POLITICS-IRAQ: No War Talk in New Weapons Standoff

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 1998 (IPS) - The last time Iraq defied U.N. weapons inspectors, the United States prepared a massive troop buildup in the Middle East; this time, U.S. diplomats are threatening to extend U.N. sanctions while avoiding any talk of war.

That distinction is just one of many signs of how recent months have favoured Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as he deploys a policy of occasional cooperation with the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM), punctuated by periodic crises, to push for the lifting of the eight-year-old UN embargo.

In February, the Security Council responded to the last Iraqi standoff with UNSCOM by threatening “serious consequences” if Baghdad violated a Feb. 24 agreement signed by U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

At that time, one Western diplomat said, there was “no need for an academic discussion” about what the Council meant by serious consequences. Nearly 300 U.S. warplanes and two aircraft carrier battlegroups were stationed in the region to execute military strikes if Baghdad did not allow the UNSCOM teams to inspect several presidential palaces suspected of containing information about prohibited weapons programmes.

The same diplomat argued, however, “there has been no specific discussion of ‘serious consequences’ this time.” In fact, the 15- nation Security Council did not even rule that the suspension this week of Iraq’s cooperation with UNSCOM – which has halted UN inspections of Iraqi sites since Thursday – violated the February agreement.

The Iraqi suspension, said Security Council President Danilo Turk of Slovenia, “is totally unacceptable. It contravenes the relevant Security Council resolutions and the Memorandum of Understanding signed in February” by Annan and Aziz.

Turk’s statement, which was negotiated by the Security Council on Thursday, only said that Iraq’s announcement “contravenes” – but does not “violate” – the February agreement, a Council ambassador noted. Council diplomats, the ambassador added, believed there was a distinction between the two terms, since Iraq has not taken any action to abolish or expel U.N. inspectors, as happened last winter.

Not only are diplomatic niceties helping to prevent any excuse for a new military conflict in the Persian Gulf; the governments most involved in dealing with the crisis here also obviously lack the appetite for an escalation.

“The issue can only be settled through dialogue and negotiations,” argued Ambassador Qin Huasun of China, who lauded Annan’s plans to intensify negotiations with Iraq and begin a comprehensive review of UN-Iraq relations.

Even Washington has made it clear that there is no need now for U.S. troops to return to their February troop levels in the region. “We are not going to be goaded by Iraq, or any other irresponsible nation” into any hasty actions, U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson said. “We want this crisis resolved.”

Other American officials suspect Hussein may want a military escalation, which could in turn “provoke some kind of response which would allow him to create diversions and perhaps lessen support for the sanctions,” according to State Department spokesman James Foley. “We’re not going to play into his hands.”

At the root of the U.S. response is an awareness that the Iraqi government seized the diplomatic advantage as a result of the winter standoff. That crisis prodded Annan to take a direct role in defusing military tensions – and thus shifted some of the responsibility for UNSCOM affairs from the Security Council to the secretary-general, a key achievement for Baghdad.

More importantly, nations spanning from Russia and France to Arab states swung their support behind Iraq. Many Middle Eastern governments complained that the United States was threatening military strikes over the inspections issue while ignoring what they deemed were Israel’s violations of the 1993 Israeli- Palestinian peace accords.

If charges of double standards undercut support for the US buildup last winter, they could be even more crippling now. Some diplomats here argue that, if many Western nations were unwilling to threaten anything more than limited economic repercussions following India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May, those nations would be on shaky ground to punish Iraq more strongly at a time when its weapons threat has diminished.

Yet Iraq does face at least one clear form of punishment: As long as Baghdad starts and stops cooperation with the weapons inspectors at will, the Council will not ease or lift sanctions – leading, Richardson claimed, to “sanctions in perpetuity”.

Baghdad’s clear hope is that the frustration over how to accomplish the relatively few disarmament tasks that remain before sanctions can end will result in a new push to re-examine ways of easing the embargo. Already, some UN diplomats are suggesting that some UNSCOM weapons monitoring tasks can occur at the same time that the sanctions are gradually phased out.

Annan’s own call for a review of all the outstanding issues may lead to a greater consideration of other steps that could lead to the easing of the ruinous sanctions regime.

Some diplomats would like to see U.N. meetings at which all Iraq-UN concerns – from sanctions to disarmament to the recent ‘oil-for-food’ deal to allow Iraq limited oil sales – could be discussed. Others are stressing that Baghdad need not provide all the information on every weapons programme to win the lifting of sanctions.

As long as the United States and Britain – both of whom hold veto power in the Council – stand firm against easing sanctions, much of the debate is not likely to go far. But the very fact that Iraq’s latest complaints have resulted in a discussion about what it can be offered – and not in whether it will be attacked – shows how far Baghdad has come in the span of one year.