Debate

[Eric R.]

Nor that Kuwait has began to make statements to full support in either case UN or no.

[Dan Stack]

Evan - Will weapons inspections work without the full cooperation of Iraq? If yes, how? If no, what should be done?

[Evan van Eyk]

So far the inspectors themselves came to the conclusion tha the inspections worked up to now - even without proper Iraq cooperation. Inspections which need cooperation can never be successful - no police does not need cooperation if it searches a suspect's house. So far the inspector's are not covinced there are WMDs and they searched thoroughly. Sometimes with sometimes without cooperation.

If the inspectors come to the conclusion that Iraq has WMDs the UN has to do something not the US alone. As said before, the US are not well-liked in the area - the Iraqi's blame the US for the bad conditions in their country caused by the sanctions the US do not want to lift. So a war, lead by the US will definitely fail. Iraq may not love Saddam, but they defintely do not like the US, nor the casualties caused by a war.

Afterwards diplomacy could come up again. Maybe it is possible with the help of other Arab countries to convince Iraq to end those WMD programms - but it must not be 'Western' countries alone, if it should work - there has to be serious participation of the Arab world as well. While I do not think that will Saddam he might get trouble explaining his troops why all other Arabs do not believe in his war against the west.


If everything else fails and UN decides military action is needed, I will not lilke it but remain shut up, because I have no other idea how to end the threat by Iraq. However I would restrict that to the governmental palace and the WMD site as well - to prevent heavy casualties.

The question is what to do afterwards. I would advise somekind of comittee which acts the first months as government and tries to tidy up the mess of the war. Educational programms have to used get people understand democracy and financial support is needed to get Iraq's medical care system up to date - definitely needed after a war.
Probably after two - to five years there have to be elections of a government - but until then UN needs to stay in Iraq to maintain order. But it is UN not the US.


No matter the fact, I think a war is always a loss - winning a war is impossible because war already means failure - although caused by both sides.

[C5]

Originally posted by calguard66
I'm also not clear where the US picked up the obligation for making the world a better place. As long as the interests of the US are enhanced and protected, I see no other requirements. US soldiers do not fight and die for anything other than the defense of the United States. Anything else is just gravy.

Well, I think the situation would be much clearer if Bush said so, but, as Evan said, he's not so clear about it. On the contrary, it always seems to me that the US claims to be doing this for the sake of the Western world as a whole.

You see, the main trouble for me is that the US position seems very, very hard to define. On one hand, they want the UN to allow them to attack Iraq, but on the other they complain if it doesn't do so. On one hand, they say it's for the sake of peace in the world, on the other, they say it's to defend their interests. Etc, etc, etc.

So for me, there would be only two options :

- The USA don't care about the UN and wants to attack Iraq, for wichever reason (self-defense, oil, peace of the world, setting a puppet dictator there, preventing WWIII - I don't care). Then they attack and don't bother with the pleasantries - no one would stand against them in the Western world (you know, we were discussing this with some friends the other day - one of us said at some point "hey, if France goes at war with the US, what would happen to the computers and software market - everything we use is bought in the USA ?" - see what I mean?).
- The USA care about what the UN says. Then they wait for the Inspectors to finish their business, don't try to interfere, don't yell if the UN doesn't complain with them, and don't go to war if the UN doesn't vote the according resolution.

Most of the problem comes from here IMHO - it seems to me the USA are saying : "OK, we're going to fight Iraq. Do you agree ? No ? But you m*rons, we're doing it to protect you, don't you understand ? Now we will rephrase : do you agree with us fighting Iraq ? " etc...

As for mud-slinging, that's inherent to political debates, I think. Either you forbide them, or you tolerate it, I've seen much much harsher on the net (and for much more trivial matters...)

[Capt.Hunter]

Going back to something Khrys Antos said about the Eastern European countries hailing the US after the Soviet Union pulled out. Yes, this was the case. But to say that a similar event would take place in a post-war Iraq is stretching it a bit. After all, the liberation of Eastern Europe didn't actually involve the US dropping bombs on it, did it? There were no civilian casualties caused by US weapons. Now, if the US plan to get Saddam to go into exile actually stood a whelk's chance in a supernova of working, then we might see Iraqi's waving the Stars and Stripes instead of burning it, but that's highly unlikely to occur if we take over militarily.

