Iraq to allow inspections Ambassador delivers acceptance letter to Annan's office Associated Press RESOURCES Video: • President Bush's speech on U.N. vote for resolution / Audio / Text Audio: Bush warns Iraq in radio address: 11/9 / Audio español / Text / Text español Graphics: • Time frame for inspections • Makeup of the U.N. Security Council Multimedia: • Iraq profile (Requires Flash plug-in) Other: • Text of U.N. Security Council resolution 1441 (11/8) • Chronology of key events since 1990 • Text of Britain's dossier of Iraqi plans to allow weapons inspectors (9/2002) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Video, audio courtesy The White House and The Associated Press. (Free Real Player required) (Some files require Acrobat Reader) UNITED NATIONS -- Iraq, facing a Friday deadline and the threat of war, has accepted a tough new U.N. resolution that will return weapons inspectors to the country after nearly four years, the country's U.N. ambassador said. "The letter says that Iraq will deal with Security Council resolution 1441 despite its bad contents," Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri said today. "We are prepared to receive the inspectors within the assigned timetable," he said. "We are eager to see them perform their duties in accordance with international law as soon as possible." In the letter, Iraq reiterates that it has no weapons of mass destruction, Al-Douri said. "We explained in the letter the whole Iraqi position saying that Iraq ... has not and will not have any mass destruction weapons, so we are not worried about the inspectors when they will be back," he said. Al-Douri delivered the letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office. Annan was in the Washington area today to deliver a speech and meet with President Bush, who has repeatedly threatened Iraq with a U.S.-led war if it fails to comply with inspectors. The secretary-general on Tuesday dismissed a vote earlier that day by Iraq's parliament opposing the tough new resolution and expressed hope that the government would accept the resolution adopted unanimously last Friday by the U.N. Security Council. Iraq's acceptance would clear the way for the arrival of an advance team of U.N. inspectors on Monday. The team will be led by U.N. chief inspector Hans Blix, who is in charge of biological and chemical inspections, and Mohamed ElBaradei, head if the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is in charge of nuclear inspections. Al-Douri said Iraq hopes its acceptance of the resolution will avoid the threat of war. "We are always opting for the path of peace," he said. The resolution demands that Iraq cooperate fully with the inspectors, who can go anywhere at any time to search for weapons of mass destruction. It warns that Iraq faces "serious consequences" if it doesn't comply -- and the United States has made clear that an Iraqi failure to cooperate will almost certainly mean a new war. On Tuesday, the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's son, Odai Saddam Hussein, proposed making Arabs part of the U.N. team, echoing a recommendation from the Arab League. Blix's office said it has trained inspectors from 49 countries, including six Jordanians, one Moroccan and five Turks. "We don't get too many applications from Arabic countries and we would welcome more applications from people who have the right expertise," one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ElBaradei said the IAEA in the past had "many inspectors from many Arab countries" and this was not a problem.
Does anyone think that Bush will not attack, regardless of how cooperative Sadam is with the inspectors?
I think he will Glynch. Its a delay tactic on Saddam's part now that Bush has said we arent waiting any longer (for the 9th time). Its all posturing. Someone is going to call someone else's bluff one of these days.
If Saddam completely and unconditionally complies with all the resolutions but, more importantly, Saddam decides that it's in his and Iraq's best interest to "rejoin" the international community I don't think Bush will attack. Personally I have never felt that Bush was dead set on attacking but that all this talk was just that - talk. Once again, judge a person by their actions, not their words and, based on passed actions Saddam is going to be the one who will blow it. And if he blows it, then you bet the U.S. along with the rest of the world will come down on him. I think the Bush administration has played this whole thing out pretty well. Right now, with the resolution, Saddam has to comply and if he doesn't the rest of the world has to condemn him. The resolution gives other Arab states the opportunity to come down on Saddam without necessarily looking like they are "puppets" of the U.S. (because it's a unanimous U.N. resolution) And if Saddam tries to pull a fast one France, Russia, etc... will have to act or else look pretty stupid. I'm really hoping that Saddam decides that staying in power and staying rich is the better choice then fighting to the death. All he has to do is work toward the betterment of his people and country and then he, and his people, can get more prosperous by selling all that oil (not to mention tourism, trade, etc....).
Yes, I do. It is a good thing that we are disarming him, before we invade. Solid strategy. BTW, it is completely impossible for all parties to believe and agree that Saddam is 100% disarmed, since it is something that you can not prove. The White House is still committed to a regime change, so they are very likely to never about the percentage of disarmament.
I think that even if Saddam is 100% compliant in disarmament, the White House will trump up some excuse and invade.
I agree. I wouldnt say that we will use an excuse...rather that we will finally give Iraq what they have had coming for a long time.
Actually there is nothing to disarm according to Iraq even though Saddam's trying to ship in atropine to help protect his troops against the nerve gas he'll use when we invade. "We explained in the letter the whole Iraqi position saying that Iraq ... has not and will not have any mass destruction weapons, so we are not worried about the inspectors when they will be back," he said.
I'm glad he accepted the conditions. I have hope that the technology to track down WMD has improved dramatically over the least 10 years. I know that Bush's team is concerned that the inspectors will find some stuff, Iraq will claim that it's all they have, but they still will have more (apparently, some of these installations at the Presidential Palaces are the size of Giants Stadium, and many have underground complexes). It would be difficult to impossible to build an international consensus to take military action then.
How long must Iraq be compliant? Because you know the day after they will start stockpiling. This was Sadaam's only possible decision. It was literally life or death. A no-brainer. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Almost every sane man would have made this decision. Only an insane man would have not.
"I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five. Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kind have lost track myself. but bein' this is a 44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question.......do i feel lucky?..........well do ya punk?"
Agreed. No one said anything about trusting Sadam. My question assumes that the inspectors don't find weapons. Your response is either illogical or a result of your own bias, perhaps against the whole idea of weapons inspections. Perhaps you should join Nomar in deep thinking by saying: Why inspect? "Just bomb the crap out of them".
I AM against the idea of weapons inspections. I understand the political ramifications. If we (or the UN) doesn't go through the motions with this, then we're the bad guy if we attack. Logistically though, weapons inspections are a complete joke. With an area roughly three times the size of New York State, weapons inspections are nothing more then a gratuitous display of restraint. Granted, we probably have the best intelligence network in the world, but it's not too hard to hide and move this stuff. Whole labs (at least the relevant equipment) can often be moved with an 18-wheeler or less. If one truck leaves a suspected site and disappears into another, and then two trucks emerge from that site and go to two others, this can very quickly become an exponential problem of too many suspected sites to cover. Saddam has had too much time to scatter everything. Hell, I don't see why it wouldn't be that difficult to play cat and mouse with the inspectors while their on the job. It's not like they're spread out across the country. We have city police departments, county sherrif's departments, state law enforcement departments, and Federal law enforcement departments here in the US, and we can't stop all of the illegal activity here. Do we really expect a small team of "inspectors" to have much real succes in Iraq? Sure....Iraq might slip up once or twice, but in this world, all they need to do is apologize and all will be forgiven. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the inspection team runs into a suicide bomber while they're there. If it happens, my money says it's because they were getting too close to an area they weren't supposed to see. Of course, by the time the area is "secured," there won't be much left to discover. But hey.....whatever makes people happy.
