Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Iraq

  • North Korea and the Bush Administration’s Proliferation Folly: Nuclear Admission Demonstrates Militarism is not a Solution

    The Bush administration’s recent announcement of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) admission to developing a nuclear weapons program has thrust the fact that Iraq is not an isolated nuclear weapons proliferator into the center of the war debate. The announcement highlights startling questions as to the administration’s lack of a consistent and comprehensive nonproliferation strategy and has evoked serious accusations as to why Congress was not told about the DPRK’s admission prior to voting on the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

    The parallels between the DPRK and Iraq’s nuclear weapons program are undeniable. Both countries are known to have had programs to develop nuclear weapons and have been designated as members of the “axis of evil” by the Bush administration. The United States even came close to war with North Korea over their nuclear weapons program in 1994.

    In fact the DPRK’s weapons program may be far more advanced than Iraq’s. North Korea has enough plutonium to construct an estimated six nuclear weapons within six months, is pursuing technology to enrich uranium, and has consistently resisted the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) push for full inspections. Iraq, on the other hand, is not thought to have the materials necessary to build a nuclear weapon, and has stated that it will allow United Nations lead weapons inspections.

    Yet the administration has made clear its commitment to find a diplomatic solution to crisis with North Korea and to pursue the option to use force against Iraq, without providing convincing answers as to why its response to the two nations should differ so greatly.

    This glaring inconsistency puts a spot light on the fact that the Bush administration’s Iraq policy does not provide a comprehensive, long-term solution to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. If we must wage war on Iraq because of the threat of nuclear weapons, why not Israel, which is thought to possess approximately 200 nuclear weapons? Why not Pakistan, which is nuclear capable and is thought to have provided North Korea with enrichment technology? Why not China which provided Pakistan with that technology in the first place? It is clear the United States cannot and should not take pre-emptive military action against each of these proliferators.

    On the other hand, if the Bush Administration is confident that diplomacy is the correct option for North Korea, Israel, India, Pakistan and other potential proliferators, why not Iraq? The very fact that the United States is treating Iraq differently from other proliferators is infuriating many countries, particularly Arab ones, and threatening US interests in the region. This was made very clear in the recent Security Council emergency session on Iraq where country after country condemned Iraq’s violation of disarmament obligations, but also opposed the US push for authorization for the use of force against Iraq.

    Though the administration claims that its militant Iraqi policy proves that it is hard on proliferation, the White House has, in fact, impeded effective arms control not only by thwarting multilateral treaties such as the CTBT and the protocol to the Biological weapons convention and but also by providing insufficient funds for efforts to control nuclear materials. The administration’s expectation that other nations will embrace disarmament and nonproliferation principles while the United States continues to disengage from multilateral solutions and advance its nuclear weapons technology seems clearly unreasonable.

    Congress Kept in the Dark

    Democrats in Congress have, through their aids, voiced criticism that they were not told of North Korea’s admission to its nuclear weapons program while they were considering the resolution authorizing the administration to use force against Iraq. The Washington Post quoted one aid as stating, “Senators are concerned and troubled by it…This cloud of secrecy raises questions about whether there are other pieces to this puzzle they don’t know about” (October 19, 2002).

    Informing Congress about the DPRK’s admission could have delayed the vote on the war resolution to allow further consideration of the precedent that would be set in Iraq and how that could affect US policy towards proliferators such as the DPRK. Congress would have been forced to address the Iraq situation in the broader context of global proliferation through the concrete example of North Korea.

    The White House’s explanation for the delay is that analysts were still considering a response to the DPRK. Yet when the announcement was eventually made no planned response was released, and the administration is clearly still in the process of consulting other nations.

    Though Congress had been briefed on evidence of North Korea’s nuclear weapons effort, the outright admission by the DPRK significantly increases pressure on the United States to deal with the program in a timely manner. Keeping such clearly relevant information from Congress during a debate on whether the United States should go to war is likely to damage even further the credibility of the administration’s intelligence claims.

    Solution Remains Unclear

    Exactly what the DPRK hoped to get out of the admission that it has an active nuclear weapons program is still far from clear. It may be that the Kim John Il felt he had little left to lose in relations with the United States besides nuclear power reactors its deteriorated electrical grid cannot accommodate and heating fuel shipments which make up less than five percent of the country’s yearly energy needs.

    North Korea has responded to criticism by pointing out that, by neglecting for years its commitment through the 1994 Agreed Framework to make significant efforts to end hostile relations and normalize diplomatic and economic ties, it was the United States that first violated the bilateral pact.

    Some analysts suggest that North Korea made the announcement in preparation to make significant concessions in dismantling its nuclear weapons program. Such negotiations will depend on the commitment of both the Kim regime and the Bush administration to finding a peaceful resolution to this looming conflict, and the ability of Bush administration to navigate diplomatic avenues without relying on military action.
    *Devon Chaffee is the Research and Advocacy Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • U.S., Iraqi Students Exchange Letters of Peace

    Originally Published by the Ventura County Star, CA

    Dear Friend, My name is Fahad. First I want to thank you about your nice feelings toward our people in Iraq. Here in Iraq we love all peoples in the world and we try to help them if we could. All people in the world must not believe everything bad said about us in programs made specially to produce bad facts about Iraq.

    My students received this pen-pal letter from a student at the Al-Markaziya School for Boys in Baghdad. Earlier this month, I visited Iraq to deliver pen-pal letters from students in my “Solutions to Violence” classes, and now a friendship between two warring nations has the opportunity to bloom.

    The lack of intercultural communication between students in the United States and students in Iraq is troubling. All we know of them via mass media is that all 24 million Iraqis are equated with their one leader. All they know of us are 12 years of economic sanctions and no-fly-zone bombings.

    When I watch your movies on our black and white TV, I have many dreams to have a color TV, to see your real colors. Do you have the same face that we have? Do you have the same heart?

    The high-school-aged students have most often crossed my mind. When teaching about Iraq, I inquire as to the age at which my students had their first memories. Most students say somewhere around 3 to 5 years old. My students, most of whom are 15 to 18 years old, have grown up knowing leisurely lives, free from bombings, free to watch what they want on television and to buy what they want in shopping malls.

    I ask them to stand in the shoes of their same-age counterparts in Iraq. Imagine that since conscious memory, all they have known has been war. It’s a powerful exercise in empathy.

    Friday is my holiday. I don’t go to school, but I study for hours and hours to get to the medical college. Because of the embargo on our country, there’s no medicine for diseases, and many newborn kids and children are dying.

    Even more troubling to me are the youngest children, those 12 years and younger. They were born after the sanctions and after the Gulf War. They have known no life other than war. And the saddest part? It’s not at all their fault. They are being held hostage under a dictatorship they did not choose, captive and deprived of basic nutrition and access to education.

    I would like to tell you that all Iraqi people are against the idea of war. We believe in peace and that we have the right to vote our own leader.

    UNICEF reports that 80 percent of schools in Iraq are in desperate need of repair. Eight-thousand schools lack basic infrastructure and the basics to support education: no new textbooks since 1989, no chalk, no classroom repairs. Teachers’ salaries prior to the Gulf War were approximately $500 per month. They now earn $5 per month. Students are sent home to use the restroom because those at school pose too great a health risk. And the rate of primary school-aged girls dropping out has increased to 35 percent in the past 12 years.

    According to UNICEF, education is the only sector in Iraq that has shown no improvement since the sanctions were imposed in 1990.

    As a teacher, I am deeply concerned about the connections between education and war-making. Every penny we spend on weapons of mass destruction, every dollar that is diverted from academic enrichment to daisy cutters and pre-emptive strikes deprive American students of the right to a quality education.

    How enraging that our military recruits disproportionately in poor communities of color. How egregious that my students who cannot afford higher education must join the military to pay for their studies. This classist, racist policy glares at the American public who are too blinded by war talk to notice. We are sending poor people to kill poor people. Where is the democracy in that?

    So we are a people who like the peace and work to get it. Because whatever I say I can’t describe to you how much Iraqi people suffered after the war.

    Currently, the pen-pal letter exchange program, supported by Voices in the Wilderness and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is the only one of its kind. No study abroad programs exist. All diplomatic ties with Iraq have been severed since the early 1990s. It is even illegal to travel there.

    Knowing this, how can we expect the youth of America to know that “our quarrel,” as so many governments have said, “is not with the Iraqi people.” If we don’t make the distinction, how will they?

    Education is the key to ending wars. Through this simple outreach of American to Iraqi students, young people are changing the world.
    *Leah C. Wells, a Santa Paula teacher, serves as peace education coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara. She recently paid a second visit to Iraq and opposes the economic sanctions and no-fly-zone incursions on that country.

  • The Silent War: Iraq’s Women and Children are Casualties Amid Economic Sanctions

    Originally Published by the Ventura County Reporter

    Mohamed, a recently married Iraqi friend who works in the hotel where we stay in Baghdad, is expecting a child soon. Shortly before we left nearly three weeks ago, he approached some members of our seven-member peace delegation with troubling information about his wife’s pregnancy. She will need a Cesarean section—unfortunately, on his salary, Mohamed cannot afford the operation.

    Our team feels helpless listening to Mohamed’s story amid the millions of others like it in Iraq. Even so, it isn’t wise for us to get a reputation as problem-solvers. We do what we can, but working against the United Nations-imposed economic sanctions on Iraq can often be overwhelming.

    This Iraqi clasroom may soon gain over one-third new capacity. More than 35 percent of girls drop out of primary school due to the need to help support their families.

    As a woman visiting Iraq, I often have entrance into particular social situations unfamiliar to men, like holding hands or sitting next to mothers at the hospitals that tend their sick children. I grow particularly empathetic as I imagine myself in their shoes. I know the rage I feel here in the United States toward misguided economic policies meant to target Saddam Hussein but that directly affect the most vulnerable people in society: the women and children.

    In Iraq, life for women (especially mothers) was much better prior to the United Nations sanctions, imposed in August of 1990. From 1975 to 1985, the Iraqi government invested large amounts of money in social programs, such as education and health care. A program to eradicate illiteracy among Iraqi women was exceedingly successful, and women have traditionally enjoyed freedoms not found in other contemporary Arab and Muslim countries.

    In an Oct. 1 New York Times article, Nicholas Kristof reported on the liberal attitudes toward women in Iraq. He wrote that women routinely serve in non-combat positions in the military. They pray, dine and swim together with men. Girls compete in sports as often as boys do.

    Compare these tremendous opportunities with those in neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia, where repressive attitudes cloister women from public life into sometimes dangerous situations. In March, a group of Saudi girls was incinerated, having been denied exit from a burning building because they were not covered by a hijab, or head scarf.

    Although more openminded in its attitudes, Iraq has become decidedly more dangerous for women and children since the Gulf War due to the breakdown in medical care and especially in preventive medicine. Mohamed’s wife knows this predicament all too well.

    In Basra, where much of the Gulf War fighting transpired, 25 of the 26 obstetrics and gynecology students are women. During my first visit to Iraq in August 2001, however, I spoke with a physician at the Basra Pediatric Hospital who said that 90 percent of the women in Southern Iraq suffered from severe anemia, a health indicator with serious implications for women and children.