Regarding the SEC inquiry into Harken Oil and Bush, wasn't the investigator who couldn't find any evidence actually appointed by Bush Senior? And no-one saw a conflict of interest there?

[Dan Stack]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/27/spr...lix/index.html

Paragraph 9 of Resolution 1441 states that this cooperation shall be "active." It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of catch as catch can. Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.

- Hans Blix (emphasis mine)


Blix has also indicated that since the report was made there are no signs of further Iraqi cooperation.

So, by Blix's definition, Iraq is indeed in violation of 1441. 1441 threatened serious consequences should Iraq not comply.

What shall the international community do? A world of democracies and dictatorships is curious as to the answer.

My speculation... The international community will do nothing. In such a case the UN Security Council should stop passing resolutions. There's no point.

[Capt.Hunter]

I was watching an official on TV last night, and I have the awful feeling that he's right:

If the Americans decide to go ahead without a UN resolution authorizing force, the UN will issue such a resolution precisely because it sets a bad precedent for UN members to be seen to be acting without sanction. The whole pre-emptive strike issue opens a whole can of worms (India/Pakistan, for example). With a UN resolution for action given, at least such actions would have the appearance of having been approved by multiple countries.

[Dan Stack]

But the UN has in its power to do something before a US attack... Something now. It need not be a declaration of war, but it does need to be serious. Like "provide immediate active cooperation or else" and back that else up.

If I threaten you 17 times and do nothing, why would you be worried about time #18?

All signs indicate that Iraqi cooperation is at its highest when threatened with destruction of their regime. At other times, they just go through the motions. If the international community stood united there's a good chance Iraq would be cooperating. And if wasn'tt, it would be clear to all.

Why should Iraq cooperate? I have heard some murmuring from French officials - and I do not know how high up they are - that the actual discovery of biological and chemical weapons need not be considered a violation - not unless it was clear that Iraq intended to use them illegally. Iraq knows the international community is not united. And as a result, he knows the UN resolutions passed against him are meaningless. He just needs to wait.

[Evan van Eyk]

True, threat number 18 won't do the trick. But If the US and GB, etc. proclaim that they will attack even without UN approval - where is the sense in cooperation? The attack will come, whether Iraq cooperates or not with the UN inspectors, so the war threats of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush do more harm than good. The UN has to make a clear point right, but the US and GB divide UN by their hot-tempered moves not those who abide the rules of UN.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

Posted by Capt.Hunter:

Going back to something Khrys Antos said about the Eastern European countries hailing the US after the Soviet Union pulled out. Yes, this was the case. But to say that a similar event would take place in a post-war Iraq is stretching it a bit. After all, the liberation of Eastern Europe didn't actually involve the US dropping bombs on it, did it? There were no civilian casualties caused by US weapons. Now, if the US plan to get Saddam to go into exile actually stood a whelk's chance in a supernova of working, then we might see Iraqi's waving the Stars and Stripes instead of burning it, but that's highly unlikely to occur if we take over militarily.

My grandfather before he died in 1983 served as a military engineer in charge of the Warsaw region. The unit he was assigned to was slaughtered during the war and he joined the resistance. Many ex-soldiers in Poland couldn't understand why the U.S. didn't continue its march towards the heart of the Soviet Union. After a certain point the damage that has been inflicted on your country is so great that you don't really care how your "liberation" occurs. Better than hell for 50+ yrs which my grandfather knew was coming.

I'm not saying that the Iraqis will come out in droves to welcome the soldiers, but they won't actively stand against like the Iraqi regime seems to indicate. The Baathists, the Tikrit Mob, and the republican guardsmen will because they have something to lose. I believe that the locals will actually take revenge on them once the demise of Saddam is obvious. You know what happened to Ceausescu and the communists in Romania? Same thing may happen here.

Posted by Evan:

True, threat number 18 won't do the trick. But If the US and GB, etc. proclaim that they will attack even without UN approval - where is the sense in cooperation? The attack will come, whether Iraq cooperates or not with the UN inspectors, so the war threats of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush do more harm than good. The UN has to make a clear point right, but the US and GB divide UN by their hot-tempered moves not those who abide the rules of UN.

