Posted on 02/06/2003 9:15:34 AM PST by brewcrew
Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/feb03/116057.asp
Secretary of State Colin Powell's 90-minute presentation to the U.N. Security Council, buttressed with surveillance photographs and recorded phone conversations, should remove all doubt that Iraq's Saddam Hussein has developed and hides weapons of mass destruction, in violation of U.N. resolutions. Neither is there any doubt now that the United Nations will lose all its credibility if it allows Iraq's flagrant provocations to go unanswered.
On Nov. 8, all 15 members of the Security Council (including Syria) adopted the now-famous Resolution 1441. That resolution was, in effect, an ultimatum: It gave Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" and established an enhanced inspection regime to see that those obligations were carried out. The resolution required Iraq to cooperate with inspectors "immediately, unconditionally and actively" and warned that it would "face serious consequences" if it failed to do so.
Even before Powell's presentation on Wednesday, it had been apparent that Iraq had no intention of complying with that expression of the international community's will. On Jan. 27, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix reported that Iraq appeared "not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it." Blix noted that, among other things, Iraq had failed to account for huge stocks of weapons - including biological weapons such as anthrax and chemical agents such as VX gas - known to be in its possession in late 1998.
What Powell did Wednesday was to supply compelling new evidence of Iraqi defiance and add an element of drama, in the form of the photographs and intercepted phone messages, to the bill of particulars. The Security Council and the world heard Iraqi officials talk of deceiving U.N. inspectors. They saw the evidence of forbidden weapons that Hussein asserts, even now, do not exist.
To claim, as Iraq did in response to Powell's speech, that the United States violated U.N. resolutions by bringing the facts before the Security Council only underlines Iraq's contempt for the world body. To further claim, as Iraq did, that the photos and phone conversations were tricks and stunts merely adds to the mountain of Iraqi lies and evasions.
The U.N. inspectors are to return to Iraq this weekend and report back to the Security Council on Feb. 14. Clearly, these inspectors are doing their best, and their mission must continue. But if Hussein continues to mislead and trick them, their effectiveness, obviously, will come to naught.
Last fall, President Bush went before the U.N. with a warning that it cannot afford to ignore. Iraq, he warned, had "answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance." Bush then asked two rhetorical but compelling questions: "Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?"
It is not only the U.N. that faces a moment of truth. There is one man who can spare Iraq from the "serious consequences" that Resolution 1441 promised, one man whose decisions can rescue Iraq from the increasing likelihood of war. That man is Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi ruler, who has enslaved and terrorized his people in ways that bring Josef Stalin to mind, is an unlikely candidate to become his nation's 11th-hour hero. But it is within his power to do so. All he needs to do, beyond all expectations to the contrary, is meet his international obligations.
This echoes what George Bush and Colin Powell have said all along.
Which is tantamount to giving Saddam plenty of rope to hang himself. The unfortunate side effect is that it's not just a one-man noose he's tying. Innocents will be killed, but I put that on Saddam's shoulders. That's how cowards fight. It's not like he doesn't know this is coming.
That is an understatement!
Well, they ain't the New York Times or the Washington Post. I was trying to cut them some slack because at least they're taking the only reasonable position that exists.
Hope all is well.
Here's one of my favorite new quotes. Seems kind of appropriate to the new-found "wisdom" of the JS editorial board:
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."
--Jonathan Swift
Once the libs and dems start falling in line like they have been the last 24 hours, it's the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn.
I only hope we can keep the element of surprise on our side.
Excellent! Just don't give the JS board too much slack. They are so often so wrong that when they occasionally espouse an opinion that is parallel to mine -- I have to stop and rethink my position! :~)
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