U.N. Inspectors In Iraq May Meet Up With .... American Troops!
by DEBKAfile
17 September 2002
Iraqs offer to unconditionally re-admit the UN arms inspectors thrown out four years ago has forged cracks in the UN Security Council, but not deflected the Bush administrations determination to remove the regime the US president called barbaric when he addressed a fund-raiser in Nashville, Tennessee, Tuesday, September 17. Taunting the world body, he said: It is time to decide if it is a united nations or a league of nations; a force for peace or a debating society.
In New York, meanwhile,US secretary of state Colin Powell and Russian foreign
minister Igor Ivanov glared at each other across the circular Security Council
table. Powell demanded a new resolution to lay out in full the conditions for
the inspectors return and force Iraq to comply with the promises it has
broken in 11 years, or face the consequences; Ivanov dismissed the need for
any more resolutions, urging the council to focus on getting the arms inspectors
back into Iraq as soon as possible.
Moscows posture means Washington will have a rough ride to UN endorsement
of military action and may not make it, throwing the president back on
his earlier statement to the world body that, if necessary, America would go
it alone. Some of the waverers were impressed enough then to begin to form up
behind Washington. Saudi Arabia explicitly consented to the use of its bases
for a UN-mandated attack on Baghdad, a notable gesture given that the Saudis
spoke also for Egypt. France, the leading European waverer, might also have
come aboard.
However, Baghdads inspectors exercise has yanked all three
back, a calculated outcome, because Saddam is loath to lose them to the American
side. For Saddam, it is not just a matter of blunting the American military
threat, but a case of preparing his fences for when the Americans get him in
a tight corner. He is saving those allies for that moment, counting on them
to negotiate terms for extricating him and his family.
Notwithstanding the poor psychological profiles often painted for him, Saddam
Hussein is above all a realist. He is also deeply influenced by Muslim military
thinking which holds that, when a Muslim general runs into an unbroken wall
of resistance that he cannot overcome, it is his duty to effect a tactical retreat.
At the first crack in the wall, however, he is bound to resume his attack. This
tenet explains why, after four years of fighting off the return of the arms
inspectors tooth and nail, Saddam abruptly relented. He did so when he ran into
the unbroken wall of the George Bushs determination. Meanwhile, he is
wily enough to appreciate that the palaver over conditions for the arms inspectors
to return to Iraq will give him time enough to hide his forbidden weapons and
equipment either in the country or across the border, until the heat
dies down, possibly even to Iran. When the inspectors have finished their task
or had enough, he will bring the equipment back and resume full production of
weapons of mass destruction, just as he did the moment he saw the backs of the
arms inspectors in 1998.
The Iraqi dictator has drawn what he believes are useful lessons from observing
the ways the Bush administration carries out its objectives. The US president
vowed to destroy Osama Bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban. Bin Laden has dropped
out of sight, removing himself like a good Muslim general from the range of
a determined enemy, but al Qaeda and the Taliban are far from finished. In June,
Bush declared the Palestinian people deserve a new leadership in place of Arafat
and his cronies. Yet four months later, after the Israeli armed forces severely
crippled the Palestinian terror infrastructure, Arafat and his henchmen continue
to sit in state in his Ramallah government compound. Saddam therefore hopes
against hope that he too will survive the mighty American war machine if he
acts prudently.
What he has succeeded in doing by his volte face on the UN arms
inspectors is to throw in doubt UN endorsement for US military action. But even
if the security council adopts the Russian view and sends the inspectors back,
the Americans will almost certainly press ahead with the campaign they have
begun. It is clear to Washington that the Russians, like the Saudis and French,
are not seriously intent on holding the Americans back, but rather trying to
get them over a barrel on the post-war share-out of the spoils of victory. The
name of this game is oil.
So, while the haggling centers on the conditions under which an American offensive
against Baghdad is permissible, no one lifts a finger, including Saddam, to
stop US and British warplanes from destroying one by one Iraqs air force
and air defenses command and control centers an operation that DEBKAfile
first began tracking in early August and which US secretary of defense Donald
Rumsfeld confirmed on Monday September 16. The US-led air force is also systematically
wiping out the command and communications centers of Iraqs missile units
and its air fleet for delivering chemical and biological warfare materials.
These raids answer only one description: acts of
war. The same term applies to the buildup of US, British, Turkish
and Jordanian special forces in northern and western Iraq, and their advance
up to the hills overlooking the two northern oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
The diplomatic fur may continue to fly, but so too will the military operations.
[Emphasis added]