POLITICS-IRAQ: Stage Set for UN Chief’s Trip to Baghdad

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 1998 (IPS) - After days of haggling, the major U.N. powers agreed on a deal Tuesday to avert a military conflict with Iraq – which Secretary-General Kofi Annan will to present to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

“It is my hope that we can achieve a diplomatic solution that can result in the full implementation of Security Council resolutions,” Annan said in announcing his plans to travel to Iraq. He voiced confidence that he could deliver a deal to Baghdad which had the support of the 15-nation Security Council.

Annan, who has pushed for days to win approval from the Security Council to travel to Baghdad in an eleventh-hour bid to avert a U.S.-led military offensive, is ready to receive the Council’s nod on Wednesday, and will arrive on Friday. A U.N. advance team left for Baghdad Tuesday to prepare the way for his own visit, the secretary-general said.

The secretary-general, like his predecessor Javier Perez de Cuellar in 1991, probably has only a few days to convince Hussein to allow U.N. weapons inspectors working for the Special Commission (or UNSCOM) to have full access to eight presidential complexes. If Annan fails, U.N. officials say, there will be no further diplomatic efforts before any likely U.S. attack – which could come as early as next week.

Annan will depart clutching a delicate compromise developed after four rounds of talks with the ambassadors of the five veto- holding permanent Council members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

After the talks, Annan said, “I expect to arrive in Baghdad Friday with the full support of the entire Security Council.” But, he stressed, he had not required permission from any nation to undertake his diplomatic tasks – only that he wanted to have a consensus in the Council before beginning negotiations.

Diplomats from the five permanent member states remained tight- lipped Tuesday night after their consultations with Annan. U.N. sources told IPS that some elements of a compromise plan had been developed in recent days, which won at least some degree of grudging acceptance from the United States.

The sopurces revealed that, in the compromise plan, UNSCOM inspectors – whom Iraq accuses of bias and domination by U.S. officials – would be accompanied on visits to the eight presidential sites by diplomats from the five permanent members. But U.S. officials insist that the teams be controlled by UNSCOM, and all Council members have rejected an Iraqi attempt to limit inspections of the sites to 60 days.

After a meeting with top U.S. national security officials at the Pentagon, President Bill Clinton asserted that Washington is willing to allow diplomacy to work, but discounted any effort to find an “ambiguous third option” between full access to UNSCOM inspectors and the possible use of force.

“Iraq must agree, and soon, to free, full and unfettered access to these (suspected weapons) sites anywhere in the country,” Clinton said. “There can be no dilution or diminishment of the integrity of the inspection system that UNSCOM has put in place.”

During the past week, U.S. diplomats insisted that the United Nations could only offer symbolic concessions to Iraq, while ensuring that UNSCOM would be allowed to search the presidential sites for possible biological or chemical weapons.

However, France, Russia and China have urged that Iraq’s concerns about its sovereignty be reflected by having diplomats accompany some UNSCOM inspectors to the most sensitive sites, in a compromise dubbed ‘UNSCOM Plus’. Britain, the main U.S. ally on the Council, shifted its support to that option in recent days.

British Ambassador John Weston said Tuesday that the five countries had “conveyed to the secretary-general our agreed advice” for his negotiations in Baghdad. He asserted that Britain was “fully supportive” of Annan’s efforts. Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov added that there were no significant divisions among the five nations over how to deal with the crisis.

U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson, however, emerged from a meeting of the five ambassadors offering a more sombre assessment.

“The United States is supportive of (Annan’s) trip, we wish him well, but we reserve the right to disagree if the conclusion of the trip is not consistent with Security Council resolutions and our own national interests,” he said.

“So long as the negotiations take place in accordance with Security Council resolutions … his mission could be a positive one,” Richardson added. “But we reserve the right to an alternative conclusion.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. plan for military strikes on Iraq – dubbed Operation Desert Thunder – has not been a popular one among many of its former Gulf War allies, including Russia and most Arab states. Several Council members, including Russia and France, as well as the Non-Aligned Movement of developing nations, have urged Annan to travel to Baghdad to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

“We are going to face a hell of a problem” if the United States attacks, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told The Financial Times this week. “You will not find one leader who will say publicly, ‘We support the air strikes’.”

Some analysts doubted that even the United States prefered the military route, despite the planned deployment of up to 4,500 U.S. troops in the next few days. U.S. military officials told IPS that the Pentagon is still not ready to carry out air strikes on Iraqi military targets without also inflicting heavy ‘collateral damage’ – or the killing of civilians.

Nor is it guaranteed that air strikes will prod Iraq to comply with U.N. resolutions at a time when the nation has already borne more than seven years of international sanctions.

“An air campaign could indeed fail to achieve Iraqi compliance, and might even shift the political calculation in Baghdad’s favour,” argued Jeff Laurenti, executive director of policy studies for the United Nations Association of the United States.

“If Hussein’s regime survives the punishment from the air, the United States will have played its strongest card – perhaps emboldening Baghdad to renounce all cooperation with the United Nations and to dismantle all of UNSCOM’s monitoring equipment,” Laurenti added. An attack could also boost sympathy for ending U.N. sanctions, the lifting of which requires the verified dismantling of Iraq’s chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range weapons.

Clinton, however, emphasised that, even after a possible attack, the United States would attempt to contain Baghdad’s military threat by maintaining the sanctions. Already, he said Tuesday, the sanctions had denied the Iraqi regime of 110 billion dollars in lost revenues, which he claimed could have been spent on rebuilding Iraq’s military arsenal.

“If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by their knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the U.N. Security Council,” Clinton said.