08/16/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10071

IRAQ AND INSPECTIONS

A top Iraqi official has indicated that

United Nations weapons inspectors will not be allowed to return to his country. Iraq’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, told the Qatar-based Al Jazeerah television channel that "inspections have finished in Iraq" and that the U-N’s work to ensure Iraq is neither in possession of nor building weapons of mass destruction "has been achieved."

To the contrary, Iraq appears unwilling to allow inspectors back into the country because of what the inspectors might find. Earlier this month, Baghdad had called for discussions with the chief U-N weapons inspector, Hans Blix. But U-N Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iraq would first have to agree to allow U-N arms experts to go to Iraq for at least two months. The U-N Secretary General also urged Baghdad to agree on ground rules for new inspections. Clearly, Iraq has not accepted these basic conditions.

Even if new inspections were allowed, the Iraqi regime has a long record of attempting to evade U-N weapons inspections. As U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said earlier this month, the Iraqi regime has "constantly tried to find a way around inspections."

Following the Iraqi information minister’s comments, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker reiterated these concerns. Iraq, he said, is refusing to face up to its obligations. The real issue, he added, is not inspections, but verified disarmament. Iraq needs to disarm, and that disarmament needs to be verified.

As British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated following talks with President George W. Bush this past April, Saddam Hussein "has to let the inspectors back in — anyone, any time, any place the international community demands."

The Iraqi regime has used weapons of mass destruction against its own people. Anything less than complete and unfettered weapons inspections would leave the world an unacceptably dangerous place. As President Bush has said, "The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."