush leads support
for the U.N. effort, rather than continuing plans for a unilateral military
scampaign, he might see a different picture as he glances over his shoulder in
marching to Baghdad to demand weapons inspections, or else. Germany,
Canada, France, Russia, China, Japan, India and Britain are all represented
in the inspection effort. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and all the moderate
Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf strongly support it. All would insist that Iraqi
failure to comply with U.N. weapons inspections is unacceptable. Hussein
would face worldwide pressure to prove that he had not secretly cached
hideous chemical and biological weapons for use against his enemies, real or
perceived.
Those in Washington who favor taking military action against Hussein do not
believe U.N. inspections can be carried out in a way that guarantees an end
to Iraq's program to develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear.
True, the U.N. inspections in the 1990s were plagued by Iraqi concealment,
deception, lies and threats, but the inspectors learned a lot, found a lot and
destroyed a lot. Despite Iraq's intransigence, that effort destroyed more than
27,000 chemical bombs, artillery shells and rockets, including 30 Scud
missile warheads.
The current inspection effort is improved in many important respects. It has
twice the international representation, answering objections that the previous
effort was dominated by the West. Inspection and monitoring equipment is
state-of-the-art and supplemented by color overhead satellite images. More
than 230 new inspectors from around the world are being trained to better
understand Iraqi culture so communication problems won't interfere with their
chief mission, uncovering clandestine weapons.
Inspections cannot offer a 100% guarantee, any more than the Pentagon can
ensure a bloodless war or zero collateral damage in a major conflict with
Iraq. Yet a resumption of inspections would at least give the world a peek at
what threat to global security Iraq really may pose. It is an opportunity to
substantiate U.S. claims that Iraq continues to pursue efforts to produce
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and that it could become a
supplier to future terrorists.
The possibility of containing Iraq's weapons programs, if they do exist,
without the need for a U.S. military strike would be a global crowd-pleaser.
At worst, aggressive American demands that U.N. inspectors be allowed
into Iraq would help the U.S. gather a coalition for military action against
Hussein.
It should at least be tried before Bush sends U.S. guns and young men into
Baghdad all on their own.
Stephen H. Baker, a senior advisor at the Center
for Defense Information, was Navy chief of staff
in Bahrain during the previous U.N. inspection
effort and an operations officer during Operation Desert Storm.
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