by Stefano Chiarini

"Guerre&Pace", n. 46, February 1998

Lately tension in the Gulf area has soared once again with the deployment of a powerful American military force in the region poised to strike Iraq. The tension springs from the problem of inspections in Iraq by the Commission for Disarmament of conventional weaponry (nuclear, chemical, bacteriological, and ballistic for missiles with a range above 150 kilometers). According to Baghdad, this tension is being exploited by the US to create new incidents, aimed at putting off the lifting of the embargo, and to collect intelligence on matters that have nothing to do with rearmament, but rather with the security structures of the country in order to prepare new attacks against Iraq and its president.

The case is important, since what emerges is that the United States conceives of the embargo as a tool to control Iraq. But beyond this, the stand-off actually has to do with the fact that after seven years and a million and a half dead, in spite of the recognition of Kuwait by Baghdad and the disarmament of non-conventional weapons (above all if one weighs this against the massive rearming going on in all the surrounding countries), the embargo is still in force. What is worse, it is in no wise clear by means of what mechanisms it can ever be lifted. Indeed, it can be said that from time to time, when one condition for ending the embargo is met, the United States and Kofi Annan's star-spangled UN always dream up others.

OPPORTUNISTIC METAMORPHOSES

Before returning to the problem of inspection, it is well to recall that the embargo was decreed by the UN in August 1990 to force Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. Iraq withdrew at the close of the Gulf War in February and March 1991.

The Security Council complimented itself on the return of legitimate government to the Emirate. However, instead of ending the embargo on Iraq, it decided to continue it, passing resolution 687, introducing two new conditions in place of the one met by the withdrawal from Kuwait: disarmament of non-conventional weapons and a program for paying off debts for war damage, after which Iraq could start in exporting its oil again.

This was a completely arbitrary decision. In fact, the Security Council replaced a precise, objective condition (withdrawal from Kuwait) with two conditions implying political evaluations. Who could say whether Iraq will want to or not want to pay for war damage? How on earth can it be determined if Iraqi non-conventional weapon disarmament has been carried out totally rather than only substantially?

Moreover, the resolution was made under Chapter 7 which justifies the use of force to ensure its observation, but this can only be done when there is a concrete aggression or threat to peace. In March 1991 what aggression or threat could there have been? The Security Council did not say.

To these conditions others were added, justified by the need to set up a permanent system of control to prevent Iraq from being able to equip itself with non-conventional weapons in the future. This was a shell-game, enabled because the Security Council, at the behest of the USA, made it virtually impossible to cancel the embargo once it had been decided, turning its application over to "technical" organisms in the hands of the US.

This move was intended to hide the responsibilities of the US in renewing the embargo and to give France and Russia the possibility of dissenting officially from the imperial line without being able to do anything concrete to have the embargo lifted.

POWER TO THE TECHNICIANS

It is worth while focusing attention on the Commission on Sanctions charged with approving all contracts for the buying of foodstuffs, medicine and other goods to be imported into Iraq under humanitarian resolution 986. The Commission can deliberate only with a unanimous vote by all the members of the Security Council. This means that all it takes is the nay vote of the USA to keep any product from reaching Iraq. The absurdity lies in the fact that these are products that are supposed to be exempt from the embargo, such as medicine. In this way, only 57% of the foodstuffs and 5% of the medicine relative to the second semester of "Oil for Food" have gone to Iraq, while almost no spare parts for electric power stations, aqueducts and agriculture ever arrived. In this way, if the food doesn't get there, it's for technical, not political reasons.

The second organism in the hands of the US, to which the Security Council delegated its "dirty work," a technical one of course, is the Commission for Iraqi Non-Conventional Disarmament, at the head of which the Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus has been replaced by the American-Australian Richard Butler. The Commission is supposed to verify the state of non-conventional disarmament by Baghdad and to this end it carries out inspections on Iraqi territory to discover real or presumed arsenals. Iraq, in accord with the UN, has practically completed its nuclear, ballistic, chemical and bacteriological disarmament. All these sorts of weapons have been destroyed, the factories and laboratories have been put under control by means of hundreds of sensors, video cameras and permanent inspections required by resolution 715. Thus, Iraq, even if it wanted to, is in no position to start an arms program without it being known.

Nevertheless, the special Commission, in which the Americans have a central role, continues to maintain that disarmament cannot be considered complete because, as far as biological weapons are concerned, it is not yet clear just what plants Iraq is growing in certain fields that Iraq maintains are medicinal herbs. The Commission instead hypothesizes that Iraq has been using them in connection with a program for the study of bacteriological warfare. Yet, in years of inspections and research the Commission has not acquired any element confirming this idea. Which goes to show that it is an opportunistic accusation.