The U.S. and G.B. are not alone, Italy, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Denmark and the Czech Republic are joining the group. I've heard that Australia is also coming along. Canada will help (it'll nag, but it'll send token troops). Russia has given signs of accepting the U.S. push. And in the region, Jordan, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Oman, Djibouti, UAE, Bahrain all support the move. Egypt will also allow any U.S. battle group to cross through the Suez, they have in the past, hell they've even waivered the ban on nuclear ships for the U.S..

This continued "need" for U.N. acceptance, when you have this amount of countries saying yes, then why should you care what the U.N. thinks? World support is a nebulous concept. If I get China, India and the U.S. on-board for plan A, do I have world support? (seeing as they alot of citizens). Or do I absolutely need for every single nation on this planet from San Marino to Sri Lanka to Ecuador to accept the idea of an attack on Iraq?

As far as I understood, Blix said that Iraq has not produced some documentation on the VX gas and its disposal (plus other things). So Iraq is in violation of resolution 1441.

And calguard made a good point, Iraq has violated the ceasefire agreement. The resumption of hostilities can resume without it being the U.S. doing a pre-emptive attack, legally speaking. The U.S. isn't here to make the world better for everyone, its here to protect its citizens and its citizens.

[Evan van Eyk]

Originally posted by Lt.Khrys Antos

This continued "need" for U.N. acceptance, when you have this amount of countries saying yes, then why should you care what the U.N. thinks? And calguard made a good point, Iraq has violated the ceasefire agreement. The resumption of hostilities can resume without it being the U.S. doing a pre-emptive attack, legally speaking. The U.S. isn't here to make the world better for everyone, its here to protect its citizens and its citizens.

First of all you should care about what UN thinks because Bush and Blair base an Iraq attack on Saddam's failure of sticking to the UN resolutions.
Second yous seem to have failed to get my point. I just asked why should Saddam cooperate if no matter if he does or not the US and GB and Poland and Turkey and... will attack nevertheless?
Concerning the 'legal' thing, I just want to quote First, who always claims there is no legal or not legal in international terms.

Maybe the US is not for a better world, although I think they have the responsibility to do so, but Bush claims that he does that for the western world - sadly the western world does not agree.

Concerning the European countries who signed the proclamation that is just a joke. Blair signed it, although neither his party nor the population are behind his war policy. Spain signed it because the President wants to distract from his severe domestic problems. Berlosconi, of Italy does business with the Mafia and is so far right, that they had to built new seats in parliament to make him sit at the right position and three of the signers are not even EU members - and yet claim to speak in its name. Denmark is internationally speaking not even irrelevant...

Those Eastern Europe states which signed the declaration just did not want to loose US financial support - certain they would loose Germany's even if voted against them.

Although you might not know the population of any of the signing countries is in large majority against a war, so that does not even sightly represent the opinion of the European population.


And I jsut heard yesterday in the news that Blix has stated there is no violation of the resolution and now signs of any WMDs.


The ceasefire thing is just as irrelevant. Bush made a mistake. He was not content with the ceasefire breaking - he wanted his anti-terror crusade. He shouted out lowd what a bad, bad guy Saddam is how he threatens the whole world - just to get international approval and support of the anti-terror war. Sadly he failed up to now to present anything which supports such claims - and now looses support. Bush said such violations are the reason for an attack - yet there are no violations.
Nobody could have blamed the US if they responded to the ceasefire break but that was not good enough for Bush, he gambled and until now lost.

[Curious]

OK The only way for the inspections to truly work is if there is complete cooperation (meaning that Iraq has to want to disarm).
An example of complete cooperation would be the many treaties signed by the United States and the former Soviet Union which decreased the number of nukes each country had. There were weapon inspectors there to witness the actual destruction of the of the bombs.

Now the only reason the inspections worked was because both countries wanted it to work. Both countries showed where the nukes were and let the weapoms inspecters watch them be destroyed. This is the type of cooperation that is expected from Iraq and is not getting. Hans Blix has stated this in his latest report to the United Nations and he is not pleased with the efforts of of Iraq. In fact he is not going back to Iraq until further cooperation is shown by Suddam Hussein. (Please note that the other weapons inspectors under Blix are still there and working).

Now the head of IAEA El-Baradei (not sure of spelling) is pleased with Iraq's cooperation but says there is much more that could be done.

