Weighing Inspections vs. War

The secret intelligence, scratchy tape recordings and satellite photographs that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell unveiled Wednesday may well sway public opinion in the United States in favor of war.

And that could turn out to be crucial as the Bush administration and allied governments approach a decision to launch military action, probably within six weeks.

Powell’s detailed evidence of Iraq’s misdeeds, however compelling to many, failed to alter the debate between the United States and members of the Security Council resisting the march toward war.

That argument focuses not on what Iraq has done but on how the rest of the world should respond.

Do the United States and its allies have the time and the patience to give Iraq another “last chance” to come clean, as French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin proposed Wednesday? Or is the danger of Iraq giving awful weapons to terrorists so high that further delay “is not an option, not in a post-Sept. 11 world,” as Powell insisted?

More simply, which course poses the greater risk: inspections or war?

Iraq gets at least a week to change course and begin cooperating fully with the U.N.’s arms inspectors. Chief inspector Hans Blix, whose condemnation last week of Baghdad’s conduct was quieter but just as damning as Powell’s, submits his next formal report to the Security Council on Feb. 14.

Diplomats often deploy their art and skill to avoid hard decisions. But this time, the Bush administration has served ample notice that it will not agree to half-measures or endless delay.

“The issue before us,” Powell said, “is not how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be frustrated by Iraqi obstruction, but how much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq’s noncompliance before we as a council, we as the United Nations, say: Enough.”

To which De Villepin replied, in effect: What’s the hurry?

“Why go to war if there is still some unused space in Resolution 1441?” he asked. “... Given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that is inadequate because of a failure to cooperate on Iraq’s part, we must choose the decisive reinforcement of the means of inspection.”

There were three audiences for this dialogue.

One was the governments of the world, represented by the foreign ministers assembled in the Security Council chamber. But they arrived knowing their positions and unlikely to be swayed by the force of Powell’s slideshow -- or unlikely to admit it.

A second was American public opinion. Americans strongly support President Bush in the battle against terrorism, but they abhor sending troops abroad to fight, especially when they aren’t yet convinced that war is necessary.

The Times Poll released this week reflected that conflict: 57% of those questioned said they would support Bush if he ordered troops into battle, but equally large majorities said they did not believe the president had proved his case that war is justified.

Powell’s evidence was partly intended for them, aides acknowledged. “We know we still have a case to make,” said one.

The third audience, though, may have been the most important: the public in other countries, especially in Europe, with which the Bush administration still hopes to build a coalition to fight this war.

“That’s the most interesting audience,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA expert on Iraq who now directs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Washington’s Brookings Institution.

“There are a lot of foreign governments who don’t want to go to war, but want to be on the U.S. side if we do. They have been telling American officials: You need to make the case. You need to give us cover with our own people.

“If other governments, including the French, see public opinion shifting -- both inside the United States and in other countries -- that will push them, as well,” he said.

It’s too early to determine how much impact Powell’s presentation will have on public opinion. Instant polls are unreliable. Most Americans and Europeans did not watch the Security Council session live.

And the Bush administration isn’t through spinning out its message; senior officials are being deployed to television studios to reinforce the message all week.

If Powell’s experience at the U.N. is any guide, they may succeed in making the case that Saddam Hussein is dangerous -- but find it harder persuading Americans that the danger requires a full-scale war.

“Powell made a compelling case that yes, Iraq is engaging in deception and evasion and lies,” said Jessica Tuchman Matthews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The crux of the question is: Where does that lead you? It’s the ‘what next’ question. I don’t think he made the case, or even a solid argument, that Saddam would give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, to people he can’t control.”

Pollack, who has argued that war is necessary, saw the crux of Powell’s argument elsewhere.

“He was laying the groundwork for the argument that this guy will never comply with U.N. resolutions,” he said. “The French want to give him another chance, but Powell is short-circuiting that argument by showing that Saddam is not complying and never will.”

For both sides in the debate, time is the key question.

“It’s true: Time is running out,” Pollack said. “The president has made up his mind, he’s going to war.”

“This time issue is really weird,” Matthews objected. “We can afford to take more time. Nobody would be making the case that we should end inspections after eight weeks if it were not for the problem of the weather [growing too hot for military operations] ... and that’s a strange reason to make a decision.”

The real crux of the issue, she argued, is which course is more difficult: war or inspections?

“When you look at the difficulties of making inspections work, it looks like a harder route than war,” she said. “With a war, it’s as if you press a button and invade. But what happens after we go to war? We’ll be looking at a long occupation of Iraq. It will be a huge irritant to our relations with the Muslim world. It will be a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. If you balance all that against the difficulty of inspections, I would rather try to make the inspections work.”

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Key U.S. Points

Allegations made to the U.N.:

Concealment: Saddam Hussein spies on weapons inspectors and intimidates his own scientists into silence.

Biological weapons: Iraq has put germ warfare labs on trucks and trains to evade detection.

Chemical weapons: Iraq masks its chemical weapons plants as commercial businesses; it possesses 4 tons of deadly VX nerve gas.

Nuclear weapons: Hussein is determined to obtain a nuclear bomb and is trying to acquire equipment to enrich uranium.

Missile systems: Iraq is attempting to expand the range of ballistic missiles that could deliver chemical, biological and nuclear warheads.

Terrorism: Iraq harbors a terrorist network headed by an associate of Osama bin Laden; northwestern Iraq is home to a terrorist explosives and poison center.