There was nothing in yesterday’s reports by UN chief arms inspector Hans Blix and IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei to the Security Council to justify an attack on Iraq at present. There were no new revelations about unaccounted-for chemical or biological materials, no new evidence of a smoking gun, no acceptance that the case presented by US Secretary of State Colin Powell 10 days ago was proven.
What came from their reports, loud and clear, was a plea for more time. The message was that the system of inspections is working and has continued to make headway since they last reported to the UN. There have now been private interviews with scientists and while more are needed, three weeks ago Iraq was still blocking them. Likewise, Iraq has backed down on aerial surveillance.
This is progress. In his impassioned response yesterday at the Security Council, US Secretary of State Colin Powell himself effectively confirmed that things are moving in the right direction when he said that Iraq had been pressured into greater cooperation because of the stand taken by the US. Iraq is being surely, remorselessly, pushed into a corner, pushed into divulging what its plans are. It does not want to — and no one would dispute Powell’s assertion that it has tried to deceive and cheat and that it hopes to play for time. But it has not succeeded and it is not going to succeed. Blix and El Baradei and their colleagues have it on the run.
Their reports immeasurably strengthen the position of France, Germany, Russia and China that arms inspectors must be given more time — all the time needed. They snookered the American and British arguments by the sheer logic of what they implied. If the inspection system is coming up with results, then why undermine it? Of course, more still has to be done, much more. There are unanswered questions about possible anthrax and nerve gas stocks and long-range missiles. Iraq must give an account — and, what is more, by giving an account, by being forced into complying with inspection process, it is effectively being forced into disarmament — and all without war. That is what the world wants.
Yesterday, after Blix and El Baradei had spoken, France’s Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin was given a rare burst of applause after his comments. He was given it because he was convincingly right that arms inspections have not been taken to their conclusion and that the use of force is so fraught with danger for the region that it has to be used as a last resort. In the same way Powell was convincingly wrong. It is not those who want more arms inspections who are refusing to face reality; it is the US. The reality is that inspections can work. But Washington is not interested in them. It never was. All it is interested in is toppling Saddam Hussein, a goal that can only be achieved by force. The consequences for the whole region would be too horrific. Maybe, in the end, it will have to come to that, but there is still plenty of time to try the inspections route. We do not have to rush into war now. It is Washington alone that wants it.
Unfortunately, there is no point deceiving ourselves that the US will not sift the nuggets it desperately wants out of yesterday’s reports. Powell’s response seemed to say that the US is determined to get rid of Saddam Hussein, come what may.
Who then, is the bigger danger to regional and world peace: Saddam Hussein or George W. Bush?