    Severely anemic nursing mothers cannot provide their babies adequate nutrition. Thus, even breastfeeding has become problematic during the past 12 years of economic sanctions.

    A UNICEF document from April of this year states that many Iraqi mothers have stopped breastfeeding and that only 17 percent breastfeed during their baby’s first four months. Under the Oil for Food Programme of 1995, a food basket handout for Iraqi families contains powdered formula that mothers increasingly use.

    This is problematic for many reasons, among them that the formula requires water for preparation. Nearly 62 percent of women said they report giving their babies water in the first month of life, and nearly 32 percent of the children drink unboiled water—but the water in Iraq is severely contaminated. Many of the water purification, sewage treatment and electrical facilities were bombed during the Gulf War and remain largely unrepaired and are functioning at minimal capacity for a growing nation of 24 million.

    Last fall, Thomas Nagy, a Washington, D.C. professor, released a study called The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq’s Water Supply. In this paper, he details information in government documents from 1991 about how the Gulf War strategy included destroying Iraq’s civilian infrastructure, which violates Geneva Convention articles.

    “It notes,” Nagy reported, “that Iraq’s rivers ‘contain biological materials [and] pollutants and are laden with bacteria. Unless the water is purified with chlorine, epidemics of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis and typhoid could occur.’ Iraq will suffer increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack of required chemicals and desalination membranes. Incidences of disease, including possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population were careful to boil water.”

    Currently, the killer of children in Iraq is gastroenteritis, caused by drinking contaminated water. One in eight children do not see their first birthdays. Imagine the helplessness of being a mother in Iraq, knowing what life was like before the Gulf War and before economic sanctions, wanting nothing more than to be a good mother and provide a healthy, nutritious, safe life for her children.

    In a meeting with the chief medical officer at the Basra Pediatric Hospital, I inquired about the status of preventive health care for women in Iraq. His response was that there is none. This is quite remarkable for Iraq, which until 1990 had eradicated all childhood illnesses and had the most comprehensive health care system in the Middle East.

    While abysmally lacking resources and training programs, the medical field is nowhere as bleak as the education climate in Iraq, especially for young girls. More than 35 percent of girls drop out before the end of primary school due to the high price of school supplies and the need to help supplement the family’s income by going to work, likely begging.

    It seems we are condemning the women and children of Iraq to a fate similar to that of the 25 percent of American children who live in poverty, the 45 million people without health insurance and the 30,000 homeless in New York City alone.

    “Conflict is the last thing people in Iraq need,” UNICEF in Iraq reports. And when our group inquired about the potential effects of President Bush’s growing military campaign, an official at the World Food Programme office in Baghdad sighed: “The poorest people in Iraq will suffer the most.”
    *Leah C. Wells, a Santa Paula teacher, serves as peace education coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara. She recently paid a second visit to Iraq and opposes the economic sanctions and no-fly-zone incursions on that country.

  • A Bleak Day for America

    A Bleak Day for America

    Today is a bleak day for America, and for all Americans. Congress, in its fear and conformity, has voted to grant authority to the President to conduct a preemptive war against another nation. Congress has joined the President in assuming an imperial mantle, granting powers above and beyond our obligations under international and domestic law.

    Would that Congress had heeded its wiser and saner voices, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who cautioned restraint and warned that the vote to authorize the rush to war undermined our Constitution. Only Congress has the power to declare war under the US Constitution. It cannot legally give this power over to the president.

    “We are at the gravest of moments,” Senator Byrd told his colleagues. “Members of Congress must not simply walk away from their Constitutional responsibilities. We are the directly elected representatives of the American people, and the American people expect us to carry out our duty, not simply hand it off to this or any other president. To do so would be to fail the people we represent and to fall woefully short of our sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution.”

    International law, as imbedded in the United Nations Charter, allows for war under two tightly circumscribed conditions. First, a nation may engage in force for self-defense when an attack occurs or is imminent, but only if there is not time to take the matter to the United Nations Security Council and only until the United Nations Security Council assumes control of the situation. Second, a nation may engage in force when duly authorized by the United Nations Security Council after all efforts to secure the peace by peaceful means have failed.

    Despite the congressional vote of false authority to the President, neither of these conditions of authorization to engage in war has been fulfilled. There is no evidence that an attack by Iraq on the United States or any other nation is imminent. Nor have the peaceful means to resolve Iraq’s compliance with earlier Security Council resolutions calling for dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction been pursued since the United Nations, under pressure from the United States, pulled its inspectors out of Iraq four years ago. Iraq has indicated its willingness to resume inspections, but the Bush administration has been reluctant to take Yes for an answer and accept their offer of compliance.

    September 11th will be remembered in America as the tragic day terrorists made evident the vulnerability of even the world’s most powerful nation. October 11th should be remembered as the day that Congress meekly and uncourageously gave to the President of the United States the illegal authority to commit preemptive war. Such war, in the context of World War II called “aggressive war,” is what Nazi and Japanese leaders were held to account for at the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials following World War II.

    Such war is far from the proud traditions of America dating back to its Declaration of Independence. This is not the way that America should be leading the world, for it will result in international chaos, instability and increased insecurity. Now it is up to ordinary Americans to take to the streets and by their presence make it known in Washington and throughout the world that the American public does not support putting the face of Saddam on the innocent children of Iraq; nor does it support high-altitude bombing and other of acts of aggressive warfare in the name of a false and Orwellian peace.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His latest book is Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Vote “NO” On Iraq War Resolution US Statement by Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

    Before the House of Representatives

    As the vote on whether or not this Nation goes to war approaches in this Chamber, a vote which most surely will come within a few days, I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, for us to be able to make the case to the American people as to why it is not appropriate for this country to go to war and to encourage the American people to call their Members to make sure that government of the people, by the people, and for the people does prevail.

    The Members who joined me today, Members for whom I have the greatest gratitude, include the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano), the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner), the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers), the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson), and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

    One after another they came before the national press to make their case as to why this Congress should vote against any resolution which would put us on a path towards war. And one after another, in front of the National Press Corps, they called out to the American people to tell the American people to make sure that they called their Members of Congress; that if they did not want war, these Members told the National Press Corps, that if the American people do not want war, to call their Congressman.

    So, Mr. Speaker, today, I intend to do a number of things. I intend to present to this Congress an analysis of the joint resolution which was offered to this Congress; and, after presenting that analysis, I want to put in perspective where we are in this moment in history.

    The resolution which this Congress is facing says: “Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq’s war of aggression against an illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq.”

    The American people need to know that the key issue here is that in the Persian Gulf War there was an international coalition. World support was for protecting Kuwait. There is no world support for invading Iraq.

    The resolution goes on to say: “Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

    “Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated.”

    But the key issue here that the American people need to know is that U.N. inspection teams identified and destroyed nearly all such weapons. A lead inspector, Scott Ritter, said that he believes that nearly all other weapons not found were destroyed in the Gulf War. Furthermore, according to a published report in The Washington Post, the Central Intelligence Agency, yes, the Central Intelligence Agency, has no up-to-date accurate report on Iraq’s capabilities of weapons of mass destruction.

    The resolution that is presented to this Congress says: “Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998.”

    What the American people need to know, and the key issue here, is that the Iraqi deceptions always failed. The inspectors always figured out what Iraq was doing. It was the United States that withdrew from the inspections in 1998, and the United States then launched

    a cruise missile attack against Iraq 48 hours after the inspectors left. And it is the United States, in advance of a military strike, the U.S. continues to thwart, and this is the administration’s word, weapons inspections.

    Now, this resolutions, and what I am doing here obviously is stating the resolution as a point and then making the counterpoint so the American people can understand that this is a capsule summary of the debate that is going to take place in this House next week.

    In the resolution the administration contends: “Whereas, in 1998 Congress concluded that Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened U.S. vital interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations and urged the President to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations.”

    The resolution says: “Whereas Iraq both possesses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations.”

    The American people deserve to know that the key issue here is that there is no proof that Iraq represents an imminent or immediate threat to the United States of America. I will repeat: there is no proof that Iraq represents an imminent or immediate threat to the United States. A continuing threat does not constitute a sufficient cause for war. The administration has refused to provide the Congress with credible evidence that proves that Iraq is a serious threat to the United States and that it is continuing to possess and develop chemical and biological and nuclear weapons.

    Furthermore, there is no credible evidence connecting Iraq to al Qaeda and 9-11, and yet there are people who want to bomb Iraq in reprisal for 9-11. Imagine, if you will, as Cleveland columnist Dick Feagler wrote last week, if after this country was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor in 1941, if instead of retaliating by bombing Japan, we would have retaliated by bombing Peru. Iraq is not connected by any credible evidence to 9-11, nor is it connected by any credible evidence to the activities of al Qaeda on 9-11.

    The resolution says, and I quote, continuing in this comparison point by point, the resolution says, that we will be voting on the administration’s resolution: “Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait.”

    The counterpoint, and what the American people deserve to know, the key issue here, is that this language is so broad that it would allow the President to order an attack against Iraq even though there is no material threat to the United States. Since this resolution authorizes the use of force for all Iraq-related violations of U.N. Security Council directives, and since the resolution cites Iraq’s imprisonment of non-Iraqi prisoners, this resolution could be seen by some to authorize the President to attack Iraq in order to liberate Kuwaiti citizens, who may or may not be in Iraqi prisons, even if Iraq met compliance with all requests to destroy any weapons of mass destruction. The resolution goes on to say: “Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against any other nations and its own people;

    “Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.”

    The counterpoint of this, Mr. Speaker, and the key issue here, is that the Iraqi regime has never attacked, nor does it have the capability to attack, the United States. The no-fly zone was not the result of a U.N. Security Council directive. Now, many people do not know that. They think the U.N. Security Council established the no-fly zone. It did not. The no-fly zone was illegally imposed by the United States, Great Britain, and France, and is not specifically sanctioned by any Security Council resolution.

    The resolution goes on to say, and I quote from the resolution: “Whereas members of al Qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, are known to be in Iraq.”

    Well, the American people need to know there is no credible evidence that connects Iraq to the events of 9-11 or to participation in those events by assisting al Qaeda.

    The resolution states, and I quote: “Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens.”

    The key issue here, and the counterpoint that the American people need to know, is that any connection between Iraq’s support of terrorist groups in the Middle East, Mr. Speaker, is an argument for focusing great resources on resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It is not a sufficient cause for the United States to launch a unilateral preemptive strike against Iraq. Indeed, an argument could be made that such an attack would exacerbate the condition in the Middle East and destabilize the region.

    The resolution states: “Whereas the attacks on the United States of America of September 11, 2001 underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations.”

    And, again, and I stress, the American people need to know that there is no connection between Iraq and the events of 9-11. However, this resolution attempts to make the connection over and over and over. And just saying that there is a connection does not make it so, because the Central Intelligence Agency has not presented this Congress with any credible information that indicates that there is in fact a tie between Iraq and 9-11, between Iraq and al Qaeda, or Iraq and the anthrax attacks on this Capitol.

