NewsHour Backgrounders
February 23, 1998
Sec. Albright discusses the U.N. brokered deal with Iraq.
February 23, 1998
Four policy experts discusses the latest deal.
February 16, 1998
How significant a threat does Saddam Hussein's country really pose?
February 11, 1998
Ambassador Richardson discusses the ongoing crisis with Iraq.
February 4, 1998
Secretary Albright tries to marshal support for a possible attack on Iraq.
January 14, 1998
Iraq's U.N. Ambassador, Nizar
Hamdoon, defends his country's actions.
Online Forum:
What's the best way to deal with Iraq?
November 17, 1997
Arab perspectives on the Iraqi crisis.
November 13, 1997
Deputy PM Aziz defends his country's expulsion of U.N. weapons
inspectors.
November 3, 1997
U.N. Ambassador Richardson discusses tensions between
the U.S. and Iraq.
Online Forum: 1996:
The plight of the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Middle East.
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Dan Williams of Boston, MA, asks:
Do you believe that the U.N. brokered deal with Iraq has resolved the crisis or is it just an interlude to war?
Dr. John Calabrese, resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, responds:
If countering Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs is as important
as U.S. policymakers say it is, then UNSCOM is back and that is a good thing.
For, despite the pattern of obstruction and harrassment that plagued UNSCOM
operations from 1991-98, these inspections turned up and destroyed a great
many weapons, delivery systems, materials and technology. In my opinion,
air strikes could not have accomplished what inspectors/monitors on the
ground have proven they can.
But the jury is still out concerning how the Annan arrangements for renewed
inspections will proceed. Will the diplomats accompanying technical
personnel exercise a veto over the inspections or compromise the element of
surprise necessary to defeat Saddam's games of deceit and concealment in
order to show "sensitivity" toward Iraq's sovereignty and national dignity?
It is a bit too early to tell whether the new inspection arrangements will
provide Saddam with qualitatively improved loopholes to exploit.
Perhaps the two more pertinent questions to ask are these: Has the threat
of force (and the continued presence of large forces in the Gulf) cowed
Saddam? Have the events of the past several weeks fundamentally altered the
prospects for a way out of "our box?" In my opinion, the answer to both of
these questions is an emphatic no. Saddam's objectives are now, what they
were prior to this crisis: removal of economic sanctions without
surrendering his strategic military option (i.e., weapons of mass
destruction). When the inspection regime resumes in earnest, so will
Saddam's cat-and-mouse game. At some point, the U.S. will have to decide what
level of obstruction warrants the use of force, and will have to persuade
the same constituencies it failed to persuade this time around that force
can work. Unless U.S. policymakers use this "interlude" to devise a strategy
for encouraging/actively assisting Iraqis to overthrow Saddam in the event
that he has not changed his tune, we will coninually face the same dilemma.
Mr. John Bolton, senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, responds:
As I indicated in response to the previous question, the U.N.-Iraq deal is a stopgap measure at best. What it reveals more deeply is the need for the United States to keep control of its policy in the Persian Gulf, and to make its own decisions about the pace and terms of any resolution of the crisis. The active involvement of the U.N. at this stage might, unfortunately, make it harder for the U.S. (at least under the Clinton Administration) to act independently in the inevitable next stage of this crisis.
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