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Iraq I: U.S. Readies Final Pitch for U.N. Support on Iraq By Bryan Bender While the White House is expressing new confidence that convincing intelligence information can persuade the council to authorize military force, many experts doubt the Bush administration will make sufficient headway this week to change minds and swing international support in its favor. The best hope of a U.N. coalition in Iraq, they contend, will lie in the forthcoming assessments by U.N. weapons inspectors, who are continuing their search operations in Iraq despite what they describe as a continued lack of adequate cooperation. Their next update to the Security Council is scheduled for Feb. 14. Meanwhile, the chief inspectors, Hans Blix of the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Commission, and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei, are to return to Iraq Saturday at Baghdad’s invitation to seek greater Iraqi cooperation — including Baghdad’s permission for U-2 spy missions over Iraq and one-on-one interviews with Iraqi weapons scientists. “We both agree that time is running out,” ElBaradei said yesterday. “But we both agree we would like to exhaust the inspection process,” he added However, Powell’s address to the Security Council tomorrow could still prove to be a critical turning point, marking the beginning of the end of U.S. diplomatic maneuvering and the opening bell for a U.S.-led war, with or without international backing. The primary target of Powell’s presentation will be France, which remains opposed to military action and which holds a veto in the Security Council that could defeat any proposed new war resolution. British Prime Minister Tony Blair failed earlier today to persuade France to join a U.S.-led coalition ready to take quick military action against Iraq, according to the Associated Press. Despite intense pressure by Blair, French President Jacques Chirac said he remained steadfastly opposed to war against Baghdad without giving U.N. weapons inspectors as much time they need to do their work, according to the report. U.S. and British officials have said inspectors might have as many as six more weeks to try and make progress, but they would not support any extended timetable. On the other hand, permanent Security Council member Russia, which had previously expressed opposition to war in Iraq, appears to be softening its position. Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday a second resolution might be required if weapon inspectors remain dissatisfied with Iraq’s cooperation. Making the Case According to U.S. officials, Powell is expected to present three types of intelligence information pointing to continued Iraqi intransigence in the face of U.N. Resolution 1441, calling on Iraq to surrender its suspected nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. The first will be communications intercepts between the senior Iraqi leadership and officials involved in WMD programs, according to U.S. officials, highlighting what they have done in recent weeks to circumvent the U.N. inspection teams. Also to be included in the package will be commercial satellite imagery — as opposed to U.S. government-owned spy satellite photos — showing Iraqi personnel “cleaning up” sites ahead of U.N. inspectors. Photographs of mobile biological weapons labs, the so-called “Winnebagos of Death” that have been of considerable concern for U.S. intelligence officials, might also be included, officials said. Other intelligence will include shipping manifests of Iraqi equipment imports that U.S. intelligence officials believe can be used to develop weapons of mass destruction. “We will, in sum, offer a straightforward, sober and compelling demonstration that [Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] is concealing the evidence of his weapons of mass destruction, while preserving the weapons themselves,” Powell wrote in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. However, Richard Haass, the State Department director of policy planning, cautioned that there would be no so-called smoking gun in Powell’s presentation. “I don’t want to raise expectations,” he told the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram yesterday. “We will not present pictures of 30,000 stockpiled warheads which can each carry chemical weapons, if that is what you mean by evidence.” Indeed, the last-ditch effort to indict Hussein before the world body is an “unbelievable gamble” on Powell’s part, according to a former CIA official. “If Powell presents good evidence, he’ll hit the jackpot and dozens of countries will support the U.S.,” said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst. “But if he lays a goose egg because the evidence isn’t very convincing, it will pull the rug out from under the administration and they’ll see support rapidly drain away, making it very hard to pull together a coalition for war,” Pollack said. Iraq is already trying to discredit tomorrow’s U.S. intelligence briefing. “I think they will be fabricated,” said Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, head of Iraq’s weapons monitoring directorate and the chief liaison with the U.N. weapons inspectors. “There will be space photos, aerial photos, of some vehicles that could be interpreted in different ways just to create suspicion around the Iraqi declaration. They will not reveal real evidences