Posted on 03/30/2003 1:46:10 AM PST by longjack
Weapon Inspectors
German Guilt in the War
UN weapon inspectors talk for the first time about Schröder's course of peace: He was "crazy".
By Jochen Bittner and Reiner Luyken
Larnaka
The Mediterranean waves slapped weakly on the narrow sandy beach in front of the Flamingo Beach hotel. Bored policemen stand in front of the entrance of the simple tourist hotel in Larnaka, Cyprus, letting submachine guns dangle from their hips. The team of the UN weapon inspectors is staying here, one and a half hours by flight west of Baghdad, after their hasty departure from Iraq. In the lobby, CNN war reporting runs round-the-clock. For three and a half months the inspectors were the center of the world events. Now, they are only spectators. Time to think over that which was and that which could have been. The UN inspectors talk, but only anonymously. The order from New York is strict: No conversations with journalists.
Could this war have been prevented? Yes say some. But with surprising grounds: Germany, France and Russia had made the outbreak of war unavoidable with their supposed policy of peace. Gerhard Schröder's categorical No to use of armed forces was simply "crazy". "Perhaps we would have been able to fulfill our mandate", one hears in the hotel lobby.
When the inspectors of UNMOVIC (United Nations Ongoing monitoring and Verification) opened its headquarters in the Canal hotel in the center of Baghdad on November 27th of last year, they thought to have in their hands, with resolution 1441, a powerful instrument to track down Saddam Hussein's terror arsenal: Entry to all facilities. Inspections without advance notice, even in the presidential palaces. Interviews with scientists. Absolute freedom of movement, helicopters with high tech sensors.
The 120 inspectors soon noticed, however, that they wouldn't accomplish their goal without the full cooperation of the Iraqis. They waited in vain for an accommodation. An admonishing speech on January 15th by Hans Blix to the United Nations Security Council didn't change anything. Iraq only made concessions when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell presented sensational pictures, videos and tape recordings of mobile biological weapons' labs, rocket launching pads, and ammunition bunkers to the world community on February 5th. As the American war threat became more clear and found more supporters.
The excessive supervision of the inspectors by the minders of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate (NMD), over which UNMOVIC had complained for some time, eased up after that. For the first time three interviews with Iraqi scientists were possible without the minders. The Iraqis also submitted some documents about its weapon programs, previously requested in vain.
Why No German Troops?
Chief Inspector Hans Blix provided a conciliatory situation report to the Security Council on February 14th. This was cause for Germany, France and Russia to speak of, "functioning Inspections", and to increasingly defect from America and Great Britain. The governments in Berlin, Paris and Moscow felt strengthened in the conviction that their peace strategy would lead to success.
Quite different from the perception of the inspectors in Baghdad: Their position was suddenly weakened. Documents were withheld again. Scientists now appeared -- if at all -- only with their own tape recorders at interviews. After the interrogations they had to hand over the cassettes to the NMD. The hope for more assertiveness which had loomed after Powell's talk faded again. "We didn't get much after February 14th."
Looking back, a clear pattern was evident from the point of view of the UN inspectors: "Saddam Hussein followed every step in the Security Council quite carefully. As soon as rifts could be seen there, cooperation decreased". Only when military pressure grew were the authorities in Baghdad more willing to cooperate. "Rhetoric never impressed Saddam Hussein", say the inspectors; the deeper the quarrel split the international community, the more he was secure in his actions.
The renewed self-assuredness of the Iraqi leadership after February 14th experienced Hans Blix personally. When the chief inspector asked General Amir Al Saadi, boss of the NMD, where 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas were located, which the UN suspected were still in the country, the military man claimed insolently that they had been destroyed by a fire in the ordnance depot. Oddly enough, there were no traces of remains.
"We were dependent on military pressure", an inspector emphasizes. Without the U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian golf and without the troop build up in Kuwait they didn't make headway. They experienced the diplomatic tug-of-war between Washington and the European peace axis as historical irony: In their perception, every demand for a peaceful solution decreased the pressure on Iraq and made peace more improbable. Success was less a question of time than one of a credible threat of force. "Where", inspectors ask today, "were the teeth"? More time for the inspections, say colleagues of Hans Blix, as Germany and France had demanded, would have been all well and good. But: "They should have sent their own ships, their own troops." Only with the backing of a resolute United Nations Security Council would it have been possible, in their opinion, to install the traffic surveillance system necessary for effective control. From their point of view, threatening with force as the last resort, without seriously preparing it, couldn't impress the dictator in Baghdad.
Several times, details about Iraq important to the inspectors were reported unofficially, or, they learned more during confidential conversations over coffee than during official interviews with scientists: Also a clear indication that the state apparatus systematically held back information. In private, UN people heard again and again how the Saddam Hussein regime had spoiled the life of a whole generation. The academic elite, western educated and cosmopolitan, had to stand by and watch as their children became materially and intellectually impoverished in a totalitarian system.
One capacity maintained Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in spite of the destruction of the Iraqi middle classes: That of weapon production. The most visible sign of that were the Al-Samud rockets which exceeded the permissible maximum range of 150 kilometers. Their destruction in the first weeks of March wasn't only judged in many places to be a signal, rather as real progress on the way to the disarmament. Laconic comment of an inspector: "Too little, too late."
The Iraqi concessions, inspectors report, stood no more in relationship to American pressure. Iraq had underestimated the determination of the world power. After George Bush had heralded his last ultimatum, NMD officials showed up at the Canal hotel one last time with documents that had been withheld until then. But, these papers also contained nothing that could have held back the course of events.
Was the failure of the mission programmed from the beginning? No, say the inspectors: A unified Security Council could possibly have forced a peaceful disarmament. But, yet an ambivalent thought from the mouth of an inspector that sounds alarmingly harsh: "How does one treat a cancerous tumor, with a short surgical intervention, or with a long chemotherapy, whose success is at best doubtful?"
(c) DIE ZEIT 14/2003
Translated by longjack
longjack
Thanks again, BMCDA.
I noticed some other editorials that were negative of Schroeder and the German stance on the "Die Zeit" site. They are under the POLITIK rubric.
longjack
"Die Zeit"..Die deutsche Schuld am Krieg
longjack
Either of those would have been beter than what the "inspectors" used, which was analogous to taking X-rays of the tumor as it grows, with a promise to the tumor never to remove it.
Here's an article with a Stoiber interview. Stoiber says the war war is legal, that the USA is correct in its interpretation of UN resolution 1441, and he warns Schroeder not to allow France to push the USA out of Europe.
"Die Zeit".."Schröder hat Europa gespalten"
I hope the CDU can stand in the teeth of the storm and re-focus public opinion.
Actually, the "Die Zeit" political page has some interesting articles. The Chirac article is a "keeper". Here's the link.
"Die Zeit"..Political Articles
I have to thank BMCDA for the tip and link to "Die Zeit".
longjack
Die Zeit is quite a good site if you want to find editorials that are critical of Schroeder's politbureau.
Oh, and good job btw.
Think, for the next 30 years, historians will have a whole new Kriegschuldfrage to debate: ist Deutschland noch Schuldig? Gewiss!
Middle East list
If people want on or off this list, please let me know.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.