The Hindu : A positive assessment

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 10, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

A positive assessment

WITH THE HEADS of the United Nations weapons inspection teams making an assessment that Iraq's cooperation with the programme to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) potential has now become active, even pro-active, the rationale for a U.S.-led military strike against this West Asian country has been severely undermined. The head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), Hans Blix, has described Iraq's destruction of 34 of the 100 Al Samoud-2 missiles that it is believed to possess as a substantial measure of disarmament. He also noted with approval that Baghdad has furnished additional documentation on ingredients used for the production of chemical and biological weapons and has expressed optimism that his teams would soon be able to interview, outside the country, Iraqi scientists and technicians involved with the WMD programme. While UNMOVIC would be able to present a compilation of the disarmament tasks that remain to be carried out only by the end of the month, Mr. Blix has made a broad assessment that his team's mission could be completed within a few months — neither weeks nor years, he specifically indicated. Mr. Blix and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed ElBaradei, have decried the practice followed by Washington of declaring that its own intelligence agencies have found evidence of Iraqi misdoings without passing on such information to the U.N. agencies concerned so that these discoveries could be independently verified. In an indictment of this practice, the heads of the U.N. teams have said that they had not found evidence to support Washington's allegations whenever they have followed up on such leads.

With the U.S. having stated in unambiguous terms that its objectives with regard to Iraq are not confined to the eradication of Baghdad's WMD potential but include the further goal of changing the regime currently in place, it is not likely to be diverted or distracted from its purposes by the reports submitted by the U.N. teams. Washington does not concur with Mr. Blix's observations that Iraq is cooperating in a wholesome manner with the process of inspections and insists that Baghdad has shown no signs of having taken the strategic and political decision to rid itself of a WMD potential. Washington has revived, and given a new twist to, an old and unsustainable argument that Iraq's possession of a WMD potential (a capability that has been substantially reduced through years of inspections) poses a direct threat to the U.S. homeland. The hypothesis that Iraq poses a direct security threat to the U.S. has been set within the framework of the recently propounded doctrine of a pre-emptive strike, and is being used to justify military action — including a resort to arms without the endorsement of the U.N. Other significant members of the U.N. — France, Russia, Germany — have found sustenance in the weapons inspectors' reports for their proposal that the inspections teams be given a few more months to complete their task. Washington however insists that an extension of the inspection process is meaningless and is soliciting support for a Security Council resolution that would demand that Iraq disarm fully within a short period of time. Given its declared intent of bringing about a regime change in Iraq, it would appear that Washington does not believe that Baghdad would be able to fulfil this demand and would thereby provide the justification for the initiation of military action against it.

With the U.S. and its few allies having substantially built up the military forces deployed in a threatening manner against Iraq, there is a grave danger that the move towards war will gather a momentum of its own. It is extremely unfortunate that the slide towards a military confrontation appears to be taking place without the global community being given the opportunity to seriously consider all aspects, especially the consequences of a war. It would seem that by far the larger part of world opinion does not support military action against Iraq at this juncture, especially a war that is not authorised by the U.N.

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