Posted on 09/17/2002 12:39:07 AM PDT by HAL9000
Iraq: Satisfied Moscow and new resolution of UNO not necessary (Ivanov)
Tuesday September 17, 2002 - 7h28 GMT
MOSCOW, 17 seven (AFP) - the Russian Minister for the Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov was delighted by the Iraqi decision to contrary accept a return without condition of the inspectors in disarmament of UNO by estimating that a new resolution of UNO was not necessary, at Washington.
"It is necessary to regulate in the days to come the question from the return of the inspectors. One should not for that of new decisions. The return of the inspectors is a key objective to reassure the international community ", underlined Mr. Ivanov quoted by the Itar-Tass agency from New York.
A high person in charge for the State Department declared Monday that the United States intended "to go from before with a resolution which will show that Iraq is in contradiction with its obligations and who will show the way to be followed on what Iraq must do and what will arrive if Iraq does not follow this direction".
"Thanks to our united efforts, we managed to avoid the threat of a war and return to average policies to regulate the Iraqi problem", still estimated Mr. Ivanov quoted by Interfax commenting on for Russian journalists the letter given to the secretary-general of UNO, Kofi Annan, where Baghdad announces its decision of an agreement on the return of the inspectors of UNO.
"the main thing is that (inspectors) resume their work", it added.
Russia, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council of UNO and old ally of Iraq, required on several occasions in Baghdad to authorize the return of the inspectors in disarmament of the United Nations, whose mission had been stopped in 1998.
Moscow is firmly opposed to the idea of a military intervention of the United States, in Iraq.
I know it's just a lousy translation, but it says it all.
The last sentence of this article:
Rather telling re: THEIR inside information, no? Putin already announced that Russia was on board.
No, I think to some extent the "strategery" team is winging it. (But they "wing it" damn good.) I don't think Bush really wanted to go to the U.N., except for rubber stamp approval after an alliance for "regime change" had been formed. Instead, due to resistance to the notion of regime change, they had to go to the U.N. to advance the issue. Bush met 'em halfway with the not-quite-explicitly-stated implication that Saddam could forestall regime change by strict compliance with U.N. resolutions.
Now Saddam is going to pretend that he is willing to follow the compliance path, and some of our allies are going to pretend that they believe him. The strategery team, although certainly hoping for intransigence from Saddam, can't have failed to anticipate this, but I'm not sure they have a preplanned response. The immediate need is clear enough: to stop short any international rush to declare the crisis solved. We'll just have to see where they go from here. I'd guess they are furiously negotiating to get a very strict new resolution from the security council obligating Saddam to requirements beyond mere WMD inspectors. What this article suggests is that Russia no longer views further U.N. resolutions as necessary. This is a problem that needs to be dealt with quickly.
Wrong! It was just announced that there are (of course) conditions. Iraq has stated that the inspections team can only have access to military zones. Sounds like a condition to me.
President Bush has already stated that there are no conditions. He wants the removal of all WMDs from Iraq and ultimately the remaval of the current regime. I don't think he has ever strayed from this.
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