Do you really believe that when those Soviet troops were sent to the US,
the Soviets did NOT send a couple of KGB officers with them?
Of course everyone thinks they sent KGB officers. The difference is
that the US had the legal right to keep Soviet troops out of military
bases; it could legally avoid handing them documents.
On the other hand, the Iraqis were supposed to permit the inspectors
to go `anywhere, anytime': to go into any room, to read any document,
no matter whether it was in a vault or was an Iraqi secret.
In other words, the US could legally prevent the Soviet troops from
acting as detectives (and the Soviets could do the same with the US
troops in Siberia). The Iraqi government agreed to permit
international disarmament inspectors to act as detectives.
That is the difference.
Note that the Soviet Union signed a biological warfare treaty in the
early 1970s under which inspectors were forbidden legally to act as
detectives. It turned out later that the Soviet Union violated that
treaty, but the inspectors were unable to find that out. (There is
evidence that, among other things, the Soviet Union weaponized small
pox. It is known for sure that it produced lots of weaponized
anthrax.)
It is because of this history, as well as the history of inspections
in Iraq, that the Bush administration desires to be careful. It does
not want to be fooled yet again.
> It intends to prevent inspections as it did before, by requiring
> several hours air traffic notification for helicopter travel,
> and by `respecting rooms in Presidential palaces'.
That does not sound all that unreasonable. Certainly those Soviet
troops in the US were not exactly allowed to go everywhere either.
It is unreasonable, since the locations and projects undertaken by the
Iraqi government are unknown. In the past, the Iraqi government first
claimed it was not building calutrons, and then when they were found,
admitted it had been lying. Similarly, it has used delays to spirit
documents away from inspectors.
The US/Soviet deal was based on the principle that each did know well
enough what the other was doing so that limited inspections would
work.
Remember, the US government did not find out for many years that it
was wrong to think that limited inspections would work: it took a long
time for the political leaders in the US to come to realize that the
Soviets did violate the biological weapons treaty.
Also, the US found after the collapse of the Soviet Union that the
Soviets had manufactured and deployed far more nuclear weapons than
even the most pessimistic, right wing, anti-communists in the US
thought, which was more than the middle of the road or left wing
people in the US thought.
People such as Rumsfeld and Cheney are very aware that they were
fooled earlier; they know that in their younger days, they were stupid
suckers. These experiences are influencing their decisions now.
Last I heard (sometime last week), the Iraqi government was
willing to let weapons inspectors back in (albeit with certain not
entirely unreasonable restrictions).
You have been fooled by the way the Iraqis focus on a part of their
statement, not all of it.
I read the Iraqi government statement (in a BBC translation).
According to the statement, the Iraqi government was not going to let
inspectors back in, except with unreasonable restrictions that would
prevent them from disarming Iraq and proving to the rest of the world
that Iraq was disarmed.
Obviously, European governments want to go along with any excuse the
Iraqi government can build up: they fear that European countries will
lose more economically in a Middle Eastern war than the US.
Also, of course, for years, west European countries lived next door to
a tyranny that broke the biological disarmament treaty it had signed,
deceived them and others about this, had nuclear weapons, and
threatened to use its various weapons. Iraq is not frightening to
them in the way that it has resurrected the fears that people in the
US had of the Soviet Union.
In addition, the European governments are much less `moral' than many
Americans; it is clear that they do not support the UN, except as a
talking shop. I think this is rather foolish of them, since support
for the UN gives them more power against a raging US. But
evidentally, the fear of the economic consequences of a Middle Easter
war is worse than the fear of a powerful US.
I am somewhat puzzled by the Bush administrations remarks in favor of
the UN. However, while Bush's supporters mostly don't care about the
UN, and indeed are against it, it is possible that enough members of
the Bush administration actually do think that some of the things his
domestic opponents have said are in fact right -- and that support for
an effective UN is a good idea.
In any event, from Bush's point of view, support for the UN cannot
hurt him much, since such support steals thunder from his domestic
opponents -- the exact same political tactic, but in reverse, that
Bill Clinton did when he balanced the budget.
--
Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com
Free Software Foundation http://www.gnu.org GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
