Reminder: Why the UN inspection has ZERO crediblity
A bunch of stuff you all already know, although many of you pretend not to, all in one place:
[link|http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_01-02/unjf00.asp|Reason one: how Blix was chosen]
Excerpt:
The January 17 nomination of Rolf Ekeus, former head of UNSCOM, concluded a grueling month of consultation between UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and members of the Security Council over the selection of an agreeable candidate. A UN source said that "lacking consensus on any of the 25 names submitted to the Security Council, the secretary-general nominated the man that he felt was the best for the job." As its executive chairman from 1991-1997, Ekeus directed the lion's share of UNSCOM's identification and destruction of prohibited weapons activities in Iraq.
The Ekeus nomination was short-lived, however. Representatives from Russia, China and France each registered their disapproval of Annan's choice. Noted Qin Huasun, China's permanent representative to the UN, "Candidates from developing countries, who may be better positioned to convince Iraq to cooperate with the council, should be given more attention and consideration." Other members offered less explanation for their opposition. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian representative, stated simply, "The Russian Federation cannot agree with the proposal." Overriding concerns appeared to be a desire to make a clean break from UNSCOM and the likelihood of an Iraqi refusal to cooperate with an UNMOVIC headed by Ekeus.
U.S. officials derided the notion of an "Iraqi veto" over the process, expressing strong support for the confirmation of Ekeus as late as January 24. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, criticizing council resistance, said, "We consider Ambassador Ekeus as so qualified, as somebody who knows the issues very well...and has the respect of the international community."
[link|http://slate.msn.com/id/2074629/|Reason 2: why Blix is of questionable fitness (to do a proper inspection)]
Excerpt:
During the 74-year-old Blix's tenure as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency\ufffdthe U.N. organization that enforces compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty\ufffdfrom 1981 to 1997, the Swedish diplomat developed a reputation as Mr. Magoo crossed with Inspector Clouseau. His most dramatic failure occurred when IAEA failed to uncover Iraq's nuclear program during the late 1980s. As Blix told the Guardian earlier this year, "It's correct to say that the IAEA was fooled by the Iraqis."
Reason 3: unworthy motives of the UN's backers
[link|http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=230d4117e9a13a5d&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035775625415&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154|Russia]
[link|http://www.financialexpress.com/fe/daily/19970511/13155303.html|France and China]
Reason 4: [link|http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel012703.asp|The UN's horrible track record]
Excerpt:
In short, the U.N. was aware of Milosevic's propensity for ethnic cleansing, and had ample reason to know that its actions would create a situation ripe for genocide. The atrocities at Srebrenica could not have been perpetrated by the Serbs on such a grand scale had not the U.N. and its policies first prepared an enclave of victims, most of them disarmed.
Reason 5: UN against human rights and pro-terrorist in practise
[link|http://europe.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/01/20/libya.un.reut/|Libya]
Excerpt:
GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- Libya, long accused by human rights activists of major abuses, has been elected to chair the United Nations' top rights body.
The decision on Monday comes despite objections from the United States and other Western nations about the country's poor record on civil liberties and its alleged role in sponsoring terrorism.
The Libyan candidate, long-time diplomat and former journalist Najat al-Hajjaji, won 33 votes in a secret ballot of the 53-nation United Nations Human Rights Commission, with 17 states abstaining and three voting against her as Washington had recommended.
[link|http://www.adl.org/Terror/terrorism_syria.asp|Syria]
Excerpt:
While presiding on the Security Council, the Republic of Syria has\ufffd
* Remained on the U.S. State Department's roster of countries sponsoring terrorism (a member since the list's inception in 1979);
* Had extensive involvement in anti-Israel and anti-U.S. terrorist attacks;
* Provided the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, "substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid," according to the U.S. State Department;
* Provided a safe haven and logistical support to a variety of terrorist groups, both Arab and non-Arab, such as the Kurdish PKK and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was founded in the late 1970's based on its members' commitment to the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state. The group has claimed responsibility for many recent devastating terrorist attacks against Israelis...
[link|http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/28/sprj.irq.disarmament.conference/index.html|Iraq chairs diarmament committee!]
Excerpt:
At the rules-minded United Nations, it's not a country's status with international weapons inspectors, but the letters in its name that determine which member state chairs the Conference on Disarmament.
"The irony is overwhelming," a U.S. diplomat said...
Iraq will take its turn as the head of the conference, a U.N. spokesman said, because of a "purely automatic rotation by alphabetical order."
[...added jan 29]
[link|http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=5454.xml|Reason 6: Repeatedly infiltrated by Iraqi agents]
Excerpt:
Surveillance and Penetration: In the past, Iraq systematically used its intelligence capabilities to support its efforts to conceal illegal activity. Former inspector David Kay has recalled that in 1991, the inspectors came across a document warning the chief security official of the facility about to be inspected that Kay would lead the U.N. team. That warning had been issued less than 48 hours after the U.N.'s decision had been made, at which time fewer than 10 people within the inspection organization were supposed to know about the operational plan.
In the 1990s, there were reports that Iraqi intelligence recruited U.N. inspectors as informants, and that Iraqi scientists were fearful about being interviewed. Recent reports that Iraq continues these kinds of efforts are a clear sign that it is not serious about disarmament.
Today, we also anticipate that Iraq is likely to target U.N. and IAEA computer systems through cyber intrusions to steal inspections, methods, criteria, and findings. We know that Iraq certainly has the capability to do so. According to Khidhir Hamza's book, Saddam's Bombmaker, Iraq's Babylon Software Company was developing cyber warfare capabilities on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service as early as the 1990s. Some people assigned to Babylon were segregated into a "highly compartmented unit" and tasked with breaking into foreign computers in order to download sensitive data. Some of the programmers reported that they had accumulated sufficient expertise to break into moderately protected computer systems, such as those used by the inspectors.
