The Changing Standards For Inspections

01 Oct, 2002 by John Hawkins

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The Changing Standards For Inspections: Sending arms inspections into Iraq isn’t going to accomplish anything. Saddam has had an entire decade to hide his weapons of mass destruction which is going to make it very difficult for the inspectors to find anything. Even if they do start to get close to something, Saddam will just have his men delay the inspectors or he will move the WMD to one of the areas that are off-limits to inspections (like his palaces.) If worse comes to worse and the inspectors do find something, it doesn’t really make any difference because surely by this time Saddam has multiple sources for all of his WMD. So if let’s say the inspectors find a batch of anthrax in a hospital, it’s not as if Saddam doesn’t have a dozen more sources producing anthrax across the country that the inspectors won’t know about.

This is why President Bush in his speech to the UN did not demand inspections, but instead said, “If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material.”

Soon after that, the Iraqi regime said they, “unconditionally accepted the return of U.N. weapons inspectors.” Well, I told you that didn’t even meet the first of Bush’s five conditions for peace so it didn’t mean anything but lefties across the world were screaming, “Bush won’t take ‘yes’ for an answer.” To the surprise of no one (no Conservatives anyway), Saddam and company soon declared that palaces were off limits and started playing the same old games they did before.

Now the UN seems ready to totally give in to Saddam…

“Charles Duelfer, the former deputy chief inspector, said over the weekend that he feared that Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, would concede too much during the discussions with Baghdad officials on practical arrangements for inspections.

In particular, he fears that, without a fresh U.N. resolution to change the ground rules, Mr. Blix will give in to Iraqi demands to restrict inspectors’ access at key locations. These include eight presidential palaces and dozens of other “sensitive sites” around the country.”

How hard is it supposed to be to hide weapons of mass destruction when you can make areas like “palaces” & “the headquarters of the ruling Ba’ath Party, the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard, the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, and engineering and academic research centers” off-limits to inspectors as Saddam did back in 1998?

Anyone who is telling you that inspectors would be anything other than a farce at this point is either hopelessly naive at best or is deliberately trying to deceive you at worst. Inspections for WMD in Iraq are futile and a waste of time and any knowledgeable and honest person should be willing to acknowledge that fact.