by Hans Blix:

Mr. Blix's Irresolution



Thursday, January 16, 2003; Page A18

THE SECURITY COUNCIL'S Resolution 1441 on Iraq, passed unanimously two months ago, was unambiguous in its purpose: to "afford Iraq . . . a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" and to "set up an enhanced inspection regime" to verify whether a voluntary disarmament takes place. Iraq has so far refused to comply: In fact, it has already violated the resolution by submitting a declaration to the council denying that it has any weapons to dismantle. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, a Swedish diplomat, can see that his mission is failing. But rather than report that to the Security Council, as required by 1441, he is attempting to redefine both his mission and the resolution. In a series of interviews in recent days, Mr. Blix has said that the report he is required to make to the council on Jan. 27 will mark only "the beginning of the inspection and monitoring process, not the end of it," even though any extension must be the council's decision. He says he will report to the council again in March, even though 1441 provides for no such report, and supply a list of "key remaining disarmament tasks" for Iraq, even though the council has asked for no such list. "I am operating on my own timeline," says the nominal U.N. servant. He also has invented a new mission for his team: deterring, by its simple presence, future Iraqi misbehavior. "It's a form of containment," he said.

Opponents of the Bush administration's campaign to disarm Iraq argued in the past for a mission like the one Mr. Blix now describes: "containment" of Saddam Hussein through the deployment of inspectors. Their arguments were rightly rejected by both the administration and the Security Council. The council did not decide to contain Iraq through inspections: It decided to strip it of weapons of mass destruction, either through Iraq's "immediate, unconditional and active" cooperation, or by confronting Iraq with "serious consequences." Mr. Blix now tries to evade these terms by falling back on a previous council resolution, 1284, adopted in 1999 but never implemented. Technically, that resolution created Mr. Blix's inspection team, though it entered Iraq only under the terms of 1441. The text, adopted at a time when the council's will to confront Saddam Hussein had all but evaporated, calls for quarterly inspection reports, and offers Iraq the prospect of a lifting of U.N. sanctions if the inspectors decide it has complied with a list of disarmament tasks. By Mr. Blix's interpretation -- backed, of course, by Baghdad's advocates on the Security Council -- sanctions on Iraq could be lifted as early as this July.

The latest U.N. resolution mentions 1284 only in passing, along with 10 other unfulfilled U.N. resolutions on Iraq, and nowhere explicitly calls for its three-year-old timetable to be implemented. In fact, at the insistence of the United States, 1441 deliberately substitutes a new and tougher regime. Yet Mr. Blix would now contend that he is operating under the authority of the old resolution -- rather than the one passed on Nov. 8. His motive is obvious: He would like to head off U.S. military action at any cost, even though such action clearly has been justified by Iraq's failure to comply. "We can all be anxious and worried" about the current U.S. buildup, the diplomat said. "I represent disarmament through inspections, and we do our best to move on that line." Mr. Blix is entitled to his opinion; but his job is to implement, not reformulate, the Security Council's decisions. The Bush administration should insist that his freelancing end, and so should Secretary General Kofi Annan.



Oh, yeah. That's going to happen. Riiiiighhhtttt.