Whether the mass of details presented by Colin Powell to the UN is convincing or not will depend as much on individual feelings about Saddam Hussein and the US as anything else. Those who resent the US — for whatever reason, even reasons nothing to do with the Middle East — will believe that his mass of detail is at best circumstantial, at worst a deliberate lie. They will do so because they want to; no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise. Those who believe in the US, right or wrong, or who fear Saddam more than they worry about Washington’s policies will agree that Iraq is guilty as charged, no matter how flimsy the evidence. Emotion, not fact, will, likewise, be their deciding factor. That is reckless and dangerous. Something as deadly as war has to be based on fact — and fact alone.
Iraq stands indicted, and Powell’s charges require answers. What is needed now is time for the UN inspectors to verify or throw out the case he presented. That means that U2 planes must be allowed to fly, Iraqi scientists must be interviewed on the inspectors’ terms. But Washington is not giving time: the inspectors are supposed to report back to the UN on Feb. 14; the Bush administration appears to be holding this as the final deadline.
Powell’s presentation makes a US attack look inevitable. It is clear that Washington genuinely believes Saddam guilty. Having so publicly stated that view, they cannot sit back and do nothing. To them, it would be an admission of weakness and moral cowardice.
And it will be an attack with or without the UN’s blessing. The sight of US secretary of state pleading the case against Iraq in the highest court of international law should blind no one to the fact that the US is fully prepared to go it alone — well, not quite alone: Powell’s warning that the organization would make itself irrelevant if it does not deal with Saddam was as nothing compared to the gauntlet laid down by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. His comparison of the UN to the pre-World War II League of Nations which collapsed because it would not stand up to Hitler is one of the harshest challenges to its credibility ever made.
The US-British march to war has to be stopped. Let us suppose for a minute that that Powell and Straw are right, that Saddam has chemical weapons and mobile laboratories and has deceived the UN inspectors; is that sufficient reason to attack Iraq and possibly catapult the Middle East into chaos and destruction?
The argument should not be about whether Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, it ought to be about how the danger posed by Iraq, with or without such weapons, can be averted without recourse to violence. There has to be a better, a saner way. The most obvious way is permanent arms inspections for as long as the Baghdad regime remains in power. It can work. It may be a cat-and-mouse game, but with constant inspections, Iraq will never be able to deploy any missiles. War must only be the last resort. We do not need to be at that last resort yet; it is only Washington that insists that time is running out.
The other compelling reason against war is that it will destroy the UN’s credibility as surely as the inaction condemned by Straw.
War can still be averted. It has to be. Even at this late stage, efforts to prevent such a horrendous outcome have to be stepped up.
