Posted on 09/09/2002 4:40:20 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
TONY BLAIR will tomorrow challenge the United Nations to prove its worth and force Iraq to dismantle its deadly weapons stockpile. In a gamble that could avoid war, Mr Blair and President Bush are putting the UN’s credibility on the line by backing a final deadline on President Saddam Hussein to allow in arms inspectors, but insisting that it must be backed up by the threat of force if he refuses to comply. In his speech to the TUC conference in Blackpool tomorrow, Mr Blair will try to defuse a potential Cabinet rebellion by disclosing that he has won Mr Bush’s support for seeking the widest possible international backing for action to disarm the Iraqi dictator. He will say that he is ready to follow the UN route, but only if the UN is prepared to deliver and never again tolerate Saddam’s constant flouting of its resolutions. Mr Bush will outline the strategy he and Mr Blair agreed over the weekend at Camp David in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday. He is understood to favour giving a short deadline to Iraq, possibly four to six weeks, to comply with UN demands to allow in weapons inspectors. It would then be given around six months for its weapons to be decommissioned. But if the work of the inspection teams were hampered Saddam would be considered to have breached the resolution and face military action led by the US but, crucially, backed by the UN. There is scepticism in London and Washington over whether the UN is prepared to take the stringent line required. But in recent days Mr Bush and Mr Blair have told the leaders of the other permanent members of the Security Council — France, China and Russia — that should the UN option fail they are determined to go ahead. A senior British official who travelled to America with Mr Blair said: “The Prime Minister will say at the TUC that the UN, as the representative body of the international community, is the right place to be addressing issues like this, but it has to be on the basis that it will address it and deal with it.” He added: “In the Prime Minister’s view, the UN has its own authority and position that should be important to it. That is why he has continued to make the point that, if it’s the route to dealing with this problem, that’s the best possible route to go. But if it’s the way to avoiding the problem being dealt with, it’s the wrong way to go. You can’t have a situation where year after year Saddam just flouts the will of the international community.” The latest diplomatic moves in the Iraq crisis were discussed by Mr Blair, Mr Bush and advisers during a 200- minute meeting on Saturday. Although Mr Blair emphasised the diplomatic option in his press conference early yesterday the summit did discuss military action in the event of the failure of diplomacy, senior officials admitted. High-ranking military advisers attended the talks and key intelligence on the nuclear and other threats posed by Saddam was shared. The promised dossier of evidence about Saddam’s weapons is likely to be published the week after next. Mr Blair said that once the public had seen it they would see “this is not something that has been invented or dreamt up in the last few weeks”. As he left Washington Mr Blair promised that people could have confidence that “we will approach this issue in a sensible and measured way”. But unless they found a proper way of dealing with Iraq it would go back to its old ways of developing destructive weapons and the “danger would explode”. If Saddam got to the stage of using the arms “there is no way we can stay out of that. This is not an American preoccupation. It is our preoccupation and it should be the preoccupation of the entire civilised community,” he said. Britain and America will spend the next few days focusing on Saddam’s potential nuclear capability as a way of shoring up public support. Mr Blair spoke of the threat in several interviews on Saturday and reports out this week will focus on it. The White House has launched a public relations offensive to win over the support of wavering allies, citing fresh evidence of Saddam's quest for nuclear capability. But senior officials insisted the US was ready to go ahead without their backing. Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, said: “The President reserves his right to deal with this problem on behalf of the US if necessary.” US Vice-President Dick Cheney yesterday said that American authorities had intercepted a shipment of aluminimum tubes believed to be bound for an accelerated nuclear programme in Iraq. Mr Cheney said the threat Saddam posed was too great to ignore.
(AFP) - ....SNIP....
In an interview published in Monday's New York Times, Chirac said that under the two-stage plan being drafted by France, a Security Council resolution would give Iraq a three-week deadline for readmitting UN weapons inspectors "without restrictions or preconditions."
If Saddam Hussein rejects their return or hampers their work, he said, a second resolution should be passed on whether to use military force.
But Chirac told the Times that while he would like to see a new regime in Baghdad, any attempt to oust Saddam without the backing of a Security Council resolution would create chaos in global affairs.
Chirac described the Bush administration doctrine of preemptive military action in its fight against terrorism as "extraordinarily dangerous." ....SNIP....
Especially for those terrorist countries.
First we couldn't go because Clinton had gutted the military, I can understand that. This I don't understand or like one little bit.
Those who refuse to help with the cooking, get stuck doing the dishes.
There is real risk in this strategy, if in fact this is what Bush is going to do. The risk is simply that Hussein will accept new inspectors. Then what?
I'm just guessing here, but it seems like the U.S. simply assumes Hussein will not accept new unfettered inspectors. I've read news reports, too, the upshot of which is that Iraq won't accept a new inspectorate.
Maybe these reports are right, and maybe the U.S. is correct in thinking that Iraq won't accommodate a new round of inspectors. It's important, though, to distinguish between what we would like to be true and what evidence we have for something's being true. And as it stands now, I can't see how anyone can be confident that Hussein will simply refuse inspectors and open himself to immediate consquest. Whatever his delusions of grandeur, the brute fact that his country will be overrun quickly surely cannot elude him.
So, I hope that the Bush Administration has a serious plan for dealing with Hussein's acceptance of a new round inspections. It might talk about leaving an invasion force ringing Iraq on a hair trigger, and "coercing inspections". This is not a serious plan, though. Any such force cannot remained prepared for immediate invasion for very long. It would be very expensive, for one thing. For another, the world would complain that we are cynically waiting for the scantest pretext to act and are not giving inspections a proper chance.
This last point is worth emphasizing. Some people may have the idea that the case for attack will only be strengthened if Hussein accepts inspectors but then frustrates their work. This is false. If we agree to inspections, we will have agreed to inspections. It will be at least as difficult as it is now to generate support for an attack in the face of Iraqi intransigence. After all, if we were willing to try to force inspections when Hussein hadn't agreed to any for four years, why not try that again when all he will have done will be to engage in low level obstruction?
I fear, in short, a trap the administration is setting for itself.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.