Iraqi Inspections-Just as Expected

Continued from page 1

By Richard A. Muller

January 10, 2003

A new and important stage in the confrontation began this week, when the U.N. started using six helicopters, three American and three Russian. These allow swift inspections of remote sites, and they will probably be used in the last pre-war inspection. That may not take place until the U.S. is war-ready. This inspection will be directed at a secret site, perhaps an underground facility, perhaps a remote palace, a location that the inspectors previously ignored. We can anticipate that Saddam will not let them in. His rhetoric will be intense. He will claim that the inspectors were trying to humiliate him, and that he had a sovereign right to keep them out. But shortly afterwards the war will begin, very likely with Security Council approval.

War can still be averted. The most likely way, one that is being encouraged by the United States, is for Saddam to be overthrown by his own people. The Iraqi military knows it cannot win, and does not want to experience the devastation of another U.S.-led attack. Ironically, Saddam may be inadvertently encouraging a coup through his repeated claims that war with the U.S. is inevitable.

There are other scenarios that avert war. If the inspectors are given complete access to every site they suspect, then there will not be war. (Some pundits think President Bush will attack anyway, but I do not.) Or, perhaps Saddam will relent and admit to having weapons of mass destruction-and then disarm. But this doesn't fit with what I and many others have perceived in Saddam's character.

I think Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, and that he will not allow the U.N. inspectors to find them. The goal of the inspectors is not to find these weapons, but to be denied access. When that happens, they will have succeeded in their mission. War is next. Vindication will come only afterwards, when the illegal weapons sites are found and destroyed. At least, that is what I hope. I fear that the first compelling proof of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction may come, not after the war but during it-when Saddam demonstrates their existence by using them.