Even if it were true that there is a research program of this type in Iraq, this does not prove that useable weapons have been produced and, in any case, after seven years' time, such weapons would no longer be good for anything. Besides, lacking the spare parts for launching such weapons (not to mention that during the war Iraq used only conventional arms, and very few of these), they would be practically useless. Without taking into consideration that the arsenals of nearby countries, starting with Israel, are well stocked with nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons, although no steps at all have been taken to obtain the least disarmament.

In the face of this situation, Russia has made a few basic requests, without success: that controls be turned over to the permanent structures of the UN and that the various chapters of Iraqi disarmament be stamped "closed," one by one, staring with nuclear weapons.

The US has rejected this out of hand. In fact, if the Russian request were accepted, Washington's game would be over at once, given that the International Atomic Agency is the one charged with verifying nuclear disarmament and its positions are more objective than those of the UN Commission for the disarmament of Baghdad.

The IAA, located in Vienna, has already stated that it has concluded its task of destroying laboratories and searching out nuclear material, but that the evaluation of the fact that Baghdad has done what it has been asked to do, as well as the absolute certainty that Baghdad has no more nuclear programs, is up to the Security Council.

AMERICA'S TOY

The opportunism of US policy, evident in the IAEA statements, is veiled as far as the Commission for Non-Conventional Disarmament is concerned, since the US wields strong control and can maneuver it any way they want.

In this connection, typical is the question of "sensitive sites" which is behind the latest crisis. Actually the crisis about the behavior of the American inspectors has been around for some time, although everyone has always pretended they did not see it. Whenever the US wants to fan up some tension, all it takes is for a team of inspectors to commit some provocation, such as to ask to visit Saddam Hussein’s palace. Then, when he refuses, as he is bound to do, the US can use his refusal to blackmail its allies.

In any case, the American position is questionable as well in terms of UN regulations. The UN resolutions themselves call for an unfettered access of UNSCOM inspectors in Iraq, but at the same time they call for agreements between the UN and Baghdad so that this access does not violate Iraqi sovereignty and security.

In October 1996 vice-premier Tareq Aziz and the then head of the special Commission on Disarmament, Rolf Ekeus, reached a general agreement for closing the various chapters on disarmament, one by one, starting with the one on ballistic weapons. The Commission and Iraq worked together in agreement for several months. But in March 1997, on pressure from the United States, the Commission made a turn-about, seeking to foment a clash. Continual inspections of "sensitive sites" were begun - sites sensitive for the security of the country - the purpose of which was the discovery of "methods for hiding weapons" (which the Commission never found because there weren't any).

In particular, one of the groups, the one Colonel Scot Ritter belonged to, inspected 22 sites related to national security during the month of March. He found no non-conventional weapons. Ritter is a well-known US spy, much in the news of late, because he showed up in Iraq at the head of a team with nine American and five British spies, plus a Russian and an Australian for a touch of color.

On June 2 Colonel Ritter himself stated that his objective was not arms or materiel but the "mechanism for hiding arms and materiel," and therefore he asked to speak with Iraqi officials having nothing to do with resolution 687. From June 3 to 12, 1997, the group inspected over 40 sites directly connected with Saddam Hussein's security, the minister of defense, the top echelons of the Baath party in power and the secret service. In part the sites were the same ones visited in March 1997. A coincidence that made one think more of a verification of the defense systems in case of an attack than a search for materiel or arms specified in the disarmament program.

On June 10 Colonel Scot Ritter demanded to visit the headquarters of the Iraqi secret service in Baghdad, and permission was granted. Unsatisfied he asked to be let into the archives of the political office, and of course was refused permission. Two days later Ritter went to one of Saddam Hussein's palaces, where he had already been in July and August 1996; this time, however, he was shown to the door. This brought on the crisis that led, on October 29, 1997. to the expelling by Iraq of the US inspectors working with the Commission on Disarmament, and the subsequent stand-off between Clinton and the Iraqi government.

In the course of this stand-off Iraq asked that the Commission not be a US fiefdom but be open to inspectors from all the member countries of the Security Council, and that the highest organ of the UN take cognizance publicly of what Baghdad had done in terms of disarmament.

Successively, on November 19, 1997, thanks to Russian mediation, Baghdad allowed the US inspectors to go back to work, but only after Moscow had pledged to work for a speedy revision of the embargo and a modification in the makeup of the Commission. This was a big success for the Iraqi government, as it managed to isolate the US on this question within the Security Council as well as in the Arab world, both of which took stands against an air attack on Iraq. A success which did not sit well with Clinton, whom our vice-premier Walter Veltroni is so fond of.

And Colonel Ritter came back onto the scene, with his following of spies and bombers.