U.N. Must Pursue Iraq

The Pentagon is being cautious in assessing the damage done to Iraq by last week’s air attacks, a welcome contrast to the inflated claims made for the accuracy and destructiveness of U.S. bombing during the Persian Gulf War. Initial reconnaissance suggests that Iraq’s air defense system and some other military targets were heavily hit, but it could take months before it’s known how much of its war-making potential was seriously “degraded,” to use the Clinton administration’s word.

Significantly, Iraqi authorities have been very restrictive in letting foreign reporters survey the damage, especially outside of Baghdad where the heaviest attacks took place. There was even confusion among Iraqi officials about what claims to make regarding casualties. After first minimizing the harm done by the raids, Iraq finally settled on the line that the civilian infrastructure was heavily hit, with many lives lost. Neither claim can be confirmed.

Within minutes after the raids ended last Saturday, President Clinton warned that attacks would be renewed if Iraq continued its efforts to develop offensive weapons. The best way to head off that contingency would be for the U.N. weapons inspectors to return to Iraq and get on with their work, unhindered. For now, Baghdad says that will never happen. It will be up to a unified U.N. Security Council to compel a reversal of that attitude.

The facts that led up to the bombing are unchanged. Saddam Hussein remains committed to clandestine programs to make nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Information compiled by U.N. weapons inspectors, the International Atomic Energy Agency and others, based on seized Iraqi records and information about Iraq’s secret imports of weapons-related materials, makes clear the enormity of this effort. Under U.N. resolutions dating from the end of the Gulf War, Iraq was required to reveal everything about its terror weapons within 15 days and cooperate in their destruction. Iraq has neither revealed nor cooperated, and nearly eight years later only a portion of its prohibited weapons has been destroyed.

The United States and Britain understand and remain ready to act against the threat presented by this incalculably dangerous deception. The alternative to resumed airstrikes against Iraq is for U.N. weapons inspectors to be allowed to do their jobs. If the Security Council will put its concerted weight behind demanding that, further military action might yet be avoided.