- If anyone doubted George Bush's intention to go to war
with Iraq, that doubt should have been removed when the United States said
it would "thwart" the return of the arms inspectors to Iraq until
it got a new Security Council resolution.
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- Of course, the resolution the United States wants is
just a rubber stamp to start the war. It is designed to force the Iraqis
to reject it and thus provide the international cover that Bush wants for
his invasion.
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- The meeting between the Iraqis and the arms inspectors
in Vienna was quite successful. The Iraqis agreed to everything. They brought
four years' worth of records and turned them over to the United Nations.
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- It's a shame that so many of the television commentators
are so ignorant that they all, with only one exception that I saw, misreported
the meeting in Vienna. They kept saying the Iraqis kept the presidential
palaces "off-limits." That is factually incorrect.
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- Hans Blix, the head of the U.N. inspectors, has made
it quite clear that his organization works for the Security Council, and
since the only resolutions that exist are old ones, those are the ones
he must be bound by. Among those is a Memorandum of Understanding signed
in 1998 by the secretary general and Saddam Hussein. It says simply that
before the presidential palaces are inspected, Iraq must be given 24 hours'
notice, and a diplomat must accompany the inspectors. That certainly doesn't
mean that they are off-limits. They are all available for inspection under
the conditions the United Nations agreed to.
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- So, as things stand now, the inspectors can go back,
all the housekeeping details have been agreed to, and they can start their
work by Oct. 15. The Iraqis, so far as we know, will honor their agreement
in regard to unconditional access. If the president had been sincere about
his concern for weapons of mass destruction, he'd presumably be happy.
Instead, he intends, if he can, to wreck the present agreements and force
through an insulting, war-provoking resolution. He wants war, not inspections,
and destruction, not disarmament.
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- By the way, another point of ignorance on the part of
TV smiley faces: A couple of them seemed to think that if the president
is opposed to the agreement, then it is null and void. Hans Blix works
for the Security Council, not for George Bush or Colin Powell. Unless the
Security Council tells him differently, he's sending his inspectors to
Iraq whether Mr. Bush likes it or not.
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- So what is the United States going to do? Send F-15s
to shoot down the U.N. plane? Without a majority on the Security Council,
the United States cannot stop the inspectors from returning to Iraq. Maybe
it will get a resolution, and maybe it won't. I hope the United States
doesn't.
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- For too long the United States has bullied the United
Nations, using blackmail and threats in order to win votes from little
countries. We have used the United Nations when it suited our purposes
and ignored it when it didn't. I, too, hope the United Nations shows some
backbone and tells Mr. Bush: "Either obey international law or take
a hike. And by the way, pay your back dues on the way out."
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- It's a fact that there has been no evidence produced
that Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction. The worst-case scenario
for Iraq is if it's really true that it doesn't have any. You can't prove
a negative. If Iraq has some, it can produce them; if it does not, Iraq
is out of luck. Bush and his warmongers will never believe either the Iraqis
or the inspectors. Bush wants his war, and he will have it, come what may.
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- © 2002 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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- http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20021009/index.php
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