because we have nothing. We have no weapons of mass destruction.” Seeking a Resolution Whether Powell can convince the Security Council tomorrow or not, in recent days Washington has decided to at least try to get another resolution passed, even though it has said it does not need one and that the more than a dozen resolutions calling on Iraq to disarm over the last decade provide enough justification. “Should the United Nations decide to pass a second resolution, it will be welcomed if it is another signal that we’re intent upon disarming Saddam Hussein,” Bush said Friday after meetings with Blair in Washington. However, he stressed, “[Resolution] 1441 gives us the authority to move without a second resolution.” At Blair’s urging, Washington says it will begin lobbying for a second resolution authorizing military force against Iraq. So far, however, little progress has been made, according to Bush administration officials. Another proposal for a new resolution circulating at U.N. headquarters, according to U.S. and international sources, would label Iraq’s 12,000-page weapons declaration as incomplete and inaccurate and declare that Baghdad is not cooperating fully with inspectors — effectively finding Iraq in material breach of the Resolution 1441. Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who last year urged the White House to seek U.N. support before acting alone, said one last attempt to bring along the U.N. is necessary. Washington “should be prepared to try for a vote supporting such action if we believe we are close to having the nine affirmative votes needed, unless we think one of the other three permanent members (France, Russia, or China) would use its veto — something I personally don’t think would occur if there are nine votes in favor,” he wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal. “The case for military action is … compelling,” he wrote. “It cannot be deferred indefinitely as Iraq continues to play its cat-and-mouse game with U.N. inspectors. Nor can it be held hostage to lowest common denominator consensus in the Security Council,” according to Baker, who rallied the U.N. coalition during the Gulf War more than a decade ago. “Yet,” Baker added, “the administration is absolutely right in going the last mile and sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to consult again with the Security Council and lay out, commensurate with protection of intelligence assets, further evidence of Saddam’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.” The Bush administration remains confident it will persuade the Security Council to support military action. “Things are moving our way,” said one U.S. official. “It’s possible to find common ground, but others are going to have to come to us. And if they have something pretty good, we’ll listen. But we don’t need to look back, and we won’t,” the official said. Alexander Haig, another former secretary of state, agreed that getting support may not be as difficult as some people think. He indicated that France, and Germany, might come aboard in the end. “Surely, Jacques Chirac is not sending France’s pride, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, to the Persian Gulf in order to prevent an American-led military action against Iraq,” Haig wrote in another Wall Street Journal commentary today. “Just as surely, Gerhard Schroeder will not prevent the movement of American forces and aircraft through Germany,” Haig said. A Tough Sell Private experts, however, do not appear as hopeful that Powell can turn things around at the United Nations. “I think Saddam has done his homework,” said Patrick Garrett, associate analyst at GlobalSecurity.org. “It is going to be incredibly difficult. I don’t think this is going to be the piece of evidence that members of the Security Council want to see. We don’t know if they are going to present anything we haven’t seen already,” Garrett said. He said Powell’s address would merely be one more attempt in a series of incremental arguments to help build international support, which will ultimately come when Security Council members themselves are convinced that all diplomatic approaches have been exhausted. Other experts are similarly skeptical about Powell’s prospects. “We don’t have any hard evidence of Saddam’s programs and whatever weapons he might have,” said Joseph Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The links between Baghdad and al-Qaeda are tenuous. If the administration tries to prove that Osama [bin Laden] and Saddam are strategic allies it may backfire,” he added. “It may undermine U.S. credibility, not enhance it,” Cirincione said. “Without compelling hard evidence it is going to be very difficult to get a resolution of any kind out of the Security Council,” Cirincione said. “They are more suspicious of U.S. intentions than Iraqi intentions. For most of the Security Council, the punishment is worse than the transgression. They will not be able to show the threat is growing and imminent. I think the administration has got a weak case,” he said. Powell’s presentation, however, may be just as much for domestic consumption as the international audience. “They are merely showing the American public they are trying to make a good-faith effort to get a resolution and get the U.N. on board,” Garrett said. “If they don’t get it, it doesn’t mean war isn’t going happen,” he added.
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