Iraq has accepted a United Nations Security Council Resolution giving weapons inspectors sweeping new rights but allows many pretexts for the Bush administration to provoke a war. The resolution warns Iraq of “serious consequences” if it doesn’t comply – and the White House has made clear that anything it defines as a material breach will almost certainly mean a new war.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accepted the resolution’s terms on Nov. 13.
In a letter, Iraq’s UN ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri said Iraq would accept the resolution with “no conditions, no reservations.”
Hussein’s eldest son, Odai, also a member of the Iraqi National Assembly, had urged its acceptance as long as Arab experts were part of the inspections team. The team will be led by UN chief inspector Hans Blix, who is in charge of biological and chemical inspections, and Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is in charge of nuclear inspections. El Baradei said the IAEA in the past had “many inspectors from many Arab countries” and this was not a problem. Weapons inspectors are due to travel to Baghdad on Nov. 18.
Even though Iraq accepted the UN resolution there is great concern that the Bush administration is bent on pursuing war. Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and former chief of the UN’s food-for-oil program in Iraq, warned that resolution sets a double standard that applies to Iraq but not to other countries.
“It’s likely that at some point [U.S. ambassador to the UN] Negroponte will use confused wording to argue that Iraq is in material breach and the U.S. will say one thing and the rest of the world another,” Halliday said. “Many paragraphs of this new resolution are simply dripping with double standards – much in this resolution should apply to all states in the region violating Security Council resolutions and possessing weapons of mass destruction.”
Halliday, in a phone interview with the World, said the Bush administration has made clear it has no confidence in the inspections process. “Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney are war-mongers and just can’t wait to go to war,” he said, warning that the military build-up is happening right now. “I bumped into several hundred U.S. soldiers at Shannon Airport on their way to Kuwait,” he noted.
Halliday said the Security Council resolution is in breach of its own charter and international law by allowing the possibility of war.
“There is no law that allows that. There will be horrendous civilian casualties. Nobody worries about the Iraqi lives, the infrastructure. They are planning crimes against humanity.”
The Bush administration, somewhat concerned about the growing peace sentiment in the U.S., has set up a new group, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), whose purpose is to sell war on Iraq, along with “regime change,” to the American public. The Washington Post quotes a White House spokesman describing the CLI as a “new phase” in the administration’s attempts to build fresh public support for war on Iraq.
The CLI is a “who’s who” of corporate executives and other hawks with an interest in war. Chaired by Bruce Johnson, a former director of international development for Lockheed Martin, CLI’s other members include former Secretary of State George Shultz, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), former senator Bob Kerry, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and deputy advisor Stephen Hadley.
More Americans are seeing the danger of Bush’s war plans and expressing opposition, Halliday believes. There is no threat from Iraq, and it is clear this is a war about the control of Iraqi oil, and nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, he said.
Halliday urged loyal Americans to stand up for peace and contact their Congressional representatives. This administration has to understand people “will not tolerate another war for oil and gas,” he said.
World opinion has been consistently against the war. Most recently, one of the largest anti-war demonstrations yet was held in Italy, Nov. 9, where organizers reported a million people converged on Florence to peacefully protest against any war on Iraq.
Reuters reported the demonstration was “multi-generational with university age students, older political activists, thousands of trade unionists, World War II partisans and a U.S. Vietnam war veteran who marched in the first row of the crowd.” People came from all over Europe, and parents brought their children. Florence residents greeted the demonstrators. One 12-year-old, watching with her family from the side of the road, told reporters, “This is amazing, it’s so impressive. I’m happy and proud that my city is holding this.”
The demonstration, planned in advance of the Security Council vote, gained added relevance because it took place a day after the UN action. Demonstrators made clear their demand was no war with Iraq, with or without the Security Council’s approval.
The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org
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