Hardly anyone argues that Saddam Hussein’s addiction to weapons of mass destruction, his history of aggression, and his connections to terrorists don’t pose a grave threat. Yet obvious as these points are, peacemongers and the leaders of France and Germany have managed to raise the level of noise over whether to go to war to disarm Iraq to such a pitch that reasoned discussion seems impossible. Still, I’ll give it a try.
At the end of last summer, President George W. Bush acceded to the requests of Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac, followed the advice of Colin Powell and Tony Blair, and went to New York to get the United Nations’ imprimatur to disarm Iraq. The Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441. Among other things, it put inspectors back into Iraq after four long years.
Since then, many seem to have lost sight of the fact that getting inspectors back into Iraq was not the objective of 1441 — disarmament was. That the inspectors have not yet found a “smoking gun” is evidence in and of itself of Iraq’s failure to disarm. Iraq has had 12 years to design its programs so they can proceed in an environment of inspections, and they are experts at denial and deception. The return of inspectors has provided no assurance whatsoever of Iraqi disarmament. On the contrary, it has given false comfort that Saddam is somehow “contained.”
Saddam is playing to type, giving just enough here and there to appear to be cooperating, all while hiding his weapons. Yet Blix, backed by Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, calls this progress: The number of Iraqi minders per inspector has been reduced from five down to one; Saddam has allowed seven of the 3,896 scientists listed as having a role in Iraq’s weapons programs to be interviewed, albeit in downtown Baghdad where they and their families may be subject to torture and execution; and Iraq finally passed a law banning weapons of mass destruction.
These were Blix’s best points. Incredibly, he even downplayed the discovery of 17 “empty” chemical warheads. What Blix failed to mention is that empty is the only way to store these weapons as they were not designed to store chemicals for long periods.
Resolution 1441 clearly states that this is Iraq’s final opportunity to disarm. When the United Nations makes a statement like that, it puts its credibility on the line. To understand what’s at stake, it’s worth recalling the history of the League of Nations: After the invasion of Abyssinia, the League collapsed because member states were not willing to back up their declarations with consequences. That lesson was summed up by Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King who declared “collective bluffing cannot bring about collective security.” The question is whether the world has learned that lesson.
You can’t rationalize people out of things they didn’t rationalize themselves into in the first place: If for the sake of peace at any cost, France is determined to veto any resolution to disarm Iraq by force, and in the process allows the U.N. to become an ineffective, irrelevant debating society, so be it. Either way, Bush and the nations that are willing to help must enforce Resolution 1441 and disarm Iraq militarily because the risks of inaction are simply too high.