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[casi] Duelfer



Former UN weapon inspector Charlies Duelfer is quoted in
today's Sunday Telegraph as saying: 'The inspectors are
supposed to make Iraq give up a capability that it is
convinced is essential to its survival. It's taken me seven
years to realise that this just ain't going to happen.' (in
David Wastell, 'Cheney Woos Arabs on Plan Against Iraq',
Sunday Telegraph, 10 March 2002)

This is unintentionally revealing.

First, he ignores the fact that Iraq did give up most of
that capability.

Second, he attributes to Iraq the motivation of retaining a
capability essential to its survival. Iraqis are very much
of the view that chemical weapons are needed to forestall
possible conventional defeat by Iran - Western policymakers
agreed which is why they didn't care about them or their
use (both sides used them in the Iran-Iraq war). And with
Israel having the full WMD spectrum and the US bombing it
regularly, and more revelations about US nuclear weapons
planning, these are further motivations. This is central to
explaining why the states of the region are not quaking in
their boots at the Iraqi WMD threat. The Iraqi regime is
more like Western governments than Blair care to admit -
governments which admit a willingness to consider using
nuclear weapons for a whole range of contingencies. Most
importantly, Duelfer's statement underlines the argument
that threatening the survival of the Iraqi leadership
undermines the chances for successful arms control.

 Best wishes

 Eric


----------------------
Dr. Eric Herring
Department of Politics
University of Bristol
10 Priory Road
Bristol BS8 1TU
England, UK
Office tel. +44-(0)117-928-8582
Mobile tel. +44-(0)7771-966608
Fax +44-(0)117-973-2133
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Politics
eric.herring@bristol.ac.uk


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