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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 February 2000 Issue No. 467 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 February 2000 Issue No. 467
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The stuff of genocide
By Azadeh MoaveniHans Blix, the recently appointed head of the Security Council's disarmament commission for Iraq, should not mind his current unpopularity. The Swedish lawyer is only the latest in a string of distinguished global civil servants catapulted into disrepute for failing to be as stringent with Iraq as American foreign policy sees fit.
Just ask Denis Halliday, the former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, whose thankless task it was to oversee the feeding of an embargo-stricken nation -- despite the best efforts of both the Iraqi government and the US-led Security Council. Like all his predecessors, Halliday's tenure was short-lived; and like his successor, Hans Von Sponeck, he was met with a public relations assault by the American press charging him with complicity in the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
One year after Iraq expelled the scandal-besmirched UNSCOM (UN Special Committee for Iraq), the Security Council has fumbled together a new inspection team bearing the equally inelegant acronym UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Committee). On the eve of the UN's scheduled return to Iraq, Halliday talked with Al-Ahram Weekly about the futility of sanctions, the motives behind arms inspections, and Iraq's enduring suffering.
Even if the last of Saddam Hussein's stockpile of weapons is ferreted out; even if "oil-for-food" begins to run as smoothly as a first-world venture capital firm; there will still be lasting damage marring the integrity of the United Nations. "The UN continues the sanctions regime, knowing full well its impact," says Halliday. "Despite all those figures, and despite Madeleine Albright's acknowledgement that half a million children have died -- [this] is undermining the credibility of the UN."
Things have reached a point, says Halliday, where he believes there are two radically different systems cohabiting within the UN -- that of the secretary-general and the secretariat, and that of the member states and the Security Council. "To me it's the member states that are corrupted and allowed this damage," he says. "It's tragic for the Security Council to be guilty of genocide."
If there is indeed a crisis in the ethical mandate of the UN, it is felt particularly in the Middle East. "[The West] is in no position to criticise Iraq, or even Saddam Hussein, who is an amateur compared to what we do," Halliday says, "We do so because we are Western, and there is a horrible double standard that the Security Council maintains." As a case in point, Halliday distinguishes the difference between the UN's resolution condemning Israel on its occupation of southern Lebanon and the UN policies on Iraq -- a conspicuous instance of this double standard.
Americans and British insist that the moderate positions of the French, Chinese and Russians within the Security Council is tantamount to concessions to Iraq. Halliday maintains that little will change in the UN without a shift in American leadership. "When Washington understands that the UN is something to participate in, and not something to manipulate or an extension of the State Department, we'll begin to see some change," he says.
But Albright has long been willing to endure the few timid criticisms of the sanctions regime, and argues Saddam Hussein is more of a serious threat when armed. Thus the never-ending cycle of invasive inspections, which the Iraqis deem intolerable; and the consequent "missing information", which UNSCOM deems as crucial.
Herein lies Halliday's biggest grievance. It is unacceptable under international law, he argues, to link humanitarian support to disarmament. "[People] cannot be held hostage to the military ambitions of their own government," he says. "It's hard to explain how such a glaring breach can go on, but [it's done] because basically, the [US and Britain] know most people don't understand -- and so successfully have they demonised Saddam Hussein that basically anything goes."
It is this image of Saddam Hussein that has underlaid all the rows with UNSCOM, and this track record makes it unpredictable whether UNMOVIC will fare any better in its efforts to be "firm" with Iraq. Halliday says the latest inspection agency is a new beast altogether: Carefully selected by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, all UNMOVIC inspectors will be UN staff members responsible solely to Annan (UNSCOM had members on the CIA payroll). If the new model for inspections ever gets off the ground, Halliday suggests, it may be a significantly different one.
"Why should the Iraqis comply with the carrot of suspension when they know the bottom line for Washington is not military disarmament but the removal of Saddam Hussein?" Halliday asks in the end. The United States and Britain, he says, are interested only in controlling the Middle East's oil supply for Europe and Japan. "All this stuff about the military is just rubbish," he says, "it's all about the strategic stuff"
