|
|
|
TFF PressInfo 50
"The US-Iraqi conflict soap-opera is becoming a civilizational tragedy. The cock-fight between Tariq Aziz and Richard Butler is pathetic beyond words. The easy argument, held by Washington and its allies and uncritically promoted in leading media, is that Iraq must be punished for suspending cooperation with UNSCOM albeit it continues it with IAEA. But this whole inspection enterprise is founded on logical contradictions, and it is intellectually and ethically flawed. After years of inspection and sanctions, no solution is in sight, because there can be no solution down THIS road. The West never thought of how to end this conflict, and without a sanctions lifting plan, it's bound to produce more violence and create ever more hate against the Western world," states Dr. Jan Oberg, director of TFF. 1) UNSCOM searches not only for weapons of mass destruction but for the capacity to manufacture them. It looks for agents, components, research, development and manufacturing of materials necessary to produce the agents. Potentially every corner of the Iraqi society can be inspected as alleged chemical and biological weapons (CBW) sites are (also) civilian sites such as breweries, hospitals, fertilizer and pesticide plants, pharmaceutical industries, laboratories etc. It will always be debatable what is produced for civilian and for military purposes - if the distinction can be made. 2) It will NEVER be possible for UNSCOM to declare that there is not a single gram of material left in Iraq that can be used for (later) production of mass destructive weapons. Biological substances in particular can be hidden in small quantities on the ground, moved around constantly or deposited underground. Thus there is an argument for permanent inspection, motivated by 'assumptions', 'suspicion', 'indications' or 'reasons to believe' that some Iraqis hide something somewhere. Furthermore, whatever Iraq wants to hide, it can hide somewhere abroad. 3) Even if we imagine that UNSCOM would one day declare Iraq free of all weapons, materials and capacities and even if this could be empirically verified as true, Iraq could - and most likely would - make a decision to start from scratch again. Expert knowledge can not be destroyed by inspectors. 4) Thus, neither the UN nor the US can state clearly what the exact criteria are for Iraq to get the sanctions lifted. On October 30, the UN Security Council again failed to mention that sanctions could be negotiated or partially lifted, for instance in proportion to compliance and verification. No positive incentive, as seen by the Iraqis, exists. UNSC resolution 687 has so many demands, also beyond Articles 8 to 13, that something could always be brought up to prevent the lifting of sanctions. 5) According to UN reports, the sanctions have directly and indirectly already killed more than 1 million Iraqi citizens, while the Iraqi elite continues to live in luxury; WHO estimates that 250 to 300 people die per day in 1998. No aim, not even the wish to prevent proliferation of of nuclear and other mass destructive weapons, can justify this. Rather, given the social and political structure of the conflict, sanctions has become a mass destructive, genocidal weapon over these eight years. 6) The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are nuclear weapons states and have no intentions to become nuclear-free. The United States alone has some 10,000 intact warheads that will be unaffected by START I and II which prescribe only the destruction of launchers, not warheads. As long as this is so, there will ALWAYS be nuclear 'have-nots' who will try to join the club. 7) Iraq has neither tested nor used nuclear weapons. The United States has used and numerous times threatened the use of nuclear weapons since 1945. India and Pakistan went nuclear in May and Israel is known to have all it takes to go nuclear. India and Pakistan was punished by economic sanctions, but President Clinton has now decided to lift most of them already, allegedly because Pakistan faced a financial collapse and would consequently be unable to pay its international debt. Not only will Pakistan obtain new loans and a debt restructuring agreement with IMF, Pentagon will also resume military training programs in both countries. So much for the principle of equal treatment of threshold and de facto nuclear countries by the UN and Washington. 8) What triggered off the whole crisis was Iraq's aggression against Kuwait. Between 1945 and that event, some forty cases of aggression had taken place, most of them without being brought before the Security Council, including Saddam Hussein's popular invasion of Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran. The United States a few months ago committed a unilateral act of aggression by sending some 70 cruise missiles against Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan allegedly to defeat terrorists who were one supported by CIA. It defended the act by reference to Article 51 in the UN Charter about the right to self-defence. It also leads the planning of an attack against Yugoslavia in support of militant Kosovo-Albanian secessionism. And Turkey regularly invades Iraqi territory with impunity. 9) The United States and its allies have so far been conspicuously unable to explain convincingly their goals and priorities. Neither do they seem willing to identified where these goals may conflict or undermine each other: Does this whole enterprise aim to prevent Iraq forever from acquiring mass destructive weapons? Or just delay that event? If so, why only Iraq? Is the real purpose to topple Saddam Hussein and install some other leadership? To which extent is the Iraqi policies a consequence of US 'management' of the Israeli-Palestine-Arab conflict - and how does activities against Iraq vary with the Middle East 'peace' process? Is the free flow of oil, rather, the real issue? Is this a moral crusade against a 'rogue' state, an 'evil regime'? A variation on the theme of Christianity versus Islam? Is it part of what George Bush at the time called the new world order? 10) Ambassador Butler and others repeatedly refer to Security Council resolutions as "law" and that Iraq must keep what it has promised. However, Security Council members have repeatedly chosen not to abide by these laws or enforce them with friends when they saw fit. Furthermore, if one studies Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991, it can certainly be argued that it was formulated, in the heat of the moment, more to punish Iraq by stockpiling demands and dictates than to serve as a blueprint for fair cooperation that could lead, in the future, to Iraq's 'rehabilitation' in the eyes of the world. Says Jan Oberg: "Saddam Hussein is a murderous tyrant. But this can not forever be used as cover-up for fundamental, logical inconsistencies, lack of policy and for so many double standards. They are THE STUFF OUR BOMB THREATS ARE MADE OF. They give the Iraqi government surprisingly many points in the 'debate'. And bombing a military dwarf who can't threaten yourself is hardly a sign of statesmanship or wisdom. It's intellectual and moral bankruptcy. Just think of any young Iraqi boy or girl at the age of 15 or 20 today. What will they have learnt about the United States and the West? Some of their relatives have suffered or died, they themselves have been victims of sanctions - and Iraqi propaganda - for a good half of their lives. Their wish to become part of the 'modern world' has turned into hate, into potential future terrorism. The West is producing enemies and "clashes of civilisations" for the future. When Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are all gone, the rest of us will have to live with the consequences of their deeds. Bombings will not provide the West with a better policy. It will not make Saddam Hussein or the Iraqi people come our way. Psychology and the world just don't work that way. And the bombing threat is not much of a deterrent to a state that has been virtually disarmed and in which sanctions kill 300 civilians per day - something bombings hopefully will not do. The profound mistake since 1991 has been to see inspection as a one-way street. The Iraqis saw it as punishment, as dictates. But inspection requires cooperation, mutual trust. The Iraqis must be convinced that we are only there to halt the proliferation of mass destructive weapons AND that we do likewise with any threshold state while striving to become nuclear-free ourselves. But they cannot possible trust the US/West on that. The West, on its side, must be able to trust that the Iraqis do not cheat. We have no certainty of that and, without changing our policy, it is unlikely that we ever will. What is needed now is a plan that lifts some of the sanctions as a reward for what Iraq has complied with up till now and which defines the steps for lifting the rest. Iraq needs to trust the West AND the West is dependent on trusting Iraq. That's where conflict-resolution begins. And from there we can hope to achieve reconciliation between all the parties in the future," concludes Jan Oberg. November 12, 1998
 
|
