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On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Robin Green wrote: > France proposing to end weapons inspections?!? I am genuinely surprised > at this - It's not completely irrational. The Economist magazine has claimed that France is owed money from lucrative Iraqi contracts, and presumably it stands to win more. It would probably like to normalise relations with Iraq as soon as possible; an end to UNSCOM would be a first step to removing sanctions. Historically, France has armed Iraq and might hope of doing so again in future, even if this might not be allowed while Saddam is in power. Alan Bates said: ... "The best chance of sanctions being lifted is if the campaigners against the sanctions accept the realistic view that we cannot just walk away and allow Iraq to continue to possess weapons of mass destruction." Saddam's arsenal is indeed a problem, but 'we' have our own, the justification being that it is needed for deterrence. Iraq, too, might reasonably claim that it needs a deterrent. The competing claims of Iraq, Israel, Pakistan - to say nothing of conventional arms in the region - can only be solved as a whole; this, I suggest, is the 'common sense' view of Iraqi disarmament. We should have no truck with a view that makes Iraq the new cold war pariah; Britain and America use it to justify their own militarism and war crimes to a gullible population. Jeff Vernon -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html