[Peace-discuss] U.N. resolution for Iraq makes war inevitable (duh!)

[Alfred Kagan]

Ricky makes an excellent point, and that is in fact the job of the 
inspectors, to verify what is there or not. So our role is to demand 
that the inspectors have sufficient time to do their work. Most of 
the rest of the world will also be demanding the same thing.

Furthermore, the US will likely look for the slightest discrepancy to 
declare a "material breach," while most of the rest of the world will 
want to see something major.

Finally, just because a minor or major discrepancy is found does not 
mean that the UN Security Council must automatically decide to take 
military action.  There are any number of other steps that could be 
taken instead.

And of course, in the end, the US might still go to battle on its 
own. However, we have work to do at every step in the process.


At 3:04 PM -0500 11/15/02, Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>There is that difficulty, but we also can't assume the US 
>information is correct.  Hans von Sponeck and his television crew 
>have already visited one of the sites listed by the US, remember, 
>and found nothing there.  I also think we can't assume the USG 
>wouldn't *claim* to have secret info about sites not listed when 
>they have no such thing...
>
>But of course our government would never lie ;-)
>
>
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>“It is only those who do nothing who make no mistakes.” – Peter Kropotkin
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>----Original Message Follows----
>From: "R. Brad Scott"
>To: peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] U.N. resolution for Iraq makes war inevitable (duh!)
>Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 11:04:06 -0800 (PST)
>http://salon.com/news/feature/2002/11/15/war/print.html
>...
>But most experts doubt that Saddam will be able to finesse the issue
>that far. Indeed, he may well run afoul of the U.N. right off the bat.
>"The question is, can Saddam satisfy the demands of the resolution,
>which is filled up with traps for Iraq to fall into," asks Guntzel.
>The first test will come on Dec. 8, when Iraq, according to 1441, must
>deliver "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all
>aspects of its programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear
>weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems." The U.S. will
>compare the submitted list to its own internal intelligence to
>determine whether Saddam is being open and forthright. Any omissions
>from that list or false statements would constitute a material breach,
>according to the Security Council.
>"Is it even humanly possible for them to record all that information?"
>wonders Lopez. "Could the Soviet Union have provided this inventory at
>the height of the cold war, compared to a backward, secretive country
>like Iraq where so few people actually know all the information about
>the weapons program?"
>How the weapons declaration is handled by the administration, which has
>called for "zero tolerance" for inspection violations, will be an early
>indication of the White House's mind-set. ... if hawks at the White
>House have their way, the U.S. would launch a war based on omissions
>from the Dec. 8 weapons list... "The hawks don't want the resolution to
>work. They want an excuse to go in and get Saddam now."
>...
>"There are some in the administration who obviously want to do more
>than inspections; you can feel their aching," says P.W. Singer, an Olin
>fellow in the foreign-policy studies program at the Brookings
>Institution.
>The hawks' first big chance may be when Iraq submits its list of
>weapons. "It will be the single most difficult obstacle [for Saddam]
>because the United States will say the list is no good," says Judith
>Kipper, co-director of the Middle East Program at the Center for
>Strategic and International Studies. "But France and Russia and Israel
>will have their own lists and nobody [for competitive reasons] will
>want to share them."
>...
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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