    And if we are to go to war against any Nation, and I oppose us doing this in this case, we ought not be taking such action in retaliation, and ought not put it in a document like this in retaliation, attacking a nation that had nothing to do with 9-11.

    The resolution goes on to say, “Whereas Iraq’s demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself”; that is the assertion.

    The key issue here is that there is no credible evidence that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. If Iraq had successfully concealed the production of such weapons since 1998, and let us assume that somebody has information they have never told Congress, they have never been able to back up, but they have this information and it is secret, and they secretly know Iraq has such weapons, there is no credible evidence that Iraq has the capability to reach the United States with such weapons, if they have them, and many of us believe no evidence has been presented that they do.

    In 1991, the Gulf War, Iraq had a demonstrated capability of biological and chemical weapons, but they obviously did not have the willingness to use them against the Armed Forces of the United States. Congress has not been provided any credible information which proves that Iraq has provided international terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

    Mr. Speaker, this resolution will be presented to this Congress to vote on as a cause of war. I am reading the exact quote from the resolution, and then I am making the counterpoint. In effect, this is the first step towards a debate on this issue on this floor.

    The resolution says, “Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688, and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949.”

    The counterpoint and what the American people need to know is that the U.N. Charter, and we participate in the United Nations, we helped form the United Nations, we helped set up this international framework of law that is represented by the United Nations, that the United Nations Charter forbids all Member nations, including the United States, from unilaterally enforcing U.N. resolutions.

    We cannot do this on our own. We cannot decide that some nation is in violation of U.N. resolutions and we take it upon ourselves to render justice.

    The resolution states, that will be before this House as a cause of war, “Whereas Congress in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) has authorized the President to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolutions 660, 612, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, 677”; and the point is the same.

    If those Security Council resolutions are not being implemented, that is up to the United Nations and the Security Council to take up the matter. It is not up to the United States to initiate unilateral action enforcing U.N. resolutions with military force.

    The resolution which is being presented to this House next week says, “Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), that Iraq’s repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region, and that Congress supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688.”

    Well, the counterpoint here is this, and what we are going to be asserting on the floor of this House is that this clause demonstrates the proper chronology of international process in contrast to the current march to war. In 1991, the United Nations Security Council passed the resolution asking for enforcement of its resolution. Member countries authorized their troops to participate in a U.N.-led coalition to enforce the U.N. resolutions. Now the President is asking Congress to authorize a unilateral first strike before the U.N. Security Council has asked its member states to enforce U.N. resolutions.

    If we believe in international law, then we ought to look to what this country did in 1991 when it joined the United Nations’ effort on this matter on global security and not go it alone, not initiate a unilateral action or attack or preemptive strike.

    The resolution here says, “Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”

    Well, the counterpoint is this, and the American people should know this, this sense of Congress resolution which is referred to in that paragraph was not binding. Furthermore, while Congress supported democratic means of removing Saddam Hussein, and I voted for that, we clearly did not endorse the use of force contemplated in this resolution.

  • The Bush Administration’s Assault on International Law

    The Bush Administration’s Assault on International Law

    Originally Published in World Editorial & International Law

    A war initiated by the United States to oust Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq under the present circumstances, and without U.N. Security Council authorization, would be tantamount to a “war of aggression,” an international crime for which high-ranking leaders of the Axis countries during World War II were held to account at the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo.

    The chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson, described such war as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Thus, the seriousness of the international law violation that such a war would entail would exceed the seriousness of the Iraqi violations that the Bush administration has cited to justify it. Such a war would also symbolize the complete reversal of official U.S. policy toward international law since World War II.

    In the immediate aftermath of the allied war against Nazi and Japanese aggression, the United States led other nations in establishing the United Nations Charter “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” and in founding the United Nations “to maintain international peace and security,” “to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace,” and “to bring about by peaceful means” settlements of international disputes.

    A war against Iraq at this time, whether initiated by the United States alone or with authorization from the U.N. Security Council, would violate these founding U.N. principles by permitting an unprovoked major war to occur, most likely with massive loss of life and the threat of wider conflict and conflagration.

    Furthermore, because the law of the U.N. Charter is less than ideal—reserving permanent Security Council membership to the great powers, including the United States, with veto authority over the council’s resolutions—a U.S.-imposed Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq would highlight and exacerbate the U.N.’s weaknesses, and would constitute a major setback to its fundamental goals and aspirations.

    If noncompliance with U.N. resolutions and secret weapons programs were legitimate grounds for the Security Council to authorize force, then the United States, if it were consistent, would be preparing a force-authorizing resolution for its own invasion, as well as for invasions of other permanent members of the council, and of Israel, India, Pakistan, and others.

    If the Security Council, however, manages to withstand U.S. pressure to authorize an invasion, and if, as it has threatened, the Bush administration invades Iraq without such authorization, the damage to international law would be equally great, given that the United States would be demonstrating its contempt for the U.N. Charter and the United Nations in the clearest possible terms.

    As the chief architect of the U.N. Charter, and as the world’s most powerful nation—militarily, economically, and politically—the United States has a special responsibility to uphold the founding principles of the United Nations, and to lead the world, not repeatedly to war, but in setting international precedents and developing global models for the peaceful resolution of conflict consistent with the rules, principles, and procedures of the U.N. Charter.

    With such leadership, the world could then turn its attention to broader applications of international law to other areas of profound concern, including global warming, preserving the oceans, protecting human rights, raising standards of living for the world’s poor, ending global starvation, ending the global arms bazaar, ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a just solution, and ending the threat of nuclear war—issues for which the Bush administration has shown only hostility. The alternative is international anarchy, irreversible environmental degradation and destruction, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps also a proliferation of wars unconstrained by the principles of a peaceful world order that the United States helped establish a half-century ago. Even the Bush administration’s efforts to reduce the terrorist threat to the United States would likely be damaged by an unprovoked war against an Arab state in the Middle East.

    International law is essential in the twenty-first century because powerful technologies and integrated economies cannot be constrained by national boundaries. The adverse effects of pollution, disease, and weapons of war are uncontrollable without standards contained in law. The sanctity of the earth’s biosphere, including human survival, has become dependent upon the strengthening of these standards. Sadly, however, the United States under the Bush administration has initiated an intense assault on international law in order to pursue short-term and short-sighted interests that avoid, evade, ignore, or violate the standards painstakingly developed by the international community, including the United States, over many decades.

    If the United States continues to shirk, even denounce, its responsibilities to uphold international law across a range of global problems and concerns, it will tear open the fabric of world security and international cooperation, and leave the future of the human race, including the United States, in extreme peril.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book isChoose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Choose Hope And Change The World

    Choose Hope And Change The World

    Earth Charter Summit, San Francisco

    We are gathered to consider one of the most visionary documents of our time, the Earth Charter. Before we focus our attention on this great document, though, I need to say something about the drums of war and war itself.

    I wrote this poem in 1971, more than thirty years ago during another war, but unfortunately it is again appropriate today. Listen carefully and you can hear the steady beating of the drums of war coming from Washington.

    THE DRUMS

    They’re beating on the drums again,
    the drums, the drums.
    They’re calling out the young men again,
    young men, young men.

    They’re training them to kill again,
    with knives and guns,
    with tanks and bombs.

    They’re sending them away again,
    across the ocean
    by ship, by plane.

    They’re acting up at home again,
    the mothers, the mothers.
    They don’t want their sons to go again
    to die, to die.

    And now they’re coming home again
    in caskets wrapped in flags
    with shrapnel in their backs,
    with heroin in their veins.

    And now they’re coming home again
    with snickers on their lips,
    with medals on their chests.

    They’re blowing on the bugles now.
    They’re beating on the drums,
    the drums, the drums.
    War is not an abstract. War kills people, particularly the innocent; war rips families apart, destroys cities and wastes our resources – including our most precious resource of all, our children.

    The political leaders of the most powerful nation that the world has ever known are beating on the drums of war, as they pursue perpetual war against terrorism, against the Taliban and now against Iraq. These men, flush with power, seek “regime change” in Iraq. They have decided that it is time that Saddam must go, regardless of the cost in lives of Iraqi civilians and of young Americans who will be sent to fight and die.

    If the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team has its way, we Americans will see the face of Saddam on every Iraqi man, woman and child. They will become our targets, the “collateral damage” of the bombs we drop from 30,000 feet. They will serve as both the enemy and those we liberate with our bombs. They will be the victims of our arrogance. Their deaths and injuries will be the cause of the next cadres of terrorists who rise up after we have injured and killed their loved ones and destroyed their homes and families. The new terrorists who are created by this war will make us the victims of the hubris of our political leaders.

    Today’s American military force is an army of volunteers, composed primarily of young people who are seeking the opportunity to get ahead. They are promised a college education, something they generally could not otherwise afford, for serving in the military. They are not told when they sign up that they may have to fight and die on a far-away desert before their dreams of a college education could be fulfilled. These are the young people who will be sent to die because they lacked good economic alternatives.

    I would like to offer just one simple suggestion that could put an end to this war and perhaps all war: Let those who seek to send others to fight in wars, go themselves. Isn’t that the essence of leadership – to lead the way.

    I’m tired of leadership of the “do as I say, not as I do” variety. Unfortunately, that has become the principal form of leadership in Washington – and it is bipartisan. This style of leadership also applies to weapons of mass destruction. Our government doesn’t want Saddam to have even one nuclear weapon, but it plans to retain thousands for itself in perpetuity. Our government provided the materials for biological weapons to Iraq over many years, and now our government has sabotaged the verification protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention that the nations of the world, including our closest allies, were eager to implement.

    If Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld said they were ready to go off to fight Saddam Hussein, I would at least believe that they had a modicum of integrity for being willing to put their own lives on the line for what they believed in. Instead, they want to send someone else’s sons and daughters off to fight and die.

    And what about Congress? Do you think that those who vote for war will be willing to go or to send their sons and daughters? Of course not. They believe in sending others to fight and die so that their own patriotism will not be questioned.

    But why should we judge their patriotism by their willingness to send others to war? What is wrong with us, citizens of a democracy? How did we become so complacent, so willing to let politicians dictate the lives and deaths of our young people without being willing to put their own lives or even their careers on the line?

    Hermann Goering, the Nazi Head of the Luftwaffe, said this about war in a conversation with a prison psychologist during the Nuremberg Trials:

    Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood.

    But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

    Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

    The human future stands on soft and precarious ground. Looking ahead, one path leads to war and devastation. Another path, far more hopeful, is the path of peace. But it must be an active, energetic and organized peace. We cannot wait for peace to come to us. We must choose peace and commit ourselves to attaining peace by our actions. A starting point for doing so is saying NO to war.

    Daisaku Ikeda has said, “Nothing is more precious than peace…. Peace is the most basic starting point for the advancement of humankind.”

    The drums of war are beating. Which will it be: Peace or war? We have choices. We can act.

    The Earth Charter is a blueprint for peace. It represents the hopes and dreams of millions of people for our common future. It is built upon an understanding of our shared humanity and our inextricable link with the web of all life. It is premised on our shared responsibility for passing the world on intact to the next generation and the next and the next. We must not be the generation that breaks faith with life and with the future.

