NEW YORK, 19 Septebmer — The United Nations is set to throw America’s war plans for Iraq into disarray by introducing a timetable for weapons inspections that could give Saddam Hussein a breathing space of almost one year.
The extended timetable, which would allow the inspectors first to deploy in Iraq and then to begin and complete their complicated mission, could exhaust the patience of Washington, which envisages attacking the country much earlier, probably in February.
Yesterday the Bush Administration asked Congress to endorse the military option — before the UN makes its move.
President Bush "reserves the right to act in the interests of the United States and its friends and allies," his spokesman said.
Such a historic disavowal of the UN by the United States would spell both war and diplomatic disaster for the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who helped persuade Washington to bring the crisis back under the UN’s umbrella. Britain’s global influence depends largely on its permanent seat at an effective and respected UN Security Council. The organization will be shunted into total irrelevance "and wrecked", diplomats fear, if the US unilaterally goes to war.
Even as envoys scurried in New York to craft a new resolution on Iraq, the Pentagon was privately briefing on plans to deploy 250,000 ground troops in the country to spearhead a major ground and aerial assault aimed at toppling Saddam and his regime.
Nailing down a clear schedule for the inspections will be the primary objective of the new resolution on Iraq that Britain wants to see passed in the Security Council before Sept. 30. On that date, Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, is due to start talks with Iraqi officials in Vienna on practical arrangements for the return of his teams.
It is expected that Blix will not be able to begin serious deployment of inspectors and their staff before the end of October and that that process will take two months. Thereafter, an existing Security Council text on Iraq — UN Resolution 1284 — stipulates that inspectors will need 60 more days to decide on what they need to do on the ground. The inspections proper would only begin, therefore, in early March and last six months until the end of August.
It is for that reason, that Britain, above all, will try to convince doubters in the Council — principally Russia and France — that a new resolution reinforcing 1284 with new deadlines and demands must be adopted soon.
Senior diplomatic sources are convinced that Washington wants to wage its war in the winter when temperatures fall in the Iraqi desert. Many of the 250,000 troops now envisaged by the Pentagon will need heavy suits for protection against chemical attack. They cannot easily be worn in the summer.
Moreover, Bush faces difficulties of timing that are more political in nature. In the event that Blix confirms only at the end of next summer that Iraq is indeed in violation of UN resolutions, a war that time may also be untenable because of the imminence of the 2004 presidential elections in the United States.
Yesterday US Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks held talks with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa Al-Thani. The official Qatar News Agency said Sheikh Hamad and Franks discussed regional developments and ways of boosting military cooperation..
Qatar hosts a US military base which Washington is upgrading, prompting speculation that it could be used as a launch pad for an attack on Iraq. A Qatari official has said his country would not object to a permanent US military presence on its soil.
US defense officials last week said Washington would move up to 600 members of its armed forces Central Command from Florida to Qatar for an exercise in November and was considering making the shift permanent.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said UN arms inspectors are ready to return as soon as the Security Council gives the go-ahead and will meet Iraqi officials in Vienna in about 10 days to discuss practical details.
In the 1990s the inspectors complained that the Iraqis hindered and deceived them in their search for weapons of mass destruction. Iraq accused them of spying for Washington.
The Security Council is split between governments that want to accept the Iraqi offer and those that think Baghdad will again hinder the inspectors. Words of welcome for the Iraqi decision came yesterday from Pope John Paul, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and Iraq’s neighbors Iran and Syria. (The Independent)
