The Case for Coercive Inspections (Inspect, inspect. Don’t use force.) (Iraq. A new approach)

PBS/NOW ^ | 3.14.03 | Jessica Tuchman Mathews

[Diddley]

Iraq is surrounded by as many as 300,000 troops. Thousands of precision-guided missiles are aimed at Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. It is, as more than one observer has said this week, a watershed moment for everyone concerned; Saddam Hussein, the fractured United Nations, the President of the United States, the troops at the ready, and the Iraqi civilians.

Jessica Tuchman Mathews has been taking this all in from her offices in the heart of Washington D.C. She is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). The Endowment held a series of discussions on the Iraq situation from late April to late July of 2002. Participants included a former U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and retired Air Force General, several former UNSCOM (United Nations Special Council on Iraq) inspectors, former IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Iraq Action Team members, scholars and diplomats.

Together they produced the report "Iraq, A New Approach." The document suggests a tactic called "coercive inspections" — "in which a multinational military force created by the UN Security Council would enable international inspections teams to operate effectively in Iraq. The U.S. would forswear unilateral military action against Iraq as long as inspections worked unhindered. This 'comply or else' tactic would place the burden of choosing war squarely on Saddam Hussein."

Key Points in the Coercive Inspections Plan The authors of "Iraq: A New Approach" state that their plan evolved as a middle approach — standing between inaction and all-out pursuit of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The authors found previous inspections greatly tilted in the favor of Iraq. Their plan relies on a multinational military threat serious enough to "coerce" compliance by Saddam Hussein. But the authors suggest that the changes in the international climate since September 11 may serve to make such cooperation possible, and necessary.

Core Premises: According to Ms. Mathews, the coercive inspections plan rests on several key assumptions: 1.Inspections can work. In their first five years, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM)...achieved substantial successes. 2.Saddam Hussein's overwhelming priority is to stay in power. He will never willingly give up pursuit of WMD (weapons of mass destruction), but he will do so if convinced that the only alternative is his certain destruction and that of his regime. 3.A credible and continuing military threat involving substantial forces on Iraq's borders will be necessary both to get the inspectors back into Iraq and to enable them to do their job. 4.The UNSCOM/IAEA successes also critically depended on unity of purpose within the UN Security Council. No amount of military force will be effective without unwavering political resolve behind it. Effective inspections cannot be reestablished until a way forward is found that the major powers and key regional states can support under the UN Charter.

Negotiating the Inspections: The CEIP plan depends on the continued international authority of the United Nations Security Council. Perhaps the most difficult element in the path toward creating the new UN resolutions related to this plan lies in this negotiation phase. "The critical element will be that the United States makes clear that it forswears unilateral military action against Iraq for as long as international inspections are working." The U.S. need not forswear a desire for regime change, but hold off on military action once the coercive inspections process is underway. Mathews, in her introduction to the plan terms this posture as a "declaratory policy," similar to the United States' stance on Cuba.

Implementing the Inspections: If the plan is adopted by the Security Council, a new multinational inspections group, the Inspections Implementation Force (IIF), would be formed. This group would have inspectors and an accompanying military force. If Iraq remained intransigent, the UN could then authorize the "use of all necessary means." The IIF must have four critical features in order to combat the weaknesses of previous UN inspections programs. 1.Adequate time. The inspection process must not be placed under any arbitrary deadline because that would provide Baghdad with an enormous incentive for delay. 2.Experienced personnel. UNMOVIC must not be forced to climb a learning curve as UNSCOM did but must be ready to operate with maximum effectiveness from the outset. 3.Provision for two-way intelligence sharing with national governments. UNSCOM experience proves that provision for intelligence sharing with national governments is indispensable. 4.Ability to track Iraqi procurement activities outside the country.</b? UNSCOM discovered covert transactions between Iraq and more than 500 companies from more than 40 countries between 1993 and 1998. Successful inspections would absolutely depend, therefore, on the team's authority to track procurement efforts both inside and outside Iraq, including at Iraqi embassies abroad

[bart99]

" In their first five years, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM)...achieved substantial successes."


If the UN hadn't forced us to stop after liberating Kuait, the whole thing would have been over in another month, rather than having "substantial sucesses" in 5 years, and still the problems 12 years later!

[bart99]

And nothing in the report that would prohibit Iraq from continuing to build up a masive conventional force while we just sorta commit to being passive onlookers as long as inspecoters inspect. That would be fine til Iraq decided to just let loose.

[Diddley]

Boy, do I agree with that.

[Keith in Iowa]

[Diddley]

How right you are. I pray we finish it this time.

[AgThorn]

Sorry, but for me, as long as he's still encouraging suicide bombers in Israel and the Phillipines and elsewhere, this guys got to go.

