Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
The undoing of arms inspections
in Iraq • By Barbara Crossette
--Yea~rs.have--b-een-Iost,
and it isn't all Saddam's fault
NEW YORK
A
strange bipartisan amnesia has
overtaken Washington, obscuring
the story of.how United Nations
weapons inspections in Iraq lost
their punch and effectiveness.
In the critical late 1990s, it was the
United States, the preeminent power on
the Security Council, that effectively
stopped supporting the inspection system,
rendering it a sham. Democrats understandably
do not want to remember that.
Republicans would find it inconvenient to
have to share the blame with an amorphous
"UN" that the Bush administration pretends
not to be part of, as it rattles sabers
against the organization almost as frequently
as it threatens Iraq. . .
After the early, vigorous efforts of
Madeleine Albright as ambassador to the
United Nations to hold Iraq to its disarmament
obligations during the first four-year
Clinton administration, the steam went out
of U.S. policy after 1996, when Albright
moved to Washington as secretary of state
and the Clinton White House seemed indifferent
to how the issue was handled in New
York.Just then, Saddam Hussein was beginning
to demonstrate that he no longer intended
to play the cat-and-mouse game and
would undercut the experts who had found.
and destroyed more Iraqi weapons than had
been eliminated during the GulfWar.
At the United Nations, Washington was
on "cruise control" by 1997.Crippling sanc- .
tions could stay in place forever as far as ,
Washington was concerned. Saddam was'
"in his box." Others on the Security Coun- .
cil did not see this as a policy, given that the .
Iraqis were finding novel ways of circumventing
the embargo, and especially the
ban on oil sales, while propagandizing the .
deprivations suffered by the Iraqi population,
for which Washington was blamed. .
The only nod to change .came with U.S, .
backing for the "oil for food" program that
allowed UN-controlled petroleum sales to
pay for civilian goods. That program got
off the ground late in 1997and has been liberalized
several ti~es since, bringing Iraq
tens of billionS of dollars in revenue.
. A more thorough review oru.s. policy on
Iraq was called for in the mid-I990s but never
materialized. Meanwhile, Russia, France
. and. intermittently, China became increasingly
willing to listen to Iraq's perennial .
lament that unending, intrusive inspections .
were no longer necessary since weapons of
. mass destruction were long gone - a claim
that no one with any knowledge ofSaddam's
government believed - and. that steps toward
the lifting of sanctions could begin.
- .
l~~
By 1997,the year Richard Butler, a blunt
Australian disarmament expert, took over
as executive chairman of the inspection system
- the United Nations Special Commission,
or Unscom - the Security Council's
disarmament program in Iraq was in deep
trouble. That year, the Iraqis blocked inspec-'
tion after inspection and tried to bar Americans
from the teams on the ground in Iraq.
There was bluster in Washington. But
the ~linton administration was heading in- .
to the Monica lewinSky scandal and had
been embarrassed by reports that Washington
was using inspection teams to set
up spy operations for American intelligence.
Early in 1998, the United States acquiesced
in a disastrous d.iplomatic mission
by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to
Baghdad to sign an agreement with Saddam
to open disputed "presidential sites"
to giplomats if not inspectors. .
By this time Iraq had a laundry hst of
places inspectors could not go. Iraq was
backing out of even this flimsy agreement
before the ink was dry.
.Washington said almost nothing. Nor
did it put muscle behind the embattled
chief inspector, Butler, as he was stiffed. insulted
and humiliated by the Iraqis. By the
summer of1998, effective illspections were
essentially over, and the talents of a firstrate
team of international arms experts put
on hold. The .United States and Britain
~R~Slö
By CHRISTO In Sega (Sona). C & W Syndicate.
bombed Baghdad in December 1998,ostensibly
b~cause of Iraqi noncompliance. The
last inspectors bad been withdrawn by Butler
hours before the attack.
Until this year, again under the threat of
attack. Iraq never considered .allowing
them back. A new inspection commission
was created late in 2000, in part because of
Iraqi complaints about Unscom.
Many diplomats at the United. Nations
saw the U.S. bombing in 1998as an easy alternative
to tough diplomacy or a more creative
policy to deal with the recalcitrant and.
crafty dictator in Baghdad. The U.S.ambassadorship
to the United Nations was left vacant
for months on end. When Richard Holbrooke
arrived at the United Nations in
1999,he said he was too busy getting a deal
to reduce American dues to focus on Iraq.
Later Holbrooke would acknowledge that
U.S.policy had reached a dead end.
Years were lost. Saddam Hussein is now
richer and more belligerent. And there is
still no policy but war.
The writer, UN bureau chieffor The New
York Times from 1994 to 2001, contributed
this comment to the International Herald
Tribune.
International Herald Tribune .
Tuesday, October 1, 2002,
2