    Never before in human history has the danger to our survival been greater. Today we live in a world in which nations are pitted against nations, in which wars are commonplace, in which overwhelmingly the victims of wars are civilians, and in which terrorists strike out at innocent civilians. All of this must change if we are to survive, if we are to flourish, and if we are to realize our full potential as human beings.

    The Earth Charter is a call to action. It is a call to each of us to rise to our full potential as human beings and to play our part in changing the world. Without our actions, the Earth Charter is only a flowery document – words upon a piece of paper. It is up to us, by our actions, to breathe life into this vision of global decency.

    Each of us is more special than we can possibly imagine. We are, in fact, miracles of creation. Each of us is entirely unique. There has never been anyone quite like you – with your combination of interests and talents, knowledge and appreciations — in the entire history of the universe. But beyond our magnificent uniqueness and our diversity, we all share a common humanity.

    We have been endowed with gifts that we often fail to realize or to use.

    We have the gift of thought and reflection, allowing us to grapple with the world’s problems and to find creative solutions, such as the Earth Charter itself.

    We have the gift of memory, making it possible for us to learn from our mistakes and those of others.

    We have the gift of voice and language, enabling us to communicate and to make our voices heard.

    We have the gift of conscience, enabling us to determine for ourselves right from wrong.

    We have the gift of creativity, allowing us to add to the world’s already enormous store of beauty through arts and literature, philosophies and religions, sciences and engineering, and day-to-day problem solving.

    We have the gift of love, making it possible to share closely with others the incredible gift of life in all its richness and beauty as well as in its sorrow and suffering.

    We have the gift of empathy, allowing us to understand another’s hurt and sorrow and to reach out with compassion and love.

    We have the gift of mobility, making it possible for us to go where we are needed.

    We have the gift to make and use tools, enabling us to extend our powers dramatically. Our tools have taken us into outer space, where our astronauts and cosmonauts have looked back on our beautiful, blue planet, so alone in the universe, so precious in its nurturing of life.

    And our tools have given us the power to destroy ourselves. That is the essence of the Nuclear Age. We can no longer be assured that the continuous flow of life, at least human life, will continue.

    Our tools are dual-purpose because we are dual-purpose, creatures capable of both good and evil.

    And we must choose. Choice itself is another of our great gifts as human beings. We each have the power of choice that we manifest each day of our lives by every act we make and decision we take.

    I believe that we are more powerful than our tools, including our most terrible weapons of mass destruction. We have the power to control these tools and to eliminate them. But we must exercise that power or our tools may eliminate us.

    As the Earth Charter tells us, the choice is ours: “We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future.”

    That choice can be made by our apathy, complacency and ignorance. That is the choice of abandoning our humanity by default. That is the choice of abandoning our human responsibility. It is the choice of those who would sleepwalk through the greatest challenges of our time, perhaps of any time.

    That choice can be made by giving over our power to leaders who would lead us into war and greed and selfishness. That is the choice of abandoning our democratic responsibilities and playing the role of lemmings rushing over a cliff to our demise.

    Or our choice can be made by standing on our own two feet, by embracing others, by our compassion, our creativity and our commitment to changing the world.

    To choose the path of life and decency will not be easy. In fact, it will require every ounce of courage that we have. We will have to learn to believe in ourselves and to empower ourselves to be a force for peace, even against great odds.

    We will have to stand firm and confident in the power of right and decency against entrenched and powerful institutions that would have us be complacent consumers rather than active peacemakers.

    At the dawn of the Nuclear Age, just days after the first atomic weapon was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Albert Camus, the great French writer said, “Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only battle worth waging. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments – a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.”

    Let us stand with Camus and choose Peace, because it is necessary. Let us stand with Camus and demand that our governments choose reason.

    War no longer has a place on our planet, and we must stop preparing for war. We must stop squandering our resources on tools of destruction. We must demand that the $850 billion now spent on the world’s military forces be spent instead on meeting human needs. If human needs are met and principles of justice among all peoples are adhered to, there will be no need for war, and the need for defense will atrophy.

    Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “One day we must come to see that peace is not the distant goal we seek, but the means to that goal.”

    Let us stand with Martin Luther King, Jr. and choose Peace because it is a wiser course of action, respectful of human life. Let us join him in his dream for justice and dignity for all. Let us stand with him in his conviction that peace and nonviolence are not only the ends we seek, but also the means to attain those ends.

    Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

    Let us stand with Eleanor Roosevelt and believe firmly in the beauty of our dreams. Let us believe deeply that the vision of the Earth Charter is not only right and necessary, but also possible. It is not an idle dream, but a vision of a world that must be built by our actions.

    Pablo Casals, the great master of the cello, said, “The love of country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”

    Let us stand with Pablo Casals, and choose to be citizens of the world. Let us erase the borders in our minds and replace them with an all-embracing love for humanity. Let us work to create a world in which every person, no matter where he or she is born, is able to live with dignity and full human rights as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    Jacques Cousteau, who explored and shared the beauty of the oceans and who lived with a deep commitment to future generations, said, “The time has come when speaking is not enough, applauding is not enough. We have to act.”

    Let us stand with Jacques Cousteau and commit ourselves to action – to action that will change the world, even if it is done one person and one decision at a time.

    The Dalai Lama has reminded us that we must never give up. He has written:

    No matter what is going on
    Never give up
    Develop the heart
    Too much energy in your country
    Is spent developing the mind
    Instead of the heart
    Be compassionate
    Not just to your friends
    But to everyone
    Be compassionate
    Work for peace
    In your heart and in the world
    Work for peace
    And I say again
    Never give up
    No matter what is going on around you
    Never give up

    Let us stand with the Dalai Lama, who has spoken so passionately for peace and nonviolence, and pledge to never give up our struggle for a more decent and peaceful world, a world we can be proud to pass on to the next generation.

    I would like to ask each of you to take three steps today to build a peaceful world and make the Earth Charter the reality we live by.

    First, say NO to nuclear weapons – all nuclear weapons – no matter who possesses them. You can go to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s web site at www.wagingpeace.org and sign our Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity and All Life. While you are at the web site, you can sign up to receive our Sunflower e-newsletter that will keep you informed monthly about the latest developments in working for a nuclear weapons-free world.

    Second, say NO to war. Write to the President and to your Congressional representatives today, and tell them that war against Iraq is an unacceptable solution and that they must find peaceful means through the United Nations and international law to end our impasse with Iraq so that innocent Iraqis and Americans will not be killed and more terrorists will not be created. Send more letters to your newspapers and talk about this with your friends. You can find a sample letter and contact information at the Waging Peace web site.

    Third, say YES to Peace and Choose Hope. Put aside complacency and despair and choose Hope as the basis for all of your actions from this day forward. Not frivolous hope, but hope that is rooted in courage, compassion and commitment. Stand up for peace, for human dignity and for future generations in all you say and do.

    The Earth Charter states, “As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning.” Let us begin.

    With hope as our foundation, with the Earth Charter as our guide, with each other for support, I am confident that together we will change the world.
    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book is Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • As General Debate of 57th General Assembly Opens, Secretary-General Stresses Indispensable Necessity of Multilateralism

    United States President Bush Calls on International Community To Stand Up for Its Security, Saying Iraqi Government a ‘Grave Danger’

    Opening the general debate of the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly this morning, Secretary-General Kofi Annan strongly reaffirmed the indispensable necessity and enduring relevance of multilateralism and multilateral institutions in efforts to maintain international peace, security and freedom for all.

    “I stand before you today as a multilateralist -– by precedent, by principle, by Charter and by duty”, he told delegations and world leaders. Recalling the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States, he said the sustained global response to meet that “brutal and criminal challenge” could only be successful by making use of multilateral institutions. When countries worked together in such institutions –- developing, respecting and when necessary, enforcing international law –- they also developed mutual trust and cooperation on other issues, including ensuring open markets and providing protection from acid rain, global warming or the spread of HIV/AIDS.

    The more a country made use of multilateral institutions — on matters large or small — the more others would trust and respect that country and the stronger its chance to exercise true leadership. “And among multilateral institutions, this universal Organization has a special place”, he said. When States decided to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there was no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

    He said the existence of an effective international security system depended on the Security Council’s authority -– and therefore the Council must have the political will to act, even in the most difficult cases, when agreement seemed elusive. The primary criterion for putting an issue on the Council’s agenda should not be the receptiveness of the parties, but the existence of a grave threat to world peace. Highlighting several challenges facing the international community today, he noted that the leadership of Iraq continued to defy mandatory Council resolutions and urged that country to comply with its obligations. If Iraq’s defiance continued, the Council must face its responsibilities.

    George Bush, President of the United States, said the United Nations had been born of the hope of a world moving towards justice, escaping old patterns of

    conflict and fear. The Security Council had been created so that diplomatic deliberations would be more than talk, and resolutions would be more than wishes. After generations of deceitful dictators and broken treaties, the international community had dedicated itself to standards of dignity shared by all and to a system of security defended by all. Today, those standards and that security were challenged.

    Iraq had answered a decade of United Nations resolutions with a decade of defiance. “All the world now faces a test”, he said, “and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment.” And as the Assembly met today, it had been almost four years since last United Nations inspectors had set foot in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein’s actions, as well as history, logic and the facts, could lead to but one conclusion -– the Iraqi regime was a grave and gathering danger. To assume that regime’s good faith was to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. “And that is a risk we must not take.” Saddam Hussein continued to defy those efforts and to build weapons of mass destruction — a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace.

    Were Security Council resolutions to be honoured and enforced? he asked. Or were they to be cast aside without consequence? Would the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or would it be irrelevant? The partnership of nations could meet the test before it by making clear what was expected of the Iraqi regime. The purposes of the United States should not be doubted –- Council resolutions would be enforced and the demands of peace and security would be met, or action would be unavoidable. The international community must stand up for its security and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States would make that stand. Representatives of United Nations Member States had the power to make that stand as well.

    Explaining that the root causes of terrorism were a sense of frustration and powerlessness to redress persistent injustice, Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan said that while terrorist attacks needed to be condemned, they should not be used to justify outlawing the struggles of a people for self-determination and liberation from colonial or foreign occupation, nor used to justify State terrorism. India had misused the rationale of war against terrorism against Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, but his country would not be coerced or frightened into compromising on its principled position. The conflict in occupied Kashmir was being waged by Kashmiris, who needed to be allowed to exercise their right to determine their own future.

    He went on to say that, unfortunately, the war against terrorism had been used as a vehicle to spread hatred against Islam and Muslims. As a first step in creating a sustained dialogue between the Islamic and Western nations, he proposed the adoption of a Declaration on Religious and Cultural Understanding, Harmony and Cooperation. His own Government was focused upon restoring the traditions of a tolerant Islam, he said, and had laid the foundations for sustainable development and democracy in three short years by empowering people through the devolution of decision-making to the grass-roots level, improving human rights, rationalizing

    (page 1b follows)

    economic policies and setting up the first Human Development Fund in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

    Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark, speaking on behalf of the European Union, affirmed that the terrorist attacks of 11 September last year had not weakened, but rather had strengthened the resolve of its members to actively seek security and prosperity for all.

