But I Thought Iraq’s Offer Had No Strings Attached?

17 Sep, 2002 by John Hawkins

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But I Thought Iraq’s Offer Had No Strings Attached?: We’re one day in from Saddam’s offer to allow weapons inspectors back into Iraq (which in and of itself was hopelessly inadequate to forestall an attack) and already we’re seeing that the offer was bogus. From today’s Evening Standard…

“Iraq made a surprise offer late last night to provide “unconditional access” to United Nations inspectors, raising hopes of a peaceful outcome to the Gulf crisis.

But today it emerged that the offer only applied to military bases – which could let Saddam hide chemical and biological arms stockpiles elsewhere.”

So it was all a lie, big surprise coming from Saddam huh? You know what this reminds me of? The Taliban offering to negotiate for Osama Bin Laden. “Oh we’ll send him to another Islamic nation…we’ll put him on trial here…send someone here to negotiate, etc, etc.” It was far too little, far too late just like this offer.

Just in case you were wondering why “unconditional access” for inspections would be irrelevant anyway at this point an Arab League spokesman unwittingly explains it for everyone…

“An Arab League spokesman said only military sites were covered because it would take 10 years for inspectors to examine civilian buildings, which would divert the UN’s attention from making Iraq obey its resolutions. “If the US really wants to resolve this dispute it will welcome the offer,” he added.”

When we know that Hussein is cooperating with terrorists today and that he may have a nuclear bomb in months, we don’t have ten years to waste.