Naughty, Naughty Saddam

Award this round to Iraq.

Its escalating evasions of U.N. demands that it destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction and its impudent attempt to dictate just how it will cooperate with international weapons inspectors have, after much debate, earned it a wrist slap from the Security Council. A resolution diluted to win the concurrence of France and Russia insists, once again, that Saddam Hussein behave himself. And it imposes a hard-to-enforce international travel ban on selected Iraqi officials who try to keep the U.N. inspectors from doing their jobs. At worst, that probably means a colonel or two won’t be able to vacation soon in Athens or Paris.

American and British diplomats are trying to put the best face on a woefully ineffective response to Iraq’s brazen challenge to U.N. authority. They say that Wednesday’s unanimous Security Council vote marks only the start of what will be steadily increasing pressure to get Baghdad to comply with its obligations. But the explicit distaste shown by France and Russia for endorsing any vigorous enforcement measures raises strong doubts.

The United States and Britain say they don’t need any new U.N. authorization to use force against Iraq to compel it to end its obstructionism. That seems to be the case. But Washington and London also know that if they do go it alone the temporary political costs could be high, and that contingency gives pause.

Seven years of sanctions have not produced a change in Hussein’s relentless effort to build an arsenal of terror weapons. By seeking unremittingly to sabotage the inspection process in years past and most flagrantly since Oct. 29, Iraq has bought time to shift and hide its restored capacity to create chemical and biological warfare agents.

President Clinton noted the other day that the inspection teams have found and disposed of more of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction than the allied coalition was able to during the Gulf War. That’s impressive, but more to the point have been the repeated warnings of the Australian diplomat Richard Butler, who heads the U.N. inspection teams, that Iraq continues with apparent success to pursue a terror weapons program. Nothing in the resolution voted Wednesday is likely to hobble that effort, and that’s reason for worry.