    Iraq remained a major source of concern as well, with regard to weapons of mass destruction, he said. Unconditional and unimpeded access for the weapons inspectors was needed, as well as compliance with the obligations contained in the several Security Council resolutions on the situation in Iraq. The European Union agreed with the United States position that the Security Council urgently needed to address the matter of Iraq. It also agreed with the Secretary-General’s statement that if Iraq’s defiance continued, the Security Council would need to face its responsibilities.

    He said the greatest global challenge remained the fight to rid the world of persistent poverty. Recognizing that aid alone would not eliminate poverty, he saluted the African leaders, who had taken an impressive lead with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initiative. Strong political will and partnership was required to translate poverty eradication policies into sustainable development. He also extended the European Union’s welcome to the new United Nations Members, Switzerland and East Timor.

    Also participating in this morning’s debate were Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa; Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru; Georgi Parvanov, President of Bulgaria; Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia; Valdas Adamkus, President of Lithuania; Rene Harris, President of Nauru and Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe. The Minister for Foreign Relations of Brazil also spoke.

    The general debate of the fifty-seventh General Assembly will continue this afternoon at 3 p.m.

    Background

    The General Assembly began its annual general debate this morning following the presentation by the Secretary-General of his annual report.

    Statement by Secretary-General

    Secretary-General KOFI ANNAN said the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were an extreme example of a global scourge that required a broad, sustained and global response. A broad response, because terrorism could be defeated only if all nations united against it. A sustained response, because the battle would not be won easily, or overnight. A global response, because terrorism was a widespread and complex phenomenon, with many deep roots and exacerbating factors.

    Such a response could only succeed if full use was made of multilateral institutions. “I stand before you today as a multilateralist -– by precedent, by principle, by Charter and by duty”, he said.

    Any government committed to the rule of law at home must also be committed to the rule of law abroad, he said. All States had a clear interest, as well as a clear responsibility, to uphold international law and maintain international order. On almost no item on the agenda did anyone seriously contend that each nation could fend for itself. Even the most powerful countries knew that they needed to work with others, in multilateral institutions, to achieve their aims.

    Only by multilateral action could it be ensured that open markets offered benefits and opportunities to all; that people in the least developed countries were offered the chance to escape the ugly misery of poverty; that protections were possible from global warming, the spread of HIV/AIDS, or the odious traffic in human beings. Only concerted vigilance and cooperation among all States offered any real hope of denying terrorists their opportunities. When countries worked together in multilateral institutions –- developing, respecting, and enforcing international law, they also developed mutual trust. The more a country made use of multilateral institutions, the more others would trust and respect it. And among multilateral institutions, the universal Organization had a special place. When States decided to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there was no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

    He said the existence of an effective international security system depended on the Security Council’s authority –- and therefore the Council must have the political will to act, even in the most difficult cases, when agreement seemed elusive. The primary criterion for putting an issue on the Council’s agenda should not be the receptiveness of the parties, but the existence of a grave threat to world peace.

    He said the limited objectives of reconciling Israel’s legitimate security concerns with Palestinian humanitarian needs could not be achieved in isolation from the wider political context. The ultimate shape of a Middle East peace settlement had been defined long ago in Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, as well as in resolution 1397: land for peace; an end to terror and to occupation; two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side within secure and recognized borders. An international peace conference was needed without delay to set out a roadmap of parallel steps. Meanwhile, humanitarian steps to relieve Palestinian suffering must be intensified.

    The leadership of Iraq continued to defy mandatory resolutions adopted by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter. Efforts to obtain Iraq’s compliance with the Council’s resolutions must continue, he said, appealing to all who had influence with Iraq’s leaders to impress on them the vital importance of accepting the weapons inspections. He urged Iraq to comply with its obligations. If Iraq’s defiance continued, the Council must face its responsibilities.

    The Secretary-General also pressed leaders of the international community to maintain their commitment to Afghanistan. It had been the international community’s shameful neglect of Afghanistan in the 1990s that had allowed that country to slide into chaos, providing a fertile breeding ground for Al Qaeda. Afghanistan’s Government must be helped to extend its authority throughout the country, and donors must follow through on their commitments. Otherwise, the Afghan people would lose hope -– and desperation bred violence.

    In South Asia, the world had recently come closer than for many years to a direct conflict between two nuclear-weapon capable countries, he said. The situation, while a little calmer, remained perilous. The underlying causes must be addressed. If a fresh crisis erupted, the international community might have a role to play.

    In conclusion, he asked all to honour their pledge of two years ago, at the Millennium Summit, “to make the United Nations a more effective instrument” in the service of the world’s people.

    Statements in Debate

    CELSO LAFER, Minister for Foreign Relations of Brazil, said that Brazil had faith in the United Nations. The Organization was at a difficult juncture that called for measures sustained by the principles on which the United Nations was founded. Throughout the eight years of the Presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, certain fundamental requirements had been recurrent, including fostering democratic decision-making and overcoming the governance deficit in international relations. They also included designing a new financial architecture and providing effective solutions for volatility in capital flows; defending a fair and balanced multilateral trade regime; and affirming the value of human rights and development.

    Brazil could not face those challenges alone, he said. That was why President Cardoso had sought to strengthen the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) together with South American integration. The President had also promoted the development of partnerships in all continents, pursuing well-balanced negotiations with countries taking part in the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Brazil was committed to seeing the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol and the establishment of the International Criminal Court; to furthering the social development agenda and to moving forward on nuclear and conventional disarmament. The electoral process currently under way in Brazil would strengthen democracy in the country. Brazil’s commitment to the United Nations and to multilateralism would not waver.

    The tangled interests that formed a global Web of interdependence could only be managed through authority rooted in multilateral institutions and in respect for international law, he said. The commitment to negotiated settlements, under the aegis of multilateralism, must be upheld. Lasting solutions to terrorism, international drug trafficking and organized crime required careful and persistent efforts to set up partnerships and cooperative arrangements consistent with the United Nations multilateral system. Protectionism and all forms of barriers to trade, both tariff and non-tariff continued to suffocate development economies and to nullify the competitiveness of their exports. Liberalization of the agricultural sector had been nothing more than a promise repeatedly put off to an uncertain future. Globalization required reform of economic and financial institutions and should not be limited to the triumph of the market.

    The situation in the Middle East underscored how distant the world still was from the international order imagined by the founders of the United Nations Charter, he continued. Brazil supported the creation of a democratic, secure and economically viable Palestinian State as well as the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. Brazil also defended the right of the State of Israel to exist within recognized borders and of its people to live in security. Those were essential prerequisites for lasting peace in the Middle East. The use of force at the international level was only admissible once all diplomatic alternatives had been exhausted. Force must only be exercised in accordance with the Charter and consistent with the determinations of the Security Council.

    Regarding Iraq, Brazil believed that it was incumbent on the Security Council to determine the necessary measures to ensure full compliance with the relevant resolutions, he said. The exercise by the Security Council of its responsibilities was the way to reduce tensions and to avoid the unpredictable consequences of wider instability. In Angola, the international community must support recent positive developments that opened the way for rebuilding the country and consolidating peace. The Security Council needed reform so as to enhance its legitimacy and to lay the foundations for more solid international cooperation in building a just and stable international order. A central feature of reform should be the expansion of the number of members, both in the permanent and non-permanent categories. The United Nations was the crucial hinge in creating global governance focused on a more equitable distribution of the dividends of peace and progress.

    GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States, said meeting one year and one day after a terrorist attack that had brought grief to his country and the citizens of many others, it was time to turn to the urgent duty of protecting other lives -– without illusion and without fear. While much had been accomplished during the past year in Afghanistan and beyond, much remained to be done –- in Afghanistan and beyond. Many nations represented in the Assembly Hall had joined in the fight against global terrorism, and the people of the United States were grateful.

    He said the United Nations had been born of the hope of a world moving towards justice, escaping old patterns of conflict and fear. The founding fathers had resolved that the peace of the world would never again be destroyed by the wickedness of any man. The Security Council had been created so that –- unlike the League of Nations -– diplomatic deliberations would be more than talk, and resolutions would be more than wishes. After generations of deceitful dictators, broken treaties and squandered lives, the international community had dedicated itself to standards of dignity shared by all and to a system of security defended by all. Today, those standards and that security were challenged.

    The international community’s commitment to human dignity was challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease. The suffering was great, and the responsibility was clear. The United States was joining with the world to supply aid where it reached people and uplifted lives. It would also extend trade and the prosperity it brought. As a symbol of its commitment to human dignity, the United States would return to the newly reformed United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and would participate fully in its mission to advance human rights, tolerance and learning.

    He said the international community’s common security was challenged by regional conflicts -– ethnic and religious strife that was ancient but not inevitable. There could be no peace for either side in the Middle East without freedom for both sides. America stood committed to an independent and democratic Palestine, living beside Israel in peace and security. Like all other people, Palestinians deserved a government that served their interests. Above all, international security was challenged by outlaw groups and regimes that accepted no law of morality and had no limit to their violent ambitions. The threat hid within many nations, including his own, he said, and the greatest fear was that terrorists would find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplied them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.

    He went on to say that all those dangers, in their most aggressive and lethal forms –- the very kind of threat the United Nations was born to confront — could be found in one place and in one regime. Twelve years ago, Iraq had invaded Kuwait without provocation, and the regime’s forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Yet, that aggression had been stopped by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations. To suspend hostilities and to spare himself, Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein had entered into a series of commitments. The terms had been clear and he had agreed to comply with all those obligations. Instead, he had proven only his contempt for the United Nations and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -– by his deceptions and cruelties -– Saddam Hussein had made the case against himself.

    In 1991, Security Council resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities. That demand had been ignored. Through resolutions 686 and 687, the Council demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq’s regime had agreed, but subsequently had broken that promise. Further promises to comply with Council resolutions, on renouncing involvement with terrorism, and ceasing the support of terrorism, had also been broken by the Iraqi regime.

    He added that Iraq’s Government openly praised the terrorist attacks of

    11 September. Moreover, that regime had agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles and to comply with rigorous biological and chemical weapons inspections headed by the United Nations. It did not live up to those promises, and the inspections revealed that Iraq likely maintained stockpiles of anthrax, mustard gas and other chemical agents.

    He went on to say that today, Iraq continued to withhold important information about its nuclear weapons programme. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. He went on to say that Saddam Hussein had subverted the United Nations “oil-for-food” programme, working around the sanctions imposed in 1991 to buy missile technology and military materials. Hussein blamed the suffering of Iraq’s people on the United Nations, even as he used oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself and armed his country. As the Assembly met today, it had been almost four years since the last United Nations inspectors had set foot in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein’s actions, as well as history, logic and the facts, could lead to but one conclusion -– the Iraqi regime was a grave and gathering danger.

    To suggest otherwise was to hope against the evidence, President Bush continued. To assume that regime’s good faith was to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. “And that is a risk we must not take.” The international community had been more than patient, trying sanctions, the “carrot” of oil for food and the “stick” of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein continued to defy those efforts and to build weapons of mass destruction. That regime’s conduct was a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace.

    Iraq had answered a decade of United Nations resolutions with a decade of defiance. “All the world now faces a test”, he said, “and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment.” Were Security Council resolutions to be honoured and enforced? Or were they to be cast aside without consequence? Would the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or would it be irrelevant?

