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
posing Basra Sheraton. The cashier
there still stamps a Sheraton logo on
each bill,
The Basra airport, a cavernous building
designed to accommodate thou-
.sands of international travelers, has re~
opened - to handle two domeStië
flights a day. The duty-free shop, too,
" has' come back to life, hawking perfumes,
spirits and an odd assortment of
leather jackets to Baghdad-bound travelers.
, Getting out of the country no longer
requires a lo-hour road trip to the Jordanian
capital, Amman. Royal Jordania~
Airlinesnow zips, into Baghdad fo~r'
timesa week. And a charter carrier,
called Gulf Air Falcon flies to Syria using
a 747that is unmarked except for an
Arabic inscription stating, "We fly by
the grace of God." ,
Today, Baghdad's markets are almost
as well stocked as they were before
sanctioBl!, thanks to vibrant smuggling
rackets with neighboring countries.
There are late-model Pentium-powered
computers from Jordan, ice-cream bars
from Syria, cosmetics from Thrkey,
,Coke from Saudi Arabia and electronics
from Asia by way of the United Arab
Emirates.
, On Thursday mornin~, warplanes
from the U.S.-British coalition attacked
a radar installation at the Basra airport.
The Pentagon contends', the radar
tracked coalition aircraft, but Iraq says
it was used only for civil aviation. Iraq
accused the United States of a similar
attack on Sunday. Now, officials here
said, the Iraqi Airways planes will have
to land at Basra without radar. But that
still does not worry Iraqi travelers.
"After all we've been through, this is
nothing," said an Iraqi journalist who is
planning to fly to Basra soon. "It is normal"
Saddam's UNgambit
Inspection deal clouds Bush's options
By Glenn Kessler
The Wlshlngton l'ost
WASHINGTON: With Iraq's decision
to agree to new weapons inspections,
the White House faces difficult choices
and complex diplomacy as it races to
complete action on both a UN resolution
and congressional authorization
for militaryaction.
NEWS
ln the three weeks
-----.- since President
AnalYSIS George W. Bush's
, speech to the United
, Nations, the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein,
has proven adept at staying one
, step ahead of the Bush administration's '
campaign to, isolate him. The agree-
, menLTuesclay between Iraq and the
United ,Nations in Vienna, which is
, based on an earlier UN resolution the
U.S. says is flawed, may be an example
of that skill
The agreement will strengthen the
negotiating position of Russia and
France, two permanent members of the ,
Security Council that have pushed new
inspections as a first step to resolve the
crisis. Even under the timetable of a
new resolution sought by the United
States, Saddam conceivably could drag'
out the process f~r months., ' "
Confronted with this scenario, the
administration now must take its fight
to the Security Council, where it will
press a resolution aiming to cut short
Saddam's delaying tactics and to
provide an international imprimatur to,
possible militaryaction. It also must
resolve tensions at the highest levels of
the government that have complicated
the diplomacy of the past three weeks.
The diplomatic dance over inspections
obscures the larger context of the
debate in the United Nations: ne
United States appears to view the inspections
process as a path to war,
while Iraq and other nations hope to
use inspections to thwart war. Russia
and France, in particular, appear to be
testing the limits of the adQlinistration's
willingness to take unilateral ac-
'tion to remove Saddam. '
Outsicle the United States and possibly
Britain, there is little support for regime
change, the stated goal of the Bush
administration. lndeed, the White
House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, on
~y openly invited the assassina-
'tWn6f Saddam by the Iraqi people, just
,one day after the. French foreign minister
argued in, a newspaper column
that regime éhangt}was immoral
The administrat:bn~'iees the new Security
Council resolution as a building
block to' a militarycliû1pajgn against
Iraq.
Many officials believe even a tough
new inspections regime will fail, per- '
mitting U.S. militaryaction under the
guise of an international coalition. UN
backing will also make it easier for the
United States to negotiate deals with
countries in the region, such as Thrkey,
Jordan and Saudi Arabia, since the price,
for their cooperation will surely go up if
Washington decides to, take action
without UN approval
But many other countries want to
avoid a war and hope that inspections
will actually result in Iraq's disarmament,
or at least enough progress in exposing
Saddam's weapons programs
that the United St~tes is unable to act.
'For'these differing reasons, there appears
to be a growing consensus within ,
the Security Council for some sort of
new resolution, although opinion, differs
on its precise language.
France has pushed for a two-step approach.The
first step would be to determine
if tough inspections resultin Iraq
compliance. A second resolution would
deal with the consequences - such as a
military attack - if Iraq failed to cooperate
with the first resolution.
The United States, in contrast, is
pushing for a one-step resolution that
would find Iraq in "material breach" of
previous resolutions, demand tough inspections
anywhere and anytime in '
Iraq and threaten consequences if Iraq
does not comply.
Patrick Clawson, deputy director of
the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, ,saict .Ule U.S. resc;>lution appeared
cleverly drawn to ~ddress some
of the concerns of other members of the
Security Council
He noted, for instance, that the Russians
had long complained that the 1998
resolution on weapons inspections was
, .
too vague and needed to be clarified.
In the end, many U.S. officials are
convinced that, with enough pressure,
both France and Russia will eventually
agree to accept a U.S. military strike, if
only to participate in the riches of a
post-Saddam Iraq.
Ivo Daalder, a former Clinton administration
official at the Brookings Institution,
.said that France and Russia will
continue to test the U.S. position until it
appears they are thwarting an international
consensus on the issue. "They will
fold at the moment the problem,becomes
them and not the United States," he said
Yet an added complexity for the administration's
strategy is that the administration
still does not appear to be
united on its approach. In retrospect,
analysts and administration officials
say, the president's Sept. 12 speech did ,
not settle the administration debate'
over Iraq policy, but instead has intensified
it. Some officials, especially in the
Pentagon, are still wary of being too
tied to the UN route;
,International Herald Tribune,
Thursday, October 3, 2002
5