At the UN, a bullet in the 'material breach'
By Paul Belden

The battle over the precise wording of the new Iraq resolution is on in the UN, with some saying that France and Russia are on board and others that the two countries are still holding out. (China remains an unknown entity here; most likely because she's too busy trying to sort out her own power politics at the 16th Party Congress.)

But everyone pretty much agrees that what's at issue are two specific paragraphs of the resolution's text (which you can read in full here ): Paragraph 4, which holds that any failure by Iraq to comply with the resolution's mandate would put the country in "further material breach" of its UN requirements (and thus constitute a clear casus belli ); and Paragraph 12, which states the Security Council's intention to "convene immediately" upon receiving a report of Iraqi non-compliance.

But throughout all the posturings, little attention has been paid to another important paragraph - one that could, if the US played its cards right, constitute a hidden and nearly unavoidable (for Saddam) "war trigger": Paragraph 5. This is the paragraph that lays out the UN's demand for "immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted, and private access to all officials and other persons" within Iraq.

This is a potentially explosive point. According to Paragraph 5, UN inspectors may "at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq, and that, at the sole discretion of UNMOVIC [United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission] and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], such interviews may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraqi government ..." (emphasis added).

Think about what this means. There's already been suggestions among Congressional staffers that the US might be willing to offer cooperating scientists instant "permanent resident" status in the country along with their families. So ... what's to stop the US from flying all of them out at once? Mass exodus.

Most of them would probably prefer a fast ticket out of the hot seat anyway. And for those that don't? It's not like the resolution gives them - or their families - any choice. Once they're all outside and talking (behind one another's back, with nobody knowing what the others are saying), Saddam's weapons development programs are basically done with.

One might think Bush's war rationale would be greatly weakened at that point, since if Saddam would have lost his entire scientific community in a single go. Well, not really. At that point, Saddam couldn't comply with the resolution even if he wanted to - even if he were desperate to. At that point, any inconsistency between or among any two scientists' accounts of their work inside Iraq - be it howsoever small - would mean that somewhere, somebody was lying.

It wouldn't matter who. The result would be "further material breach". The trigger would be pulled.

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