C H O I C E S

Living Consciously

Published on Sunday, February 9, 2003 by the Toronto Star
"Let the World Be Damned: Four scenarios ahead, and three involve war"
by Haroon Siddiqui

The last five days have shown why America has had so much trouble selling its case on Iraq.

Secretary of State Colin Powell's bravura performance before the U.N. Security Council prompted many people the world over to wonder:

Why would America not use its frightening snooping capacity to track down and zap Saddam Hussein, now that assassinations are part of the American foreign policy? Or just pick him up for the International Criminal Court? Wouldn't that be more moral than waging war and raining death and mass misery on innocent Iraqi civilians?

Also, why has America, in contravention of Security Council resolution 1441 of Nov. 8, been withholding its anti-Iraq evidence from the United Nations' weapons inspectors?

And what, exactly, is the American case for rushing to war?

That Saddam is another Hitler? That his people need liberating?

That he has biological and chemical weapons? That he wants to build a nuclear bomb?

That he is concealing such weapons? That he is dodging the U.N. inspectors?

That he may attack his neighbours? That he may be in cahoots with terrorists who could, some day, somehow, attack America?

That he is harbouring Hamas?

All of those things.

But the laundry list, domestically useful to George W. Bush, poses problems internationally:

• Baghdad is not the only place with a Hamas office. Would America bomb Beirut, Damascus and Tehran as well?
• Iraq is not the only rogue state. Many others are worse.
• Regime change in Baghdad is not part of any U.N. directive.
• Where Iraq is in serious violation of several U.N. resolutions, it is up to the Security Council to pronounce, `The game is over,' not Bush. It is illogical for him to be condemning Iraq for disregarding the United Nations while threatening to do exactly the same himself.

But there has been little logic to this enterprise, which is why we face this stunning dichotomy: The world reviles Saddam, yet refuses to support the Bush push to topple him. It does not believe a word of Saddam's denials, nor does it trust Bush — or Powell.

Even chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix is challenging several American assertions: that Iraq is hiding and moving banned materials, that Iraqi agents are posing as scientists, that Iraq alone is bugging the inspectors' conversations, that there is a "sinister nexus" between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

On the latter, others are picking Powell's case apart, saying he got names and places wrong and that the British intelligence dossier he cited approvingly had been copied from published articles and a Ph.D. thesis, and contains obsolete information.

There are four scenarios ahead, three involving war.

1. Miraculously, Saddam agrees in this weekend's meetings with Blix and Mohammed elBaradei to a full accounting, and the supervised destruction, of all his banned weapons. On Friday, when they brief the Security Council, it agrees to await their next report, due March 1.

2. Blix and elBaradei report reaching a dead end and the council passes the much talked about second resolution. War can begin, legally.

3. They give a mixed report. A majority on the council decides to give them more time. America and Britain balk and proceed with a coalition of cronies, including such worthies as Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. This is the nightmare scenario.

Bush understands, and hence is trying for the following.

4. Rather than risk the veto of France or China or both, he floats a resolution well short of authorizing war. Veto-bearing objectors can abstain. The required majority of nine goes along.

Russia has already been softened up with the unconscionable concession that its butchery in Chechnya is justified war on terrorism. Among the non-permanent members, Angola has been promised $4.1 million (U.S.) and Guinea $2.1 million for refugee settlements.

Among the non-members, Turkey has been bought off with a multi-billion-dollar package and, more shockingly, a promise to let Turkish forces occupy part of northern Iraq, so that Kurds fleeing the war won't be able to enter Turkey and, more strategically, won't re-float the idea of an independent Kurdish state.

By securing a second Security Council resolution, America hopes to ease the unprecedented anti-war pressure on the likes of Jean Chrétien, Tony Blair ("I am fighting for my political life"), John Howard (the first Australian prime minister in 102 years to be censured by the senate, for his decision to send 2,000 troops for the war) and nervous Arab leaders.

America wants war, badly, in spring, and there's no stopping it. Let the world be damned.

Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday.

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