    He said that as a founding Member of the United Nations, the United States wanted the Organization to be effective, respected and successful. It wanted the resolutions of the world’s most important multilateral body to be enforced. The partnership of nations could meet the test before it by making clear what was expected of the Iraqi regime. If the Iraqi regime wished peace it must, among other things, immediately and unconditionally disclose, remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and other materials. It must also release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fates remained unaccounted for. It must cease persecution of its civilian populations, and immediately end all illicit trade outside the “oil-for-food” programme. If those steps were taken, it would signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq. And it would open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represented all Iraqis -– based on human rights, economic liberty and internationally supervised elections.

    The United States had no quarrel with the people of Iraq, for they had suffered too long, he continued. Liberty for the Iraqi people was a great moral cause and strategic objective. They deserved it, and the security of all nations required it. The United States supported political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq. The United States would work with the Security Council on a new resolution to meet the international community’s common challenge. If the Iraqi regime defied the international community again, the world must move deliberately and decisively to hold it in account. The purposes of the United States should not be doubted -– Security Council resolutions would be enforced and the demands of peace and security would be met or action would be unavoidable. “And a regime that had lost its legitimacy will also lose its power”, he said.

    Events could turn in one of two ways. If the international community failed to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq would continue to live in brutal submission, and the people of the wider region would continue to be bullied. Perhaps horrors even worse than 11 September would be wrought. But if the international community met its responsibilities, the people of Iraq could shake off their captivity and one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reform throughout the Muslim world. The international community must stand up for its security and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States would make that stand. And representatives of United Nations Member States had the power to make that stand as well.

    THABO MBEKI, President of South Africa, called on the United Nations to assist Africa in realizing its long-deferred dreams. He said the African Union, the successor to the Organization of African Unity, was the continent’s practical and determined response to its past and present, and the Union’s programme for its revitalization was the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

    He called on the African Union, working with United Nations agencies, to give priority to such matters as human resources development and capacity-building, modernizing Africa’s economy and dealing with the intolerable debt burden, the emancipation and empowerment of women, AIDS and environmental degradation, among other things.

    He expressed approval for the peace processes taking place in such troubled areas as Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Sudan and noted that elections had been successfully held in the Comoros. This would bring about the rebuilding of these countries with a better life for all.

    Mr. Mbeki also urged a concrete programme of action to implement the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development and was equally emphatic about the obligation to give real meaning to the message of hope proclaimed in the Millennium Declaration, as an answer to the murderous attack of 11 September 2001.

    The Millennium Declaration, he said, recognized that the central challenge of the world today was to make globalization a positive force for he world’s people. This had to be ensured so that sustainable development and prosperity for all would take place.

    ALEJANDRO TOLEDO, President of Peru, reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the international community to fight for democracy and international security. He also condemned the terrorist attacks perpetrated against the people of the United States on 11 September 2001. Peru was committed to continued collaboration with the Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee. Nations must weave a vast network of commitments to cooperate in all areas to defeat terrorism. Decisive steps should be taken to eradicate terrorism, which threatened peace, security and democracy.

    Peace was an essential condition for human development, he said. Peru promoted limiting defence spending at the regional level with the goal of freeing resources for social investment and the fight against poverty. Today, more than ever, the international community must commit to the construction of a participatory and efficient system of collective security. Peru had promoted the Andean Charter for Peace and Security, approved last June by the Andean community. In the same spirit, Peru had reaffirmed its commitment to creating a South American Zone of Peace and Cooperation and proposed the inclusion of the topic in the agenda of the Assembly’s fifty-eighth session.

    The construction of peace and good governance was an indispensable prerequisite for the preservation of liberty, he said. Peru was aware of the urgent need to develop multilateral efforts to strengthen democracies. He reiterated Peru’s proposal to create a Mechanism of Financial Solidarity for the Defence of Democracy and Good Governance. The time had come to be creative. Emerging democracies urgently required new resources that would allow them to increase levels of public investment within their regions in order to generate employment and protect them from adverse financial shocks. Peruvian democracy was not an island in Latin America and the world. Peru was committed to facing great problems and challenges through the construction of democracy in a more just world. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, international democracy had a name: the United Nations.

    PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, President of Pakistan, said that his country was at the forefront of the fight against terrorism. Determined to prevent its being used as a staging ground for terrorist attacks, Pakistan had interdicted the infiltration of Al Qaeda into its territory and had arrested and deported foreign suspects. Unfortunately, however, the war against terrorism had been used as a vehicle to spread hatred against Islam and Muslims. As a first step in creating a sustained dialogue between the Islamic and Western nations, he proposed the adoption of a Declaration on Religious and Cultural Understanding, Harmony and Cooperation.

    Explaining that the root causes of terrorism were a sense of frustration and powerlessness to redress persistent injustice, he said that while terrorist attacks needed to be condemned, they should not be used to justify outlawing the struggles of a people for self-determination and liberation from colonial or foreign occupation, nor used to justify State terrorism. India had misused the rationale of war against terrorism against Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, but his country would not be coerced or frightened into compromising on its principled position. The conflict in occupied Kashmir was being waged by Kashmiris, who needed to be allowed to exercise their right to determine their own future.

    President Musharraf pledged that Pakistan would not start a conflict with India, but would fully exercise its right to self-defence if attacked. Achieving peace in South Asia required the following steps: mutual withdrawal of forward-deployed forces by both States; observance of a ceasefire along the Line of Control in Kashmir; and cessation of India’s State terrorism against the Kashmiri people. In addition, the two parties needed to resume a dialogue that included the people of Kashmir and to agree upon measures for nuclear restraint and a conventional arms balance. Hindu extremism also needed to be opposed by the international community.

    His own Government was focused upon restoring the traditions of a tolerant Islam, he said, and had laid the foundations for sustainable development and democracy in three short years by empowering people through the devolution of decision-making to the grassroots level, improving human rights, rationalizing economic policies and setting up the first Human Development Fund in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme. National and provincial elections were to be held in 30 days.

    Furthermore, Pakistan fully supported the positive changes in Afghanistan and that country’s President Hamid Karzai. The attempt last week to assassinate him underlined the need for an expanded international presence in Afghanistan. Also of concern were the urgent need to revive the Middle East peace process, the importance of the war against poverty and the pernicious aspects of the international banking system, which allowed corrupt elites to stash away money illegally acquired from developing and developed countries.

    GEORGI PARVANOV, President of Bulgaria, outlined what the main tasks of the fifty-seventh session should be. Attention had to be paid to the Millennium Declaration, the fight against terrorism and the persistent problems of underdevelopment and poverty. Unfortunately, the United Nations continued to focus instead on regional conflicts.

    In that regard, he called for assistance to the people of Afghanistan, especially relief from their foreign debt, and identified as urgent the implementation of Security Council resolutions concerning Iraq. Firm action had to be undertaken to win compliance.

    As a member of the Security Council and a party to all universal conventions against terrorism, Bulgaria commended the work being done to counteract the phenomenon. But he warned that “the fight against terrorism should not lead to persecution on religious or ethnic grounds or infringe on human rights”.
    Turning his attention to developments in South-Eastern Europe, he recommended the strengthening of democratic institutions and human rights along with economic development as the means to prevent conflicts. He ended his address by expressing support for the reform measures initiated by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in order to make the United Nations more effective.

    VAIRA VIKE-FREIBERGA, President of Latvia, welcomed Switzerland as the newest Member of the United Nations and recognized the concerted efforts of the United Nations and the international community towards creating a climate of peace and security, in which East Timor had become master of its own destiny and would soon join the United Nations. She also expressed Latvia’s continued solidarity and sympathy with the people of the United States, upon the anniversary of

    11 September. That contemptible act of aggression against the United States was a direct and frontal assault against the civilized world as a whole.

    The deep-seated respect for the sanctity of human life was the foundation of civilized society, she said. Determined to do everything in its power to stem the growing threat of international terrorism, Latvia intended to ratify all international antiterrorist conventions and increase the capacity of its administrative, security, law enforcement and military structures. Latvia continued to harmonize its national legislation with international and European Union standards, to tighten its control of immigration and the flow of strategic goods, to improve its air and border surveillance capabilities, emergency response procedures and public preparedness in emergency situations.

    She noted that Iraq continued to ignore repeated calls to allow United Nations weapons inspectors on its territory, which reinforced credible suspicions that it had sought to produce nuclear, chemical, bacteriological and other weapons of mass destruction. Among other pressing global issues facing the United Nations were organized crime and illegal trafficking, the abuse and exploitation of women and children, endemic poverty and unemployment, drug addiction, disease and environmental pollution. Continued work was needed on the reduction of poverty and increasing administrative capacity and financial discipline at the United Nations. However, progress had been made on the reform of peacekeeping operations and collaboration among United Nations institutions.

    Committed to sustainable development, Latvia had ratified the Kyoto Protocol and had established a Sustainable Development Council. She also noted Latvia’s success in changing its status with the United Nations Development Programme from recipient to net contributor. Now providing technical assistance and expertise to Ukraine, Georgia and Croatia, Latvia had one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and hoped to receive official invitations to join the European Union and the NATO Alliance soon. Her country had provided humanitarian aid to war-torn areas in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and was committed to the reduction of disparities in income and standards of living essential for the consolidation of peace and security. Each nation had its own contribution to make to humanity, whose benefit the United Nations was created to serve.

    VALDAS ADAMKUS, President of Lithuania, welcomed Switzerland and East Timor to the United Nations family. Expansion of United Nations membership was very important, and was taking place at a time when the need for global solidarity and partnership was greater than ever. Terrorism threatened global stability and the very basis of our lives. Countries must stand united and act together to avert threats to our existence and secure the future of our children.

    He said his country knew the power of solidarity. Some years ago, Lithuania and eight other countries from Central and Eastern Europe had formed an informal Vilnius Group, which had now grown to 10, to facilitate their accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Solidarity and mutual support were helping to make that happen. Hopefully, those countries would soon join the European Union and NATO, thus reinforcing common values in the region as well as common positions and actions in the face of future challenges and threats.

    Political stability, however, was not enough, he stressed. Those countries had also launched regional initiatives and taken other concrete steps to increase contributions to the global campaign against terrorism. The conference against terrorism was held at the Polish initiative of Poland in Warsaw last November; participating countries were determined to act and cooperate further, thus strengthening European and global security. In the face of common threats, solidarity must emerge as a consolidating driving force in global diplomacy.

    The tragedy of 11 September reinforced and strengthened the common resolve to combat and counter terrorism, he said. That should motivate the international community to work together to address the roots of terrorism; respond decisively to non-compliance with Security Council resolutions and gross violations of internationally recognized norms of behaviour; and fight terror worldwide and keep the weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. Regrettably, a Member of the United Nations did not uphold its commitments and the underlying principles of the Organization. The Iraqi regime must allow unrestricted access for the United Nations inspectors to resume their work. All pressure should be exerted to ensure that objective. Indeed, that was a test case of the international community’s solidarity and unity.

