Endgame for UNSCOM?

(Washington, D.C.): The UN Special Committee on Iraq (UNSCOM) is expected to
complete its
first pass through Saddam Hussein’s extensive array of so-called “presidential sites” this week.
These inspections are being cast as “baseline” visits, supplying the UN inspectors — and their
cadre of diplomatic minders — with data that can be compared with information acquired through
subsequent visits to these and other suspect Iraqi sites. Unfortunately, it appears
increasingly
likely that the completion of these visits will mark the beginning of the end of UNSCOM —
even though its job of ferreting out Saddam’s continuing, covert chemical, biological and
ballistic missile programs is far from finished.

Some ‘Spirit of Cooperation’

This concern has been intensified by remarks made to the Security Council last Monday by
UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler. Amb. Butler told the UN Security
Council that he was
encouraged by the “spirit of cooperation” exhibited by the Iraqis during presidential sites
inspections conducted pursuant to the deal struck by Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Worse yet, in a report published Tuesday, Butler asserted that Iraq’s cooperation with
UNSCOM’s inspections of the Iraqi presidential sites engenders “the appropriate environment for
the conduct and conclusion of the disarmament tasks.” (Emphasis added.) This
remark seems of
a piece with the upbeat assessments being supplied to the press (either officially or on
background) by other UN personnel.

Regrettably, such characterizations of Iraqi behavior are misleading in material ways. As one
of
the Nation’s foremost journalists — the former editor and now syndicated columnist of the
New
York Times, A.M. Rosenthal — noted in yesterday’s
editions:

“The truth is that after a few days [of the resumed inspections,] the Iraqis started
whittling down even the Annan-Saddam terms, designed to save the dictator’s dignity.
Iraqis began skipping appointments, losing keys to locked doors, protesting
against taking this picture or that, pushing surveillance so tight it risks
accidents.” (Emphasis added.)

A further dose of salts was administered on 30 March to those bullish about Saddam’s
new-found “cooperativeness” by Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Mr. Cohen warned:

“I think it would be unreasonable for anyone to expect that 20 or 30 or 40 inspectors
perusing through an area the size of Wyoming, some 170,000 square miles [of
presidential sites] looking through haystacks for chemically tipped, or biologically
tipped needles, munitions, is going to be successful.”

Success has been made even more problematic by virtue of the Potemkin character of
these
visits. Thanks to the opportunity afforded by Saddam’s months of obstructionism and stalling, his
minions have surely left no trace of the prohibited activities previously hidden in such presidential
complexes but now long-since relocated and reconcealed.

Not While Saddam’s in Power…

Mr. Rosenthal observes with characteristic verve:

“Once again, Saddam with the help of U.N. allies like China, Russia and France has
come out way ahead. As he has in every self-made crisis since the end of the gulf war,
he has gained prestige by suckering the U.S.

“First, Saddam gets away penalty-free for having tied up the inspection system
since last fall. Bigger: the system is revised to his taste, with a small army of
diplomats attached to inspect the professional inspectors. And, the kicker: When
inspectors finally entered suspect sites he had had more time than he needed to
move out suspicious documents and materials…”

The Bottom Line

The real problem, as the Center for Security Policy has repeatedly pointed out over the past
seven
years,⁽¹⁾ is not Saddam’s relative degree of compliance
yesterday or today. Rather it is certitude
that he will not comply tomorrow. The fact that the Iraqi despot
ultimately abandoned his last
act of defiance and made modest concessions in order to transform the UN Secretary General into
his new foil against the United States has little, if any, bearing on this ominous reality: If
allowed
to remain in power, Saddam will have chemical, biological, and in due course, nuclear
weapons and long-range ballistic missiles with which to deliver them long after UNSCOM
has gone out of business.

As A.M. Rosenthal put it:

“This time Saddam & Co. made the world concentrate on his campaign against the
sanctions instead of the core issue: that Saddam was and always will be a danger to
world peace. He has never foresworn the kind of aggression that brought the gulf
war, never deigned to conceal his plans to dominate the Middle East.” (Emphasis
added.)

Next we will see if Saddam has fooled UNSCOM into believing it has done its job,
a job it
is incapable of doing while the Butcher of Baghdad remains in power.

– 30 –

1. See for example the following Center products:
‘Serious Consequences’: If Clinton Means It,
Here’s the Alternative to His Failed Strategy of ‘Containing’ Saddam ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_33″>No. 98-D 33, 24
February 1998); Take Out Saddam ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_168″>No. 97-D 168, 10 November 1997); Unfinished
Business:
Christopher, Perry Depart But Saddam Abides — Will ‘Clinton II’ Finally Put Him Out of
Business? (No. 96-D 111, 8 November
1996); Overdue, Underdone: What the Air Strikes on
Iraq Should Have Been About, But Weren’t ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=93-D_06″>No.93-D 06, 13 January 1993); Getting Saddam:
The Most Important Foreign Policy Initiative in the ‘State of the Union’ Address
(No. 92-D
10, 26 January 1992); and On to Baghdad! Liberate Iraq ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=91-P_16″>No. 91-P 16, 27 February 1991).