Perhaps thats not the "official" reason that we are over there but put that together with our abandoning the Kurds once before, this plan doesn't pacify my reasons for thinking rhat the only solution includes the ousting of this despot.

[Diddley]

ROFL. Which one is Blix?

[Diddley]

"Official" or not, he's got to go.

[EvilOverlord]

And nothing in the report that would prohibit Iraq from continuing to build up a masive conventional force while we just sorta commit to being passive onlookers as long as inspecoters inspect.

And, what people seem to miss by concentrating on inspections and disarmament is that there's nothing in an inspections regime to stop Iraq from funding terrorism, or providing bases and training for terrorists. The only way to stop that is through regime change.

Iraq is a nation that harbors terrorists and pays terrorists. The US must act to protect its interests, since we have seen the result of allowing terrorists to flourish. It's not about WMD. It's not about UN resolutions. It's the terrorism, stupid.

Of course, getting WMDs out of Saddam's hands is also a worthy goal, though not sufficient in and of itself (Yes, I know that I'm beginning to ramble...)

[blondee123]

A credible and continuing military threat involving substantial forces on Iraq's borders will be necessary both to get the inspectors back into Iraq and to enable them to do their job

AH, like yeah, we can afford to keep 300,000 troops there til dooms day!!

[7o62x39]

For the moment lets assume that the Carnegie Endowment isn't a front group and this Jessica Tuchman Mathews is well intentioned.

The critical flaws are many, but here goes

1)Her proposal requires a large forced (several hundred thousand combatants) forward deployed for a rather long and undetermined period while the inspections proceed. A) The cost of this force in the field is significant. B) The USA and UK have mobilized reserves, the troops are deployed in the field not in fixed bases. I assume Mrs. Mathews has not spent say 120 days in the Kuwaiti desert sleeping in the sand in a tent and eating MREs. C) The total force projection causes power vacuums around the world. USA force projection capabilities are not endless. This deployment represents a significant percentage of our capabilities. Others will cause mischief while we're tied down.

2) How much will the USA have to pay nations to allow us to be the UN's right arm. What are the consequences politically of such large forces stationed in arab countries. Iraq gets to prepare massive defenses to face off against our troops fixed deployments. Islamist or Baathist supported terrorist get to hit our troops in station.

3) Iraq, Islamists and opportunistic anti-American Leftists would have time to build their fifth column power against any use of the US force. Iraq would expand and target its bribes - both direct of individual leaders on the UNSC and of the country's themselves on the UNSC.

4) Saddam can play the game indefinately. Giving enough to ward off attack while seeking to develop a WMD inventory which would become large and sophisticated enough to become a deterent to any US action. The game continues until Saddam eventually is able to have the rate of growth in his covert WMD program exceed the rate he must give up elements of his WMD to the UN to ward them off and reach deterence.

If I'm Saddam I'll take this offer happily. I'll ask the French to raise it for me at the UNSC. I'll ship some of my WMD peeps to say Sudan and work on Bios and Chems there. ($ and people can be moved off shore for a secondary development play). Hell I'll buy a bunch of freighters and station labs on them and float them around the Indian Ocean. I'll hire some good Euro-Lawyers to find the types of ships the UN can;t search and put stuff on them. Maybe I'll move some labs to Embassies and smuggle stuff in diplomatic bags.

Give me more than just a few minutes to think on this and I'll cook up plenty of other ways to get around it. Here's $2 billion for some more French Mirage Jets.

[Diddley]

Of course, Saddam would jump at this offer.

Besides the points you make, it doesn't begin to address the human rights issues.

[Diddley]

AH, like yeah, we can afford to keep 300,000 troops there til dooms day!!

Right. We couldn't even use their oil to help pay for it.

[Hugin]

Next week we will send in 300,000 very intrusive inspectors.

[KeyWest]

Dumb thinking by the author. But what is new in liberal circles. One fact that was recently posted on FR is that 7,000 inspectors were in Germany before WWII to insure the Germans adhered to the restraints put on them after WWI.

[The Great Satan]

It would take about a suitcase full of the anthrax sent to Daschle to wipe out New York City. A station wagon full of the stuff would be enough to kill most of the urban population of the United States, and could be easily delivered by hand. The spores have an unlimited shelf life and are completely undetectable, so long as they are kept in an airtight container. It's too late for inspections. You can't unmake an omelette. We're f***ed, thanks to the UN.

[gaspar]

The Carnegie is the elephant graveyard for failed and frustrated State Department officials and former Ambassadors.

[mewzilla]

I don't think the author read 1441. The Iraqis are supposed to cough this stuff up to the inspectors. The inspectors aren't supposed to be their to hunt the stuff up themselves.