Lame Inspections in Iraq

There is a good possibility that the U.N. Security Council would have acted by now to weaken or even lift some of the sanctions it imposed on Iraq eight years ago were it not for the insistence of the United States and Britain that the punitive measures remain in effect until Baghdad fully gave up its weapons of mass destruction. Now American determination to see all of Iraq’s forbidden arms programs ended has been called into question. The doubt has been raised by Scott Ritter, an American member of the U.N. inspection team in Iraq who resigned two weeks ago to protest what he sees as Washington’s unwillingness to confront Iraq over its repeated obstructionism.

Ritter’s charge, which has been denied by Clinton administration officials, is not the final word on the matter. But adding substance to his concerns is the latest report to the Security Council by Richard Butler, the Australian diplomat who heads the U.N. inspectors. Iraq, he says, has on three occasions in the last month alone prevented inspectors from visiting sites known or believed to house prohibited weapons or components. In effect, much of the inspection effort has been gutted.

In testimony before Congress, Ritter has charged that at least seven times since last November the United States intervened to block inspections of suspect sites because it wanted to avoid a confrontation with Iraq that, it feared, would find Washington with little support for taking a tough stand. However accurate that allegation, Butler’s report to the Security Council clearly shows an Iraq that has grown ever bolder in defying the U.N. inspectors. Its only plausible reason for doing so is because it continues to hide and probably even produce the weapons it has promised to give up.

Iraq’s apologists on the Security Council, notably Russia and China, nonsensically blame Baghdad’s lack of cooperation on the rigorousness of the inspection system. That stands logic on its head, since the system has to be intrusive and unflinching precisely because of Iraq’s long and sordid record of lying and cheating. Will the council yet find the political backbone to again endorse the use of force to give credence to its own resolutions? That seems highly unlikely. In that case what, if anything, does a distracted Clinton administration intend to do, not just to reassert its international leadership but to protect the specific interests of America and its allies in the face of this renewed challenge from one of the world’s most brutal and dangerous regimes?