[Nasional-e] Can Inspections Keep Iraq in Check?

[Ambon]

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020916/winspections.html

Can Inspections Keep Iraq in Check?

They're an easier sell than full-out war, but some doubt U.N. visits are a
real deterrent


By Romesh Ratnesar


Posted Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002; 6:31 p.m. EST

For those who oppose U.S. military action against Iraq, U.N. inspections are
the preferred alternative for dealing with Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction. It's an appealing idea‹to police rather than attack Iraq—and
Bush Administration officials say they haven't rejected it entirely. The
U.S. may be willing to support a U.N. Security Council resolution backing
the return of inspectors if it includes a credible threat of military action
should Saddam refuse to cooperate. And yet many in the Administration are
skeptical that inspections can work. Why?
In the first place, uncovering and dismantling the entire store of Saddam's
arsenal is an almost impossible task. During the last inspections, Iraqi
officials deceived, obstructed and harassed U.N. monitors, who departed in
1998 knowing Iraq had unconventional weapons they hadn't found. Anti-Iraq
hawks have little confidence that Hans Blix, current chief of the U.N.'s
inspection team, would have any greater success. When Blix ran the
International Atomic Energy Agency, Iraq secretly developed nuclear weapons
while supposedly under IAEA oversight.
Even if inspectors were somehow freed from Iraqi constraints, hunting
weapons is painstaking work. The U.N. says that if allowed to return, its
inspection team would need a year to document the full range of Saddam's
arsenal. That's too long for Administration hard-liners, who fear that Iraq
could use U.N. monitors as shields against a military strike, as Serb forces
did during the Balkan wars. There's also the problem of what happens once
the inspectors finish their work. There's every reason to believe that, if
left in power, Saddam would become more determined to obtain weapons of mass
destruction. "Even if the inspectors go back in," says a senior
Administration official, "that isn't going to change the policy that we need
regime change."
Moderates who support a tougher line against Iraq but oppose a pre-emptive
U.S. war are pushing a compromise plan: a new system of "coercive"
inspections, under which the U.N. Security Council would call for weapons
monitors to return to Iraq backed by a U.S.-led military force that could
shoot its way into suspicious facilities or mount an all-out invasion if
Iraqi recalcitrance persisted. "It's comply or else," says retired Air Force
General Charles Boyd, an advocate of coercive inspections. "We say to
Saddam, ŒYou can submit to unfettered inspections, or you can have an
invasion of your country.'"
Administration officials say they're studying the idea. But other Security
Council members are wary of arming inspectors. A senior British diplomat
says the Iraqi army would probably treat military-backed inspectors as a
hostile force. "You can begin an arms spiral," says the official. "Where
does it end?" The answer, as in so many scenarios involving Iraq, is war.
—With reporting by Massimo Calabresi and Mark Thompson/Washington and
Stewart Stogel/U.N.