Conservative Voice

Author: Brian Vito

"Iraq has not taken the last chance offered to it by the council," said Ambassador of Cameroon Martin Belinga Eboutou. It's time the U.N. Security Council kept its word: give Iraq no more chances. After 12 years of inspections, although it has not been a continuous 12 years because of Iraqi hindrances, there still exist, according to reports from U.N. inspectors, "550 artillery shells with mustard [gas], 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents [and] 6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war ... the amount of chemical agent in them would be in the order of 1,000 tons." During the period of inspections, Iraq not only has failed to comply with the direct order to disarm, but it has lied and cheated consistently. It took years of persuasion and threats to convince Iraq to admit that it produced four tons of VX nerve agent, a chemical that can kill with only one drop. The United Nations conservatively estimates that Iraq has between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons available to it that it has not surrendered to inspectors. These statistics alone show direct, unmistakable noncompliance despite a decade of inspections. U.N. Resolution 1441 states that "false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and co-operate fully, in the implementation of this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations."
What are Iraq's obligations? Here is a brief look at some of the other U.N. resolutions: 1) UNSCR 707, Aug. 15, 1991, ordered Iraq "not to move or attempt to hide anything relating to its nuclear, chemical or biological programmes"; and 2) UNSCR 1284, Dec. 17, 1999, ordered that "Iraq was ... to allow United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) immediate and unconditional access to any weapons sites and facilities." Iraq has been giving inspectors false information or simply no information and has not allowed access (or even admitted) to significant portions of its known weapons stockpile. Inspections have been unable to account for everything because Iraq has not followed through on its obligations, and after 12 years it is unreasonable and hopelessly idealistic to expect Iraq to change this precedent of noncompliance and trickery.
Colin Powell states, "If Iraq genuinely wanted to disarm, we would not have to be worrying about setting up means of looking for mobile biological units or any units of that kind. They would be presented to us. We would not need an extensive program to search for and look for underground facilities that we know exist. The very fact that we must make these requests seems to me to show that Iraq is still not cooperating. The inspectors should not have to look under every rock, go to every crossroad, peer into every cave for evidence, for proof." When discussing the most recent inspectors' report to the United Nations, the United States found nearly 30 occasions where Iraq refused to provide credible evidence supporting its claims of disarmament. Powell concludes, "Now is the time for the council to tell Saddam that the clock has not been stopped by his stratagems and his machinations ... The clock continues to tick, and the consequences of Saddam Hussein['s] continued refusal to disarm will be very, very real." Twelve years.
Do we need to wait another 12 years only to find that we have experienced nothing but lies, delay tactics and illegal, noncompliant behavior from Iraq?
Iraq simply cannot be trusted to abide by its obligations, not now and not in the future. Its record speaks for itself. Now is the time to end this decade of Iraq's abuse of the United Nations and establish the United Nations' credibility that has suffered from its inability to make inspections work.
If 12 years is not enough to ensure compliance, how much longer should we waste continuing a futile endeavor? Until Iraq uses its weapons on its own people again? On us? On other nations in the area?
It's time for action -- action to ensure everyone's security. Iraq has successfully used piecemeal concession tactics, giving a little here, complying a little there, in order to appease the world.
It's time to see through this trickery to Iraq's cruel intentions, and to take action as the consequence of perpetual noncompliance.