The Hindu : Need for impartial evaluation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 14, 2002

Opinion

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Need for impartial evaluation

THE THREAT OF military action against Iraq would appear to have been pushed back till scrutiny is completed of the extensive documentation submitted by Baghdad to the United Nations weapons inspectors, and judgment passed on whether this declaration constitutes a comprehensive confession of all aspects of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme. If Iraq has, indeed, made a full disclosure in the 12,000 pages that have been handed over, it would be possible to track down the means and the facilities by use of which nuclear, chemical and biological weapons (and the ingredients for the same) were produced. With this information on hand weapons inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be able to dismantle the facilities, destroy the stockpiles and set up systems to ensure that the infrastructure for a WMD programme is never recreated. If events do unfold in this manner there would no longer exist a moral justification for military action against Iraq and the requirements of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 would have been fulfilled. However, the scrutiny of Iraq's declaration will take several weeks at the least and there is no guarantee that all those studying the documents will agree on an assessment that Baghdad has laid bare its entire record in respect of a WMD capability. Meanwhile, the U.S. administration is proceeding steadily ahead with its engineering of a coalition of Iraqi forces, that it hopes will militarily oppose and eventually replace the regime of President Saddam Hussein, and also with a build-up of its armed forces in the region. In the latest manifestation of Washington's calculated ambiguity, the U.S. Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has laid down certain benchmarks for Iraqi behaviour that stretch and/or go beyond the ambit of Resolution 1441.

While stating that Washington was not likely to take a decision on possible military action soon and that it would take into account the response of other Security Council members to the Iraqi declaration, Mr. Rumsfeld has nevertheless indicated that the U.S. could consider two possible developments as justifications for such action. The first of the two contingencies that Mr. Rumsfeld has referred to does find mention in the relevant U.N. resolution which could, therefore, be said to confer legitimacy on military action triggered by such a development. In drawing up plans for the dismantling of Baghdad's WMD capability, the Security Council believed that all the details could be uncovered only if Iraqi personnel, intimately connected with the programme, were allowed to leave Iraq with their families and thus be given the scope to speak freely. If they were not to be allowed to travel abroad the U.S. could make a case — though not a very sound one — that Iraq was blocking the inspections. Mr. Rumsfeld also indicated that the option of an escalated military operation could be considered if Baghdad persisted with its practice of shooting at U.S. and allied warplanes that enforce `no-fly zones' in northern and southern Iraq. The whole process of demarcating and enforcing `no-fly zones' rests on very dubious interpretations of past Security Council resolutions, Iraq will continue to resist this U.S.-led operation and Mr. Rumsfeld's reference to this contingency smacks of a dangerous tendency to hunt for justifications for a military strike.

Until Iraq's declaration is thoroughly scrutinised it would be difficult to say whether or not Baghdad has finally decided to come clean on its WMD programme and has thus effectively agreed to the dismantling of it. It is possible to speculate either way at the moment but the objective conditions — the unanimity with which the world has called for the dismantling of its WMD potential — ought to have convinced Iraq that it cannot obfuscate any longer. Iraq has made its choice and its disclosures should be thoroughly and impartially evaluated before judgment is passed and action taken.

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A perceptive writer, a fine teacher