IRAQ---UN Inspections as Pretext for War

During the period going into the 1991 Gulf War, many in the anti-war/peace movement wanted to "give the sanctions a chance to work" as an alternative to war on Iraq. What's come of the sanctions has been the increased suffering of the Iraqi people. Instead of being an alternative to war, the sanctions paved the way for war and continue to inflict horrors on the Iraqi people to this day.

Now as the U.S. government prepares for Gulf War 2, many are pinning their hopes to avert this on the UN Security Council. The UN has implemented an unprecedented weapons inspection program in Iraq. Some hope the inspection process will help avert war both by peacefully disarming or verifying the disarmament of Iraq, and by seeming to give the international community at least a degree of veto power over U.S. war plans. Will the United Nations Security Council stop Bush from going to war against Iraq? The short answer is NO.

First and very importantly, UN resolution 1441, the authorization for the new inspections, is written so that it is impossible for Iraq to meet every demand. Those who now say "give inspections a chance" will find themselves helping to prepare the ground for the governments next argument: "We gave inspections a chance. Iraq did not comply. Now war is necessary and justified." The U.S. has for years waged a campaign to convince people of the threat posed by Saddam's "arsenal." Many have seen through the U.S.'s flimsy claims. The claimed links between Iraq and al-Qaida have proven to be lies. Mohamed El Baradei, the chief atomic weapons inspector, reported that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program. There is no proof that Iraq, devastated after the 1991 Gulf War, has threatened anyone in the last ten years.

The United States government is the most dangerous on the planet with an official strategy of pre-emptive war and a history of use of nuclear weapons. Remember the U.S. remains the only country to actually have used nukes-twice.

Resolution 1441 was adopted under extreme pressure by the U.S., including the threat of U.S. pre-emptive war on Iraq. This threat continues under 1441. The resolution carries forward and legitimizes this threat. The U.S. government insists that UN agents be allowed to spy throughout Hussein's own residences-the international equivalent of a cavity search. On January 27th the UN inspectors gave the Security Council a report on their discoveries after two months, they found only 11 old empty chemical warheads. The U.S. response was that this only proved that Iraq was hiding something. The UN has stripped Iraq of all national sovereignty and accepts the absurd claim that Iraq is a threat to the world.

This opens the door to exposure of the UN process itself which in turn has political and diplomatic consequences. The U.S. controls the UN and finds it very useful to legitimize its interests. Much is being made of German and France's supposed opposition to war in Iraq. What is at stake for the European powers is much more than oil or money. They risk being frozen out of exploiting the third world. Their differences with the U.S., while a welcome spoke in the wheels of the U.S. juggernaut, presents a potential trap for many anti-war forces. The European powers have no problem with great powers dictating to Iraq. Any differences within the members of the UN are largely disputes over how much each of them will get. Germany has done quite a bit to help this war by pacifying its own people and by allowing the U.S. to use Germany as a forward staging area for the invasion of Iraq. France's nuclear aircraft carrier is currently carrying out joint exercises with the U.S. Navy in Middle Eastern waters. Its air force is rapidly being retrofitted with communications and other devices that would make it compatible with American warplanes in battle. We cannot rely on any exposure or disagreement in the UN to stop or effectively oppose a U.S. war on Iraq.

What makes the U.S. threat of unilateral war effective is the unprecendented might of U.S. military power. Recall the 1999 war on Yugoslavia. The U.S. demanded NATO occupation of Kosovo and then bombed its way in, triggering a worse humanitarian disaster than the one it claimed to be trying to stop. The UN was ignored at that time because it was not the best institutional framework to carry out U.S. objectives. The U.S. is preparing all out war no matter what. This is the reality of the guise of "disarming Saddam." Even if Iraq, like Israel, had 200 nukes and refused to give them up, no war or sanctions on Iraq would be justified.

How do inspections serve this U.S. war directly? For one thing, they directly interfere with Iraqi defensive preparations through forcing Iraq to accept inspection anywhere at any time. Inspectors have access to all of Iraq whether or not there is anything to do with "banned" weapons programs. The U.S. has access to all inspection data as well as to Iraqi scientists. It is very revealing the way the U.S. seized Iraq's December 8 Declaration and took it to Washington DC for "copying" before the Security council itself gained access. Iraq has no power to object to any of this. Notable also are the new "no drive" zones which in combination with the decades long "no fly" zones also serve to interfere with Iraqi defense and directly furthers the U.S. war plans. Any attempt by Iraq to conceal its defense preparations could be the "material breach" used to justify and trigger the war. A classic Catch-22.

The inspection process has worked. Inspections have given the U.S. a chance to claim that it tried to resolve the situation by peaceful means, thus paving the way for and justifying U.S. war on Iraq.

What is true is that inspections could never "work" in the sense of achieving the U.S. aims in Iraq, what it calls "regime change," meaning the replacement of Saddam Hussein by a pro-U.S. puppet (possibly U.S. General Tommy Franks).

The U.S. is talking seriously about stationing 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq for years to come. There is however another element that they seriously underestimate-the desire for peace, hatred of the U.S. government and fierce resistance of the people all over the world.