The U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members agreed yesterday to revise U.N. sanctions against Iraq, a British diplomat said (see GSN, May 2).  The full council will probably vote on the revisions tomorrow, according to the diplomat.

The revised sanctions (see GSN, April 3) would include a new goods review list designed to prevent the export of potential military goods to Iraq while allowing imports of civilian goods without U.N. controls for the first time since the Gulf War (Agence France-Presse, May 6).

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that the United Kingdom, China, France, Russia and the United States support the revisions.

“We expect the full Security Council to consider this resolution this week,” he said (U.S. State Department release, May 6).

Iraq Anticipates Attack

Meanwhile, a top Iraqi official yesterday questioned whether the United States and United Kingdom would attack Iraq even if the country allows U.N. weapons inspectors to return (see GSN, May 3).

Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that recent meetings to discuss the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq have been positive, but Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz yesterday expressed doubt that a return of inspectors would avoid a military confrontation (see GSN, May 6).

“Even if Mr. Annan reaches agreement with our foreign minister, he has to take it to the U.S.,” Aziz told British parliamentarians and journalists in Baghdad.

Aziz expressed concern that if inspectors return to Iraq they might say Iraq is not cooperating, and the United States could use Iraqi noncompliance as a justification for a military strike.  Aziz refused to say that Iraq would not allow inspectors to return, but he added, “We have the experience of a whole decade.”  Inspectors last left Iraq in 1998 before the United States and United Kingdom bombed sites around Baghdad.  The inspectors had said that Iraq was obstructing their efforts to monitor WMD disarmament.

Iraq is willing to reach a compromise with the United Nations but does not want an open-ended mandate for the inspectors, Aziz said.  He refused to say whether Iraq would allow inspectors to visit Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s presidential palaces — a major issue in previous inspections (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2001).  Aziz said only a fool would have thought the United Kingdom hid weapons under King George’s palace during World War II.

Aziz called on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to provide evidence that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction and said a British inspections team could visit Iraq (see GSN, April 2).  Aziz also challenged Blair to a televised debate (Ewen MacAskill, London Guardian, May 7).

U.S. Policy on Hussein

Aziz’s remarks followed comments by two top U.S. officials Sunday emphasizing that U.S. policy is to end Hussein’s regime.

Asked whether the United States would try to overthrow Hussein even if Iraq allows weapons inspections, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell replied, “The U.S. policy is that regardless of what the inspectors do, the people of Iraq and the people of the region would be better off with a different regime in Baghdad” (see GSN, April 16).

“The United States policy that says the Iraqi people and the world will be better off with a different regime in Baghdad is separate and distinct and different from the U.N. resolutions and the sending in of the inspectors.  So the United States reserves its option to do whatever it believes might be appropriate to see if there can be a regime change,” Powell said on ABC’s This Week.

The United States would be interested in whatever information inspectors would discover, but Iraq is not allowing inspectors to return, Powell said.  Inspections would never result in “100 percent verification” because Iraq could “still hide things,” he said (U.S. State Department release, May 5).

The United States has no doubt that Hussein continues to develop weapons of mass destruction and has used them on his neighbors and Iraqi civilians in the past, U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on Fox News Sunday.

“I don't see how anyone can doubt his intentions.  He didn't kick inspectors out because he needed the hotel rooms.  He kicked them out because he wanted to hide something,” Rice said.

U.S. President George W. Bush has not decided how to deal with Hussein, and the United States is discussing the matter with its allies, Rice said, but she added, “We have felt — the president has felt — that it's extremely important to make clear that the status quo is not acceptable with this regime” (Fox News Sunday, May 6).

Legal Basis and Public Support

Public opinion polls have shown up to 72 percent of the U.S. population supports action against Hussein, despite objections by some lawmakers and allies, Newhouse News Service reported yesterday.  Bush administration officials have said the United Nations and U.S. congressional resolutions provide a legal basis for military action against Iraq.

Administration officials “feel they have politics on their side and legally have the United Nations resolutions to back them up.  Intuitively, they want to finish his thing off,” said Michael Vickers of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Civilians vs. Military

Top civilian officials in the Pentagon have taken charge of planning for a military strike against Iraq rather than leaving the task primarily to military officers, according to Newhouse.

Various media sources have reported attack plans involving 200,000 or more troops, but Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army’s top officer, said top officials have not asked him to participate in planning for operations in Iraq (see GSN, April 29).

“I’m the guy who’s got to do (the planning), and I haven’t done it yet,” he said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top Army leaders have been feuding, according to Newhouse.  Some Pentagon officials said military leaders are too unimaginative and bound by bureaucracy to take decisive action.  Those officials listed the inability of military leaders to dislodge the Taliban and al-Qaeda using traditional bombing in Afghanistan until top civilian defense officials demanded the Central Command deploy special forces teams.

“That experience reinforced the idea that ‘war is too important to leave to the generals,’” said an Army source, adding Rumsfeld and his top aides “don’t think the military’s plans are worth anything.”

“The military for the most part is a relatively conservative institution, and just as they weren’t about to hop on the peacekeeping bandwagon during the Clinton administration, they are not eager to jump on the bandwagon of ‘take over every country we don’t agree with,’” said Deborah Avant, an international relations specialist at George Washington University.

Civilian leaders taking over military operations is “not such a bad thing if you win,” but there is a decreasing number of top officials with military experience who have experienced the difficulty of implementing plans in combat, said Loren Thompson, a senior analyst at the Lexington Institute.

“What bothers me,” Thompson said, “is that the Bush national security team has an exaggerated idea of what the military is capable of doing” (David Wood, Newhouse News Service, May 6).

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