POLITICS-IRAQ: Latest Crisis Brings Sense of Deja Vu

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 5 1998 (IPS) - UN reaction to clear indications that Iraq intends to oppose the work of weapons inspectors there was demonstrated best by the UN team’s chief, Richard Butler, as he evaded reporters’ questions about a new crisis with the quip, “What’s that? Can’t hear you!”

Having narrowly evaded a military standoff in February, prompted when Baghdad refused UN inspections of Iraqi presidential palaces and then briefly evicted the team, the United Nations is in no mood for another crisis.

“There’s a syndrome…(in which) we’ve been going around the same track again and again,” Butler told reporters Wednesday after returning from the latest in a series of inconclusive meetings in Baghdad with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

Butler failed to persuade Aziz to speed up efforts to provide his team, the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), with key information about biological, chemical and missile programmes which Baghdad claims it has destroyed – but whose scrapping must be verified before the UN Security Council can lift eight-year-old sanctions.

Aziz said that Iraq has completed its work in providing information about the weapons programmes, and argued there was no need for further discussions before sanctions could be lifted.

On Wednesday, UN officials confirmed that Aziz had sent a 50- page letter requesting chances in how UNSCOM will perform its disarmament tasks. Iraq “wants to restructure the way we do our business with them,” Butler conceded, although he added that the letter would need to be studied, and that the 15-nation Security Council would likely be the one to respond.

According to several sources, the letter asks for UNSCOM to shift its headquarters from the main UN building in New York to the UN office in Geneva, or Vienna – in an apparent reflection of Iraqi suspicions that the United States, the main supporter of sanctions, is influencing the team’s work.

The letter also reiterates demands, previously voiced during last winter’s standoff, that US representation on UNSCOM be reduced and Iraq’s presence during inspections be increased. The Security Council and Butler have repeatedly rebuffed such requests in the past, denying that any nation has undue influence with the weapons inspectors.

Amid renewed Iraqi frustration that the prospects for ending sanctions have barely improved and a domestic political crisis in the United States – in which allegations of perjury and a sexual affair have embarrassed President Bill Clinton – the breakdown in talks between Butler and Aziz could herald the start of a new crisis.

However, despite the grim mood of this week’s talks in Baghdad, all sides seem keen to avoid even the appearance of heightened conflict.

“We’ve been round this track before,” Butler said, adding testily that the one certainty is that “there will be no reduction in disarmament requirements”.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who resolved the February crisis by brokering an agreement with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, dismissed the latest problems as “a major hiccup, but a hiccup that we can overcome, I hope”.

Even US officials have taken a more muted tone than over the past winter, when Clinton dispatched thousands of troops to the region and signalled the likelihood of US air strikes if the standoff lasted. White House spokesman P.J. Crowley merely threatened that the present standoff “leaves Iraq further from what Saddam Hussein says his goals are, which is relief from the sanctions”.

The most likely outcome of the crisis so far is that the next Security Council review of sanctions, due in October, will conclude that there is no reason to ease up on the embargo. That may anger Hussein – who threatened repercussions if sanctions do not end within this year – but UN officials currently doubt it will impede UNSCOM’s normal work. Butler said the teams would go out on their normal tasks this week.

Even Iraqi supporters, including permanent Security Council members Russia and France, urged greater cooperation from the Iraqis. (At least one Russian diplomat here, however, complained privately that UNSCOM shares some of the blame for not giving Baghdad due recognition for the progress it has made on weapons requirements.)

During the spring, Iraq’s cooperation with UNSCOM had improved, with a special diplomatic team on the ground to ensure that the inspection of presidential sites would not offend Baghdad’s sensitivities. In June, Butler drew up a plan of accelerated work which he hinted could speed up the lifting of sanctions.

By June, however, an UNSCOM report revealed that Baghdad had placed toxic VX agent on missile warheads, a charge Iraq had denied. More recently, work on the biological and chemical areas slowed, an International Atomic Energy Agency report on nuclear weapons noted Iraqi non-cooperation in some areas, and Baghdad began once more to criticise the UN inspectors of bias.

For now, the muted tone of the present complaints indicates that neither the United Nations nor Iraq wants to lose entirely the improved tone since February. Washington and Baghdad both seem wary of renewed military tensions – which may be the best hope that this time, the rhetoric on all sides will give way to fresh compromises.