[Nasional-e] Thorough inspection must come first

Fri Jan 31 11:36:09 2003

EDITORIAL

Thorough inspection must come first

The U.N. search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has turned up no
conclusive evidence that it is developing or possessing these deadly arms.
But the inspectors have also reported to the U.N. Security Council that
Baghdad has given them only limited cooperation during the past two months
and that there are still many gaps to be filled in its weapons declaration.
The message is that more time is needed to complete the inspections.

Security Council members are divided on how to deal with the reports, which
were submitted on Monday by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
France, Russia and China, among others, say exhaustive inspections should be
conducted even if they take a long time. But the United States and Britain,
in particular, oppose long inspections, saying it is already clear that Iraq
is hiding weapons of mass destruction. They want the Security Council to
sanction military action by declaring Baghdad to be "in material breach" of
U.N. resolutions.

In reality, though, the inspection process looks set to continue for some
time -- perhaps another half a month or so. Germany, which will chair the
Security Council next month, has proposed that new inspection reports be
submitted on Feb. 24. Britain, among others, has supported the proposal.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan has also requested that the inspections be
continued, saying an appropriate amount of time is needed to finish the
process.

The question is how the U.S. will respond. Reports indicate that it is
willing to go along with a few more weeks of inspections largely on military
grounds: U.S. forces will not be fully prepared for war until late February
or early March. Military analysts say major troop deployments around Iraq
will be completed by the end of February.

It is problematic, however, that an inspection period should be set
primarily from a military point of view. As long as suspicions of Iraqi
noncompliance remain, inspectors ought to be given as much time as they need
to resolve all questions. If war is inevitable, it should be approved by the
Security Council only as a last resort -- that is, only if the Security
Council determines that there is no choice but to disarm Iraq by force.

In the meantime, every effort must be made to seek a peaceful solution to
the Iraqi crisis. Military intervention is fraught with risks. A desperate
Iraq could set fire to oil fields, possibly including those in Saudi Arabia,
with dire consequences for the world economy. Heavy collateral damage --
countless women and children wounded or killed during attacks -- could not
be ruled out, either. Military experts predict that U.S. high-tech weapons
would bring the war quickly to an end and that civilian casualties would be
minimized. They could be wrong.

There is another case to be made for giving the U.N. inspectors more time: a
relative lack of technical skill on the part of UNMOVIC inspectors. The
commission now has about 100 inspectors in Iraq. All of them are U.N.
employees, not specialists, and many of them are said to be only beginning
to develop a knack for conducting full-scale checks.

Mr. Hans Blix, the head of UNMOVIC, says, among other things, that there are
indications Iraq has weaponized the nerve-gas agent VX, that inspectors have
found a laboratory quantity of a chemical substance that is a precursor of
mustard gas, and that there is strong evidence Iraq still possesses a large
amount of anthrax. But so far Baghdad has not fully cooperated, nor has it
agreed to the questioning of Iraqi scientists and engineers. The report from
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei says questions remain concerning
Iraq's nuclear arms program, although evidence of its revival has yet to be
found.

In short, there is as yet no conclusive evidence of a "material breach" by
Iraq. If this were a criminal case, the judge would have to give the suspect
the benefit of the doubt. But Iraq is not a first-time suspect; it has
repeatedly deceived U.N. inspectors since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf
War. If Baghdad stands by its claims that it has no weapons of mass
destruction, it must do everything it can to dispel any remaining doubts
held by the inspectors.

Saying that time is running out, U.S. President George W. Bush's
administration is preparing to attack Iraq. But if Washington has convincing
evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is refusing to comply, then it
should supply that intelligence to both UNMOVIC and IAEA. Military action,
even if necessary, should be avoided until the Security Council reaches its
own conclusion based on full and final reports from the inspectors.