UN Inspections Are A Side-Show
by Milan Rai
Dissident Voice
December 22, 2002
The presence of
weapons inspectors in Iraq could delay and perhaps derail the US drive to war,
therefore they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, so far as the
US is concerned.
A top US Senate
foreign policy aide observed in May 2002 that: "The White House's biggest
fear is that UN weapons inspectors will be allowed to go in."
When he
addressed the UN General Assembly on 12 September, President George W Bush
demanded the elimination of "all weapons of mass destruction, long-range
missiles, and all related material" in Iraq, "if the Iraqi regime
wishes peace."
He also demanded
an end to Iraqi "support for terrorism", an end to Iraq's
"persecution of its civilian population", and an end to the oil
smuggling which is the lifeblood of the regime.
Nowhere did the
president demand or even mention the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq.
The message
seemed to be that even if weapons inspectors were re-admitted, the US could
find another justification for a war against Iraq.
Pressure
Secretary of
State Colin Powell said in May, "US policy is that regardless of what the
inspectors do, the people of Iraq and the people of the region would be better
off with a different regime in Baghdad. The United States reserves its option
to do whatever it believes might be appropriate to see if there can be a regime
change."
There is
pressure on UN weapons inspectors to instigate a confrontation that can be used
to justify war, perhaps over the US demand that inspectors take weapons
scientists and their families out of Iraq for questioning (where they will be
offered asylum by the US).
Iraq is expected
to refuse to permit this, creating a ''justification" for war.
Chief weapons
inspector Hans Blix is reluctant, having said: "We are not going to abduct
anyone. The UN is not a defection agency."
The abduction of
scientists is not necessary to verify whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction, but disarmament is not the goal. The US goal is to bring about the
replacement of Saddam Hussein.
Regime change
Thomas Friedman,
diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, said in July 1991 that economic
sanctions would continue until there was a military coup which would create
"the best of all worlds": "an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without
Saddam Hussein".
A return to the
days when Saddam Hussein's "iron first" held Iraq together,
"much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi
Arabia". This is not "regime change"; this is "regime
stabilisation/leadership change."
In October, Ari
Fleischer, White House spokesperson, tried to deflect a question about the
multi-billion-dollar cost of a US invasion by observing that the expense of a
war on Iraq could be saved by the "cost of a bullet". Asked if he was
calling for Saddam Hussein to be assassinated, in contravention of US law, Mr
Fleischer said, regime change was welcome "in whatever form it
takes".
This clarifies
the meaning of "regime change" beautifully: delete the Supreme
Leader, and slot in another Iraqi general in his stead.
In this
viewpoint section on 12 December, Daniel Neep of the Royal United Services
Institute commented that, in the event of war: "The ideal scenario is
someone within Iraq, preferably within the army, killing Saddam and taking
control. That would mean that entering Baghdad would not be necessary and would
also solve the problem of who will govern once he has gone."
The search for a
replacement for the Supreme Leader has not gone well. The exiled general
possessing the most "credibility" with the Iraqi military, General
Nizar al- Khazraji, is being investigated in Denmark in connection with the war
crime of gassing 5,000 Kurds in 1988.
Another US
favourite is Brigadier General Najib al-Salhi, who has called for multi-party
democracy in Iraq. The general rather gave the game away, however, when he
stressed the need to encourage Iraqi military leaders to switch sides by
promising that no more than 20 of Saddam's closest henchmen would be treated as
criminals by a new Iraqi Government.
The United States
is not committed to the weapons inspection process, has never called for the
return of weapons inspectors, and is interested in the inspectors only insofar
as they can be manipulated into creating a war crisis.
That war has as
its immediate goal the assassination and replacement of Saddam Hussein and his
immediate entourage, and a continuation of the same regime (with minor
modifications).
"Regime
stabilisation with leadership change" will reinforce the stability of
Washington's clients in the region, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and re-establish
US dominance of Iraq's huge oil wealth.
This is a deeply
cynical exercise, as well as being illegal and immoral.
Milan Rai is author of War Plan Iraq: Ten Reasons Against War
(Verso, 2002) and a member of Active Resistance to the
Roots of War (Arrow). He is
also co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness UK, which has worked for the
lifting of UN sanctions in Iraq.