Issue No. 612
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14 - 20 November 2002 Issue No. 612 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Repairing the damage
Baghdad has no choice but to comply with Security Council Resolution 1441, writes Ibrahim Nafie
The prospects for war or peace in Iraq are now in the balance following the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Which way the scales will tip will depend to a large extent on Iraq's behaviour towards the international arms inspection teams. Baghdad can either avert an American-led strike by implementing the resolution to the letter or it can present the Bush administration with the pretext for which it is waiting.
Washington is continuing its military buildup against Iraq as though war were inevitable. Although the US administration has had to back down from the hard-line position on Iraq it has held until recently it is clearly determined to take advantage of any remiss on the part of Baghdad. Yet, however firm its resolve to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein, Washington will not be able to act on this resolve without strong justification, in the form of proof that Iraq is still in possession and remains determined to produce weapons of mass destruction.
Although officials and public opinion in Iraq fear that Resolution 1441 is little more than a prelude to an American assault and that the return of the inspection teams is a mere formality, Iraq still stands to benefit from the return of the inspection teams. Iraq, therefore, must be extremely forthright and scrupulous in observing its commitments to the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), thereby enabling it to put the weapons issue behind it as soon as possible.
When the inspectors resume their work the Iraqi leadership must keep in mind that the international community will be keeping very close tabs on how it comports itself. Any evasiveness or chicanery will all too readily be interpreted as a justification for military action. Iraq must therefore set itself, and adhere to, a set of guidelines for dealing with the inspection teams.
Above all, it must learn from its past mistakes and avoid repeating the catastrophic policy it adopted towards the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) between 1991 and 1998. During that period Iraq deliberately concealed sites, misled the inspectors and only coughed up information when confronted with US threats and intelligence information. In other words, Iraq failed to cooperate willingly and honestly, with the result that it undermined its credibility with the international community.
In pursuing this policy of deception Baghdad hoped to achieve a number of objectives. It wanted to hold on to some ballistic missiles and a quantity of chemical and biological substances. It wanted to keep a part of its infrastructure for producing weapons of mass destruction intact. It thought that by withholding relevant documentation revealing the extent of progress it had achieved in its arms manufactures, when it got the all clear, it could start rebuilding its arsenal again.
Such were its pipe dreams, but they went up in smoke when its strategy of deception was exposed. This happened over a period, the most notorious event in the exposure occurring when President Hussein's son-in-law, General Hussein Kamel Al-Majid, fled the country and furnished UN inspection teams and western intelligence agencies with abundant information on the advanced weapons programme over which he had been in charge. Suddenly Baghdad had to change tack and cooperate with the UN teams, but only after having its duplicity exposed and having given international and regional powers hostile to Iraq the opportunity to continue with international sanctions. This strategy had more tragic consequences. Whereas it had initially been predicted that the process of eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction would end in at most two years, the regime's ploys ensured that it dragged on through the 1990s until the present, while the sanctions continued to reap their toll on the Iraqi people.
It follows from the foregoing that Baghdad must radically alter its strategic outlook, which since the mid-1970s has rested on developing a powerful advanced weapons capacity. The immense quantities of human and material resources that Iraq has poured into achieving this objective was one of the major reasons behind the economic crisis that struck Iraq in the late 1980s. That crisis, in turn, inspired the Iraqi regime to embark on its mad adventure into Kuwait, the price of which the Arab world is still paying today.
It is time the Iraqi regime realised that it has never really benefited from its advanced weapons capacities, that it will be better off if it freed itself from this obsession to possess such an arsenal. During the Gulf War it could not avail itself of its biological and chemical weapons for fear of US retaliation, and it remains the case that the political losses entailed in using or threatening to use such weapons would far outstrip any possible political or military advantages. Indeed, rather than serving to safeguard Iraqi security, its determination to possess weapons of mass destruction has only rendered its security more vulnerable.
Moreover, it would benefit the region as a whole if Iraq bore in mind that its long cherished armaments programme has furnished Israel with the excuse to sustain and augment its nuclear arsenal. If Iraq abides by UN resolutions it will strengthen the hand of Arab governments in their campaign to implement paragraph 14 of Resolution 687, which links the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to a process of making the Middle East a zone free of such weapons.
Iraq must be prepared to accept that the inspections will entail certain activities that some might construe as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. The relevant Security Council resolutions state that these activities will cover all Iraqi territory, without exception. The inspections will focus on completing the destruction of all Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the process of which was suspended in December 1998, and to ascertain that Iraq has not resumed developing its weapons capacities since that time. Iraq should also expect a period of follow-through aimed at ensuring that it has no intention of resuming its weapons programmes. Hans Blix, the chairman of UNMOVIC, has described the inspection process as "invasive" in that his teams are to be accorded free and unrestricted access to any site, including presidential palaces and other sensitive locations, without advance notice.
However, as harsh as these conditions may appear, it should be borne in mind that they were established several years ago, specifically in the memorandum of understanding between Iraq and the UN in February 1998. Indeed, that memorandum had already been acted upon before inspections came to a halt in December 1998. There is no reason, therefore, that this issue should stir Iraqi sensitivities and provoke discord between Baghdad and the inspection teams.
Iraq will naturally be enjoined to hand over remaining documents pertaining to its armaments programmes. This has been a central demand of the inspections team since they began their work in 1991, and these documents are vital for ascertaining the accuracy of the information Iraqi officials supply them. Under Resolution 1441 Iraq must furnish, within 30 days of the vote on that resolution, a comprehensive statement detailing all aspects of its programmes for producing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The resolution further stated that in the event of Iraq providing false information, leaving out information or failing to comply fully and accurately with the conditions set by the inspection teams, a fundamental breach of its obligations will have been committed. Should this transpire, the Security Council will convene immediately to consider military operations.
Finally, Iraq will be obliged to help UNMOVIC and the IAEA meet employees in its arms development and manufacturing programmes. This highly sensitive issue has long been a major bone of contention between the US and Iraq, which naturally wishes to safeguard its wealth of specialised scientists, engineers and technicians. Iraq, perhaps not without grounds, suspects that the US wants to strip Iraq of these invaluable human resources so that it cannot avail itself of their skills to revive its prohibited arms programmes in the future.
Resolution 1441 gives the inspection teams the right to meet with any individual connected to Iraq's advanced weapons programmes. It further provides that these individuals can be interviewed inside Iraq or abroad and, in the event of the latter, that their families can be flown out with them so as to obviate the possibility of Iraqi authorities using family members back home as pressure cards. While this condition, too, appears severe, Baghdad has, in reality, little cause to object. After all, many dissident Iraqi scientists and technicians who have worked on its armaments programmes are currently living in the West. Certainly, the new Iraqi interviewees will not have much to add to the information those dissidents have already furnished Western intelligence agencies.
Baghdad, therefore, will have much to gain and little to lose by displaying the highest degree of flexibility and wisdom in its dealings with the international inspection teams. By offering them every possible assistance in their task of demonstrating that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction and has no designs to possess such weapons again in the future Baghdad will avert the agonies of an imminent strike, restore its damaged credibility and bring the date closer when sanctions can be lifted.
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