Sunday, Sep 29, 2002
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By Atul Aneja
The draft the Security Council is currently considering says that "all necessary means" — a euphemism for military action — can be used against Iraq, in case it fails to declare its weapons of mass destruction within a 30-day deadline. It further points out that Iraq should neither make "false statements or omissions", nor otherwise breach the U.N. resolution. The Council would give Iraq a week's time to accept all its demands. Iraq, on its part, has rejected the new set of conditions and maintained that the Security Council should play by the old rules that were set at the end of the Persian Gulf War. The Iraqi Vice-President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, said on Saturday that, "the stance from the inspectors has been decided and any additional procedure that aims at harming Iraq won't be accepted" . The draft framed by the United States and Britain that also demands that the weapons inspectors protected by a special security force can visit any Iraqi site they wish is facing stiff resistance from three Security Council members — Russia, France and China — who can veto it. The Anglo-American diplomacy is also trying to bring on board a majority of the 10 non-permanent members in the 15-nation Council whose votes would count in case the draft has to be passed. Realising the centrality of Russia, France and China in redefining the rules on disarming Iraq, the U.S. and Britain have sent senior diplomats to these countries. The U.S. State Department's Undersecretary for political affairs, Marc Grossman, is in Moscow after concluding a visit to Paris. The U.S. President, George Bush, spoke with his French counterpart, Jacques Chirac, on telephone on Friday while Britain had sent its team of officials to Beijing. Russia, France and China object to the exclusion of further debate in the use of force in case the proposed initiative to disarm Iraq faces difficulties. France, for instance, wants that the U.N. should move step by step in dealing with Iraq. The present U.N. resolution should only consider the question of disarming Iraq by giving inspections and related measures a chance to succeed. However, the U.N. can subsequently consider the use of force under a separate resolution in case this effort fails to yield results. While the Security Council tries to reconcile its differences, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, has warned that the United States would incur huge losses in case it attacked Iraq. At a conference in Baghdad, Mr. Aziz said that "any attack against Iraq won't be an American picnic, rather a fierce war that would cost it (the United States) losses that it hasn't seen for the last tens of years."
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