    RENE HARRIS, President of Nauru, conveying condolences to the United States because of the terrorist attacks of last year, expressed full support for anti-terrorism measures contained in Security Council resolution 1373. He also wished the best future for the International Criminal Court. Commending the United Nations operations in East Timor, he supported that country’s entry into the Organization.

    Turning to issues facing the Pacific islands, he called for a universal campaign to address climate change and for the United States and Australia to ratify the protocol. The health of oceans was another major concern, and he said all users of that resource must work to prevent pollution and unsustainable use. He expressed concern over transshipment of nuclear waste through Pacific waters, and supported the United Nations action to make the Pacific a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

    In other areas, he reiterated his strong objection to the creation of tax “black lists” by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), preferring the development of a cooperative framework for that issue. He said that Nauru also had done all it could to combat money laundering, yet it was still subject to adverse criticism. Nonetheless, it had provided relevant information and would continue to work on satisfying key players on the issue.

    Finally, he said the most pressing issues currently facing Nauru were energy, freshwater supply and the economy in general, and he hoped for international partnerships in those areas. He supported reform of the Security Council and further budgetary reform in the United Nations. He announced the honouring of Nauru’s pledge to the Global Health Fund and called on all States to follow suit, underlining the reliance of small States on the United Nations in the post 9/11 world.

    ROBERT MUGABE, President of Zimbabwe, informed delegates that his country had completed its fast-track land redistribution programme which began in July 2000. He said the programme had been undertaken to redress the colonial injustice of dispossession perpetrated by a minority of British settlers in 1890.

    “By assuming its independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had discarded the colonial yoke for all time and, therefore, will never brook any interference in its domestic affairs by any foreign Power”, he stressed. He added that Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, needed to be informed of this. Having already waged a revolutionary struggle to secure its independence, Zimbabwe stood ready to defend it in the same way.

    A similar problem of outside interference also affected the Palestinian question, one that should be resolved without further delay. “We note with some concern that some countries wish to arrogate to themselves the right to choose and/or impose leadership in developing countries by sidelining and/or overthrowing democratically elected governments.” That must be resisted, he said.

    Even as he acknowledged terrorism as a threat, he also warned, “The adoption of unilateral measures by some countries to combat terrorism is not only counterproductive but also undermines the mandate and effectiveness of the United Nations.”

    He was fully supportive of the emergence of peace in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, adding his country was withdrawing its remaining forces there.

    In the economic arena, Zimbabwe wanted the decisions of the Monterrey International Conference on Financing for Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa, to result in meaningful cooperation among development partners. The World Trade Organization (WTO) should also create a level playing field so that exports from developing countries could have access to developed markets. And, because of the drought in southern Africa, the region was in urgent need of food and other aid.

    ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN, Prime Minister of Denmark, speaking on behalf of the European Union, affirmed that the terrorist attacks of 11 September last year had not weakened, but rather strengthened the resolve of its members to actively seek security and prosperity for all. For its part, the European Union did not hesitate to support the initiatives of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee and remained committed to finalizing and adopting the Comprehensive Convention against Terrorism.

    The Millennium Declaration, he said, had given the United Nations renewed impetus to deal globally with conflict prevention, crisis management, humanitarian assistance, post-conflict rehabilitation and development, and disarmament and arms control. The European Union had worked tirelessly with the United Nations to find solutions in the Middle East and Cyprus, to rebuild Afghanistan, to hold in check the civil war in Sierra Leone and to rebuild Kosovo.

    Iraq remained a major source of concern as well, with regard to weapons of mass destruction, he said. Unconditional and unimpeded access for the weapons inspectors was needed, as well as compliance with the obligations contained in the several Security Council resolutions on the situation in Iraq. The European Union agreed with the United States position that the Security Council urgently needed to address the matter of Iraq. It also agreed with the Secretary-General’s statement that if Iraq’s defiance continued, the Security Council would need to face its responsibilities.

    On the subject of human rights, he urged the adoption of the draft protocol of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as the universal abolition of the death penalty. Sustainable development would not be achieved until women gained full possession of their human rights, including protection from murder and mutilation through a misguided sense of honour. Hailing the International Criminal Court as an important historic milestone, he commented that people did not need revenge or impunity, but justice and accountability.

    He concluded that the greatest global challenge remained the fight to rid the world of persistent poverty. Recognizing that aid alone would not eliminate poverty, he saluted the African leaders, who had taken an impressive lead with the NEPAD initiative. Strong political will and partnership was required to translate poverty eradication policies into sustainable development. He also extended the European Union’s welcome to the new United Nations Members, Switzerland and East Timor.

  • Iraq and the War on Terrorism

    Delivered to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco

    Introduction

    Like all Americans I have been wrestling with the question of what our country needs to do to defend itself from the kind of intense, focused and enabled hatred that brought about September 11th, and which at this moment must be presumed to be gathering force for yet another attack. I’m speaking today in an effort to recommend a specific course of action for our country which I believe would be preferable to the course recommended by President Bush. Specifically, I am deeply concerned that the policy we are presently following with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.

    First Thing First: War On Terrorism

    To begin with, I believe we should focus our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11th and have thus far gotten away with it. The vast majority of those who sponsored, planned and implemented the cold blooded murder of more than 3,000 Americans are still at large, still neither located nor apprehended, much less punished and neutralized. I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task simply because it is proving to be more difficult and lengthy than predicted. Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to another.

    We are perfectly capable of staying the course in our war against Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network, while simultaneously taking those steps necessary to build an international coalition to join us in taking on Saddam Hussein in a timely fashion.

    I don’t think that we should allow anything to diminish our focus on avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered and dismantling the network of terrorists who we know to be responsible for it. The fact that we don’t know where they are should not cause us to focus instead on some other enemy whose location may be easier to identify.

    Nevertheless, President Bush is telling us that the most urgent requirement of the moment — right now — is not to redouble our efforts against Al Qaeda, not to stabilize the nation of Afghanistan after driving his host government from power, but instead to shift our focus and concentrate on immediately launching a new war against Saddam Hussein. And he is proclaiming a new, uniquely American right to pre-emptively attack whomsoever he may deem represents a potential future threat.

    Moreover, he is demanding in this high political season that Congress speedily affirm that he has the necessary authority to proceed immediately against Iraq and for that matter any other nation in the region, regardless of subsequent developments or circumstances. The timing of this sudden burst of urgency to take up this cause as America’s new top priority, displacing the war against Osama Bin Laden, was explained by the White House Chief of Staff in his now well known statement that “from an advertising point of view, you don’t launch a new product line until after labor day.” Nevertheless, Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival. I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed, should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. In fact, though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint.

    We also need to look at the relationship between our national goal of regime change in Iraq and our goal of victory in the war against terror. In the case of Iraq, it would be more difficult for the United States to succeed alone, but still possible. By contrast, the war against terror manifestly requires broad and continuous international cooperation. Our ability to secure this kind of cooperation can be severely damaged by unilateral action against Iraq. If the Administration has reason to believe otherwise, it ought to share those reasons with the Congress — since it is asking Congress to endorse action that might well impair a more urgent task: continuing to disrupt and destroy the international terror network.

    I was one of the few Democrats in the U.S. Senate who supported the war resolution in 1991. And I felt betrayed by the first Bush administration’s hasty departure from the battlefield, even as Saddam began to renew his persecution of the Kurds of the North and the Shiites of the South — groups we had encouraged to rise up against Saddam. It is worth noting, however, that the conditions in 1991 when that resolution was debated in Congress were very different from the conditions this year as Congress prepares to debate a new resolution. Then, Saddam had sent his armies across an international border to invade Kuwait and annex its territory. This year, 11 years later, there is no such invasion; instead we are prepared to cross an international border to change the government of Iraq. However justified our proposed action may be, this change in role nevertheless has consequences for world opinion and can affect the war against terrorism if we proceed unilaterally.

    Secondly, in 1991, the first President Bush patiently and skillfully built a broad international coalition. His task was easier than that confronted his son, in part because of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. Nevertheless, every Arab nation except Jordan supported our military efforts and some of them supplied troops. Our allies in Europe and Asia supported the coalition without exception. Yet this year, by contrast, many of our allies in Europe and Asia are thus far opposed to what President Bush is doing and the few who support us condition their support on the passage of a new U.N. resolution.

    Third, in 1991, a strong United Nations resolution was in place before the Congressional debate ever began; this year although we have residual authority based on resolutions dating back to the first war in Iraq, we have nevertheless begun to seek a new United Nations resolution and have thus far failed to secure one.

    Fourth, the coalition assembled in 1991 paid all of the significant costs of the war, while this time, the American taxpayers will be asked to shoulder hundreds of billions of dollars in costs on our own.

    Fifth, President George H. W. Bush purposely waited until after the mid-term elections of 1990 to push for a vote at the beginning of the new Congress in January of 1991. President George W. Bush, by contrast, is pushing for a vote in this Congress immediately before the election. Rather than making efforts to dispel concern at home an abroad about the role of politics in the timing of his policy, the President is publicly taunting Democrats with the political consequences of a “no” vote — even as the Republican National Committee runs pre-packaged advertising based on the same theme — in keeping with the political strategy clearly described in a White House aide’s misplaced computer disk, which advised Republican operatives that their principal game plan for success in the election a few weeks away was to “focus on the war.” Vice President Cheney, meanwhile indignantly described suggestions of political motivation “reprehensible.” The following week he took his discussion of war strategy to the Rush Limbaugh show.

    The foreshortening of deliberation in the Congress robs the country of the time it needs for careful analysis of what may lie before it. Such consideration is all the more important because of the Administration’s failure thus far to lay out an assessment of how it thinks the course of a war will run — even while it has given free run to persons both within and close to the administration to suggest that this will be an easy conquest. Neither has the Administration said much to clarify its idea of what is to follow regime change or of the degree of engagement it is prepared to accept for the United States in Iraq in the months and years after a regime change has taken place.

    By shifting from his early focus after September 11th on war against terrorism to war against Iraq, the President has manifestly disposed of the sympathy, good will and solidarity compiled by America and transformed it into a sense of deep misgiving and even hostility. In just one year, the President has somehow squandered the international outpouring of sympathy, goodwill and solidarity that followed the attacks of September 11th and converted it into anger and apprehension aimed much more at the United States than at the terrorist network — much as we manage to squander in one year’s time the largest budget surpluses in history and convert them into massive fiscal deficits. He has compounded this by asserting a new doctrine — of preemption.

    The doctrine of preemption is based on the idea that in the era of proliferating WMD, and against the background of a sophisticated terrorist threat, the United States cannot wait for proof of a fully established mortal threat, but should rather act at any point to cut that short.

    The problem with preemption is that in the first instance it is not needed in order to give the United States the means to act in its own defense against terrorism in general or Iraq in particular. But that is a relatively minor issue compared to the longer-term consequences that can be foreseen for this doctrine. To begin with, the doctrine is presented in open-ended terms, which means that if Iraq if the first point of application, it is not necessarily the last. In fact, the very logic of the concept suggests a string of military engagements against a succession of sovereign states: Syria, Libya, North Korea, Iran, etc., wherever the combination exists of an interest in weapons of mass destruction together with an ongoing role as host to or participant in terrorist operations. It means also that if the Congress approves the Iraq resolution just proposed by the Administration it is simultaneously creating the precedent for preemptive action anywhere, anytime this or any future president so decides.

