The gamble to take the issue of Iraq’s violation of the 1991 truce to the U.N. was always going to be a tricky one. Secretary of State Colin Powell was critical to that strategy (and has always been far closer to the president’s own goals in this endeavor than much of the media wants to believe). I supported it at the time, but had my doubts. I have to say that after yesterday’s Blix report, I’m more impressed than ever by the strategy. Blix’s report is a devastating blow to those who still hold out hope that appeasing Saddam or attempting to contain him diplomatically will solve the problem we face. The critical elements of the report are: that Saddam’s December 7 dossier was riddled with unacountable gaps and omissions; that there are tons of unaccounted for VX gas, anthrax, 6500 missing chemically-armed bombs, SCUD missiles, and the like; that Saddam has neither shown what happened to these weapons and chemicals nor has he publicly destroyed them; that no Iraqi scientists have been granted immunity in order to talk to UN inspectors alone and without fear of retribution; and that documents related to uranium enrichment have been found in scientists’ private homes, suggesting a policy of deliberate concealment of critical documents related to chemical and biological weapons. Any one of these is a material breach of U.N. Resolution 1441. All of them represent a hole the size of a tank in the credibility of Saddam. What we have seen is the most minimal cooperation – just enough to confuse useful idiots in the West – in the attempt to disarm. But, in Blix’s words,
Paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be “active”. It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of “catch as catch can”. Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.
Nothing the U.S. or the U.K. could say could be as damning as this report. It’s a slam-dunk.
WHAT NOW? So the question now is: what do we do about it? The U.N. promised severe consquences if Iraq didn’t comply with active cooperation. The last chance has been missed. Should the West give Saddam a really really last chance? I think we should. But purely for the demonstration that we have absolutely no desire to go to war as such, but only to protect the West and the Middle East from Saddam’s menace. That means no more than a few weeks, and only enough time to ensure we have the best conditions in which to wage what will be a hazardous war. That should be the message of the president tomorrow night. He can’t win over the haters; but he absolutely can win over those who believe the U.S. can and must uphold some element of order in the world, especially with regard to weapons of mass destruction, rogue states and terror. And if he can produce more evidence of Saddam’s violation of the U.N.’s demands without violating critical intelligence, then he should. He doesn’t need to morally or logically. And he shouldn’t produce it as the critical proof. We have that already in Blix’s report. But he can use it to add rhetorical strength to the strategy he is pursuing. The issue, in Colin Powell’s eloquent expression, “is not how much more time the inspectors need to search in the dark. It is how much more time Iraq should be given to turn on the lights.” A few weeks at most. And then we will turn on the lights, and the world will retroactively judge this war as one of the most justified the West has ever waged.
The Dish 