The Blix report delivered the goods to everyone: It stated that Iraq had fulfilled its commitment to cooperate with the inspectors and allow them immediate access to all sites, but it also made clear that Iraq had not provided information on its own or facilitated interviews with its scientists. Those who did show up for questioning demanded that an Iraqi official be present.
Blix said he had found no proof that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but in the same breath, he said that doesn't mean it has none. All it means is that the inspectors have not managed to find any. Meanwhile, the hunt will continue, on the working assumption that Iraq does have such weapons - an assumption that may never be proven unless the United States goes to war, knocks out the regime of Saddam Hussein, and loosens the tongues of scientists and military personnel in charge of chemical and biological weapons programs.
So those who want to go to war on Iraq on the grounds that it has violated Resolution 1441 will find what they are looking for in the reports of Dr. Hans Blix and Dr. Mohammed El-Baradei: Iraq has not extended full cooperation. At the same time, those who want to avoid a war will also find what they are looking for: There is no proof yet that Iraq possesses nuclear weapons.
It has been almost three years since Hans Blix, a Swedish diplomat and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was appointed chief of the UN inspection team. In all that time, the job was entirely theoretical. He never visited Iraq even once. The UN, and especially Secretary-General Kofi Annan, spent all these years trying to renew the inspection program, and over the past year, has succeeded beyond expectations. With the help of a European, Russian, Chinese and Arabic coalition, Annan twisted the arm of the Americans and got them to agree to UN inspectors being sent back into Iraq. Annan was credited with restoring the relevancy of the UN and people began to believe that the "Iraqi problem" could be resolved peacefully.
For almost two months, Dr. Blix seemed relatively satisfied: He said the Iraqis were cooperating, but scolded Washington for not backing up his team and providing vital data that would help the inspectors find what the U.S. administration was convinced they would never find.
Ten days ago, Blix realized that he was liable to end up as frustrated as his predecessors, and made one last try: He signed an "interim agreement" with the Iraqis that called for wider cooperation. Washington also relayed another snippet of intelligence data. Suddenly, 12 empty chemical warheads were discovered. On top of that, thousands of documents were found in the house of an Iraqi scientist, albeit offering nothing new: no new armament plans or weapons, nothing about 8,500 liters of anthrax and VX poison gas, nothing about 6,000 chemical warheads of various kinds.
It was like Iraq was sitting on the edge of the chair, waiting to hear if it had passed the exam. As soon as the report came out, the Iraqi delegate to the UN, Mohammad al-Duri, promised that Iraq would continue to cooperate, and if there was anything the inspectors wanted to know, the matter could be discussed. Even Saddam Hussein sent a "personal" letter to Kofi Annan assuring him that he would cooperate.
Now it seems likely that the team will be given the political extension it needs: not several months for monitoring and verification work, as Dr. El-Baradei would like, but probably more than two or three weeks. Iraq will get a chance to redo the exam, and the U.S. administration will be able to build a stronger case for going to war.
America is not the only one that needs time to organize. The Mecca pilgrimage season begins in early February, followed by Id al-Adha in mid-February. Better to get through that safely before starting a war, the thinking goes. Every time, something else comes up that requires a postponement. Last time it was the elections for the U.S. Congress. Before that, it was the Arab summit in Beirut. And before that - prior to September 11 - it was the sanctions idea.
We ought to remember this, but in February 2001, Colin Powell made a lengthy visit to the Arab countries to persuade them to impose sanctions on Iraq: "smart sanctions," in which countries bordering on Iraq, like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria would install customs officers to monitor goods entering and leaving Iraq. The principle behind it was to almost double the number of civilian products that could be imported, while broadening the ban on military supplies. In this way, the United States could fend off claims that it was responsible for the suffering of Iraqi civilians.
Powell's trip was a resounding failure. None of the countries approached agreed to adopt this new policy of sanctions on Iraq. Iraq threatened them with an oil embargo if they accepted the U.S. plan, and the Americans could not guarantee their economic stability. If the Arab countries had gone along with this idea back then, they probably wouldn't have had the threat of war on Iraq hanging over their heads today.
This is worth mentioning to emphasize that war on Iraq was not always the Bush administration's preferred option. When Bush first took office, sending inspectors back in to Iraq was not a top priority either. Actually, up until 9/11, Iraq was not associated with terrorism. For a long time, Colin Powell, then foreign secretary, was opposed to a U.S. offensive in Iraq, and found his career on the rocks in a militant administration whose new heroes were Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.
From their perspective, the successful campaign in Afghanistan and quick regime change were proof of the importance of keeping the momentum going. Neither bin Laden nor his deputy had been captured, and the Taliban were continuing to organize and attack American targets in Afghanistan. In the frenzy over a war on Iraq, the war on international terrorism was almost forgotten. The U.S. administration tried to drum up global sympathy for the American people, which had been hurt so badly by Al-Qaida, in the hopes of building up a coalition for the Iraqi offensive - but to no avail. Not everyone in the Arab world agrees that Saddam Hussein must be overthrown, and there are objections to the way America wants to bring this about.
Afghanistan is a country without a ring of protective interests. It has no economic resources or political patrons. Iraq is a different story. It lies in the heart of the Arab Middle East, and its oil reserves are the second largest in the world. At least six Arab countries maintain direct economic ties with Iraq. Turkey and Iran have an important political interest in keeping Iraq intact. Many European countries, as well as Russia and China, have signed contracts with Iraq which they do not want to lose. Everyone has an interest in maintaining the status quo. On the other hand, none of these countries have the power to get Saddam Hussein to change his policy and give up his weapons of mass destruction.
Sending the UN inspectors back into Iraq was thus the most convenient option for all concerned. Even the warmongers in Washington understood that it was better to let this team do its work, so that America could arrive on the battlefield with "clean hands." Iraq's friends in Europe hoped that the inspectors' findings would get them off the hook as far as war is concerned.
For the Arab nations, it was the only way to cover up for their inability to persuade an "Arab brother" to act in the interests of the Arabs and keep America from declaring war. After the bitter experience of the Gulf War, in which Saddam thumbed his nose at Arab diplomatic efforts to get him to withdraw from Kuwait, they are probably under no illusions.
Under Amr Mussa, the Arab League has less power and influence than it did when Ismat Abdelmajid was secretary-general. A few weeks ago, a senior Jordanian official told Ha'aretz that "inspection is a good ladder for climbing down from the Iraqi tree." That seems to say it all. Arab leaders who voiced strong opposition to the war on Iraq have taken steps to prepare their people for its outbreak.
In Davos this week, King Abdullah of Jordan remarked that "only a miracle will prevent this war." Jordan has informed its citizens for the first time that U.S.-made Patriot missile launchers will be placed at strategic sites around the country, and 150,000 tents will be erected on the Jordanian-Iraqi border to provide shelter for thousands of refugees expected to flee from Iraqi cities. No refugee, incidentally, will be allowed to enter Jordan: The camps will be established on Iraqi territory.
A million people gathered in Yemen for an anti-war rally, but in Egypt, Bahrain, Damascus and elsewhere, the turnout for such demonstrations has been poor. This is not to say that protests will not erupt when the war begins, but it does show almost complete control over the Arab masses. From the standpoint of the Arab countries, "preparations for the war" are complete - emotionally, at least.
"All we want is for this war to end quickly," an Arab commentator said this week on Al-Jazeera. But there is a schedule, don't forget. At the moment, the inspectors have been given more time to complete their work, at least until the end of February or early March. Then things will depend on the new report submitted by the inspectors, Iraq's response, the unearthing of more "interesting" materials, the weather, and the mounting public pressure in the United States and Britain against the war
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