    The Bush Administration may now be realizing that national and international cohesion are strategic assets. But it is a lesson long delayed and clearly not uniformly and consistently accepted by senior members of the cabinet. From the outset, the Administration has operated in a manner calculated to please the portion of its base that occupies the far right, at the expense of solidarity among Americans and between America and her allies.

    On the domestic front, the Administration, having delayed almost —months before conceding the need to create an institution outside the White House to manage homeland defense, has been willing to see progress on the new department held up, for the sake of an effort to coerce the Congress into stripping civil service protections from tens of thousands of federal employees.

    Far more damaging, however, is the Administration’s attack on fundamental constitutional rights. The idea that an American citizen can be imprisoned without recourse to judicial process or remedies, and that this can be done on the say-so of the President or those acting in his name, is beyond the pale.

    Regarding other countries, the Administration’s disdain for the views of others is well documented and need not be reviewed here. It is more important to note the consequences of an emerging national strategy that not only celebrates American strengths, but appears to be glorifying the notion of dominance. If what America represents to the world is leadership in a commonwealth of equals, then our friends are legion; if what we represent to the world is empire, then it is our enemies who will be legion.

    At this fateful juncture in our history it is vital that we see clearly who are our enemies, and that we deal with them. It is also important, however, that in the process we preserve not only ourselves as individuals, but our nature as a people dedicated to the rule of law ..

    Dangers Of Abandoning Iraq

    Moreover, if we quickly succeed in a war against the weakened and depleted fourth rate military of Iraq and then quickly abandon that nation as President Bush has abandoned Afghanistan after quickly defeating a fifth rate military there, the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam. We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

    We have no evidence, however, that he has shared any of those weapons with terrorist group. However, if Iraq came to resemble Afghanistan — with no central authority but instead local and regional warlords with porous borders and infiltrating members of Al Qaeda than these widely dispersed supplies of weapons of mass destruction might well come into the hands of terrorist groups.

    If we end the war in Iraq, the way we ended the war in Afghanistan, we could easily be worse off than we are today. When Secretary Rumsfield was asked recently about what our responsibility for restabilizing Iraq would be in an aftermath of an invasion, he said, “that’s for the Iraqis to come together and decide.”

    During one of the campaign debates in 2000 when then Governor Bush was asked if America should engage in any sort of “nation building” in the aftermath of a war in which we have involved our troops, he stated gave the purist expression of what is now a Bush doctrine: “I don’t think so. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I’m missing something here. We’re going to have a kind of nation building corps in America? Absolutely not.”

    The events of the last 85 years provide ample evidence that our approach to winning the peace that follows war is almost as important as winning the war itself. The absence of enlightened nation building after World War I led directly to the conditions which made Germany vulnerable to fascism and the rise to Adolph Hitler and made all of Europe vulnerable to his evil designs. By contrast the enlightened vision embodied in the Marshall plan, NATO, and the other nation building efforts in the aftermath of World War II led directly to the conditions that fostered prosperity and peace for most the years since this city gave birth to the United Nations.

    Two decades ago, when the Soviet Union claimed the right to launch a pre-emptive war in Afghanistan, we properly encouraged and then supported the resistance movement which, a decade later, succeeded in defeating the Soviet Army’s efforts. Unfortunately, when the Russians left, we abandoned the Afghans and the lack of any coherent nation building program led directly to the conditions which fostered Al Qaeda terrorist bases and Osama Bin Laden’s plotting against the World Trade Center. Incredibly, after defeating the Taliban rather easily, and despite pledges from President Bush that we would never again abandon Afghanistan we have done precisely that. And now the Taliban and Al Qaeda are quickly moving back to take up residence there again. A mere two years after we abandoned Afghanistan the first time, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Following a brilliant military campaign, the U.S. abandoned the effort to destroy Saddam’s military prematurely and allowed him to remain in power.

    What is a potentially even more serious consequence of this push to begin a new war as quickly as possible is the damage it can do not just to America’s prospects to winning the war against terrorism but to America’s prospects for continuing the historic leadership we began providing to the world 57 years ago, right here in this city by the bay.

    What Congress Should Do

    I believe, therefore, that the resolution that the President has asked Congress to pass is much too broad in the authorities it grants, and needs to be narrowed. The President should be authorized to take action to deal with Saddam Hussein as being in material breach of the terms of the truce and therefore a continuing threat to the security of the region. To this should be added that his continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is potentially a threat to the vital interests of the United States. But Congress should also urge the President to make every effort to obtain a fresh demand from the Security Council for prompt, unconditional compliance by Iraq within a definite period of time. If the Council will not provide such language, then other choices remain open, but in any event the President should be urged to take the time to assemble the broadest possible international support for his course of action. Anticipating that the President will still move toward unilateral action, the Congress should establish now what the administration’s thinking is regarding the aftermath of a US attack for the purpose of regime change.

    Specifically, Congress should establish why the president believes that unilateral action will not severely damage the fight against terrorist networks, and that preparations are in place to deal with the effects of chemical and biological attacks against our allies, our forces in the field, and even the home-front. The resolution should also require commitments from the President that action in Iraq will not be permitted to distract from continuing and improving work to reconstruct Afghanistan, an that the United States will commit to stay the course for the reconstruction of Iraq.

    The Congressional resolution should make explicitly clear that authorities for taking these actions are to be presented as derivatives from existing Security Council resolutions and from international law: not requiring any formal new doctrine of pre-emption, which remains to be discussed subsequently in view of its gravity.

    Pre-Emption Doctrine

    Last week President Bush added a troubling new element to this debate by proposing a broad new strategic doctrine that goes far beyond issues related to Iraq and would effect the basic relationship between the United States and the rest of the world community. Article 51 of the United Nations charter recognizes the right of any nation to defend itself, including the right in some circumstances to take pre-emptive actions in order to deal with imminent threats. President Bush now asserts that we will take pre-emptive action even if we take the threat we perceive is not imminent. If other nations assert the same right then the rule of law will quickly be replaced by the reign of fear — any nation that perceives circumstances that could eventually lead to an imminent threat would be justified under this approach in taking military action against another nation. An unspoken part of this new doctrine appears to be that we claim this right for ourselves — and only for ourselves. It is, in that sense, part of a broader strategy to replace ideas like deterrence and containment with what some in the administration “dominance.”

    This is because President Bush is presenting us with a proposition that contains within itself one of the most fateful decisions in our history: a decision to abandon what we have thought was America’s mission in the world — a world in which nations are guided by a common ethic codified in the form of international law — if we want to survive.

    America’s Mission In The World

    We have faced such a choice once before, at the end of the second World War. At that moment, America’s power in comparison to the rest of the world was if anything greater than it is now, and the temptation was clearly to use that power to assure ourselves that there would be no competitor and no threat to our security for the foreseeable future. The choice we made, however, was to become a co-founder of what we now think of as the post-war era, based on the concepts of collective security and defense, manifested first of all in the United Nations. Through all the dangerous years that followed, when we understood that the defense of freedom required the readiness to put the existence of the nation itself into the balance, we never abandoned our belief that what we were struggling to achieve was not bounded by our own physical security, but extended to the unmet hopes of humankind. The issue before us is whether we now face circumstances so dire and so novel that we must choose one objective over the other.

    So it is reasonable to conclude that we face a problem that is severe, chronic, and likely to become worse over time.

    But is a general doctrine of pre-emption necessary in order to deal with this problem? With respect to weapons of mass destruction, the answer is clearly not. The Clinton Administration launched a massive series of air strikes against Iraq for the state purpose of setting back his capacity to pursue weapons of mass destruction. There was no perceived need for new doctrine or new authorities to do so. The limiting factor was the state of our knowledge concerning the whereabouts of some assets, and a concern for limiting consequences to the civilian populace, which in some instances might well have suffered greatly.

    Does Saddam Hussein present an imminent threat, and if he did would the United States be free to act without international permission? If he presents an imminent threat we would be free to act under generally accepted understandings of article 51 of the UN Charter which reserves for member states the right to act in self-defense.

    If Saddam Hussein does not present an imminent threat, then is it justifiable for the Administration to be seeking by every means to precipitate a confrontation, to find a cause for war, and to attack? There is a case to be made that further delay only works to Saddam Hussein’s advantage, and that the clock should be seen to have been running on the issue of compliance for a decade: therefore not needing to be reset again to the starting point. But to the extent that we have any concern for international support, whether for its political or material value, hurrying the process will be costly. Even those who now agree that Saddam Hussein must go, may divide deeply over the wisdom of presenting the United States as impatient for war.

    At the same time, the concept of pre-emption is accessible to other countries. There are plenty of potential imitators: India/Pakistan; China/Taiwan; not to forget Israel/Iraq or Israel/Iran. Russia has already cited it in anticipation of a possible military push into Georgia, on grounds that this state has not done enough to block the operations of Chechen rebels. What this doctrine does is to destroy the goal of a world in which states consider themselves subject to law, particularly in the matter of standards for the use of violence against each other. That concept would be displaced by the notion that there is no law but the discretion of the President of the United States.

    I believe that we can effectively defend ourselves abroad and at home without dimming our principles. Indeed, I believe that our success in defending ourselves depends precisely on not giving up what we stand for.

  • Study shows Military Attack Against Iraq Not Justified

    A thorough report released last week by the London based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) confirmed that Iraq does not possess any nuclear weapons and is years away from being able to produce the fissile material necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

    Some commentators have portrayed the report entitled “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment,” as providing justification for the Bush administration’s call for an invasion of Iraq. In actuality, however, the report provides no evidence that Iraq’s nuclear weapons program warrants a military attack.

    The study did conclude that the pursuit and retention of weapons of mass destruction is the core objective of the Hussein regime, and that the regime has persistently resisted unfettered U.N. inspections. The authors noted that even if Iraq was to allow inspectors to return, it would require time and experience for the U.N. Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) to develop and refine the successful inspection techniques. These conclusions, though disconcerting, fall far short of the support that the Bush administration has been seeking to justify invading Iraq.

    Several nonmilitary options exist through which the administration could derail Iraq’s proliferation attempts without the severe costs of a direct invasion. Such efforts include reducing and securing fissile materials, working towards a fissile material cut off treaty, and providing Iraq with clear commitments to lifting sanctions if Iraq allows inspectors to return.

    Even if such nonproliferation efforts were to fail and Iraq was to obtain nuclear weapons in the future, pre-emptive strikes based on the premise of such possession would still violate international legal norms and US policy precedent. To be in line with international law the administration would have to be able to prove that an attack by Iraq was imminent, such as in July 1991 when Iraq moved their troops to the border with Kuwait and made diplomatic moves indicating the likelihood of attack. Also, the United States would have to receive UN approval for any use of force.

    The IISS has made it clear that the international community must develop a strategy to deal with Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs and to prevent further proliferation. However, the recent report should not be interpreted as adding any substantive support to the Bush administration’s case for war against Iraq.

    Visit the IISS website at: http://www.iiss.org.