There were three possible verdicts on Iraq that UN chief arms inspector Hans Blix and IAEA head Mohamed El Baradei could have presented to the Security Council yesterday: that Iraq is innocent of the change of developing arms of mass destruction; that investigations are not yet complete and, please, can they have some more time; or that it is guilty. As expected, they have chosen the middle route, but doing so in a way that leaves Iraq firmly in the dock.
Their reports were about as damning as they could be without actually finding Iraq guilty. Although it has cooperated “rather well” in the process of investigations in allowing access to sites, it had not complied in the substance of investigations — such as by preventing aerial surveillance and through instances of harassment. The claim earlier in the day by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri that Iraq had cooperated fully with the inspectors is patently untrue.
More seriously, the question marks raised by Hans Blix over the truth of the documentation provided by the Iraqis — such as some 6,500 chemical weapons not being accounted for, that much more biological anthrax material may have been produced than revealed or the deployment of illegal missiles — could be used by the US to claim that Iraq is in material breach of UN Resolution 1411. But such breaches are more against the spirit of the resolution than the letter of it. They are not a reason to go to war at this point. Moreover, from what Blix disclosed, it seems that his inspectors are more than capable of forcing Iraq to toe the line when it proves less than fully cooperative. Agreement has been reached on helicopter flights and there was more than a suggestion that the refusal of some Iraqi scientists to be interviewed in private will soon be resolved.
Clearly, there is a lot more work to do to either confirm Iraq’s guilt or innocence. The inspectors do not have enough information to come down one way or the other. The US and the UK now say that they have definitive proof of Iraq’s guilt, but they have said that before and it turned out not to be evidence at all. Maybe they have it now, but it is bizarre that they should not have shared that it with Blix and El Baradei. They have to either put up or shut up. The inspectors should be given all the time they want, even if it is a question of years — which, as El Baradei pointed out, was the case when South Africa decided to disarm — and it gave the IAEA its full cooperation. Inspection is the only peaceful route to force Iraq to disarm.
But will they be given the time? Weeks perhaps, if only because President Bush’s key ally, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, facing increasing opposition at home to war, seems to favor the idea. In any event, the US has not yet finished it military preparations. But not months — and from what Blix and El Baradei had to report, months are what are needed. Even a couple of months is of no use whatsoever. There is no way that the inspectors come to any different conclusion in such a short time.
From what Blix had to say, it is clear the inspectors are being tough with the Iraqis. They are forcing Saddam Hussein’s regime into disarmament. And as El Baradei said, inspections are themselves a deterrence to Iraq resuming nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. That surely is the objective of this process, not death and destruction across the length and breadth of Iraq.