Lets consider the logistics of this argument. Iraq is has roughly the same area as California and that means it is pretty big. Now there are somwhere between 100-150 inspectors that have to cover this large area where things could easily be hidden from such a small amount of people. Saddam Hussein has denied th UN inspectors the ability to use drones to fly over Iraq. This makes it impossible to truly find the WMD without total cooperation (and even the use of drones would not be a guarantee). I am not sure how El-Baradei missed this point but obviously he did.

Now there is the all important history that has be considered. Weapon Inspectors tried this method for seven years 1991-1998 and Saddam Hussein was obstructive then. Hussein then kicked the inpectors out in 98. Who here actually thinks Saddam has changed? Not me or anyone else in thier right mind. He has in the past uses WMD on many of his enemies including his own people and logic says he will do so agian. The past shows that Saddam Hussein is only interested in power (please see invasion of Kuwait, turtoring of own people who resiste him, etc.,) So it would stand to reason that all he is interested in now is power. Saddam will fight to keep his power and his WMD because that is a good way to achieve and keep more of what he wants.

I think I will stop right here for now I have things that I need to do.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

Posted by Evan:

Although you might not know the population of any of the signing countries is in large majority against a war, so that does not even sightly represent the opinion of the European population.

I only the public opinion in Poland, from polish papers and friends I have there. The rhetoric mostly supports the U.S..

When we're talking about coalition building, we are talking about getting governments onside, not individuals.

Posted by Evan:

Concerning the 'legal' thing, I just want to quote First, who always claims there is no legal or not legal in international terms.

And he's right. On the international level, all laws/resolutions are non-binding. I meant legal in so far as its "right".

Posted by Evan:

Those Eastern Europe states which signed the declaration just did not want to loose US financial support - certain they would loose Germany's even if voted against them.

So very true. I doubt mnay countries will risk losing U.S. financial support on the issue of Iraq.

[Evan van Eyk]

Originally posted by Lt.Khrys Antos
Posted by Evan:
I only the public opinion in Poland, from polish papers and friends I have there. The rhetoric mostly supports the U.S..

When we're talking about coalition building, we are talking about getting governments onside, not individuals.


Well I doubt newspapers show public opinion, but at least I know about Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain where the majority of the people is against a war without UN approval.



And he's right. On the international level, all laws/resolutions are non-binding. I meant legal in so far as its "right".


Yes I know it was just a little hairsplitting from my side. However I do not understand how that fits the demand that Iraq should stick to the resolutions - if they are unbinding? That is a real question, please tell me your thought. Why has Saddam stick to the rules but others not. I really want to understand - no offense meant or anything.



So very true. I doubt mnay countries will risk losing U.S. financial support on the issue of Iraq.

No you are wrong, because... hey wait a moment we agreed

But do you really think that financial pressure is a good basis for a coalition? Should it be not trust, agreement and tolerance of other opinions?

[Janus]

Originally posted by Evan van Eyk

Concerning the European countries who signed the proclamation that is just a joke. Blair signed it, although neither his party nor the population are behind his war policy. Spain signed it because the President wants to distract from his severe domestic problems. Berlosconi, of Italy does business with the Mafia and is so far right, that they had to built new seats in parliament to make him sit at the right position and three of the signers are not even EU members - and yet claim to speak in its name. Denmark is internationally speaking not even irrelevant...

Those Eastern Europe states which signed the declaration just did not want to loose US financial support - certain they would loose Germany's even if voted against them.

Although you might not know the population of any of the signing countries is in large majority against a war, so that does not even sightly represent the opinion of the European population.

Actually, IMHO the proclamation wasn’t truly aimed at supporting Bush position (it had already been made clear by several of the signing leaders before this), as it was to send a message to the Franco-German “coalition.”
We all know that lately there has been a lot of talk among french and german leaders concerning the future of the EU and the position of the EU in recent international politics. These talks were conducted in a bilateral way, disregarding the smaller states of the Union, and their leaders. It is not surprising that they didn’t liked it, nor the assumption that they could speak for all the Union without asking the others first.

So I believe this was mostly a message aimed to internal EU consumption. It simply got much wider attention because the US felt that they were without any firm allies on Europe right now, and this felt as honey on to bread.