Perhaps you thought Saddam really had gone crazy when he recently invited both our congressional leaders and United Nations inspectors to come to Iraq to help him look for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Yeah, crazy like a fox.
You see, Saddam has known since 1999 that he would likely never be deposed as a consequence of a renewed Gulf War. The U.N. Security Council would have to approve such a renewal and is exceedingly unlikely to ever do that.
But Saddam is aware the warhawks may be able to depose him as a consequence of the War Against Terrorism. Saddam knows that Congress might very well authorize that unless the U.N. inspectors can convince Congress that he doesn't actually have the Weapons of Mass Destruction the warhawks claim he has.
So we have the spectacle of everyone everywhere in the world – except our warhawks – insisting that Hans Blix and his U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection regime check out the Weapons of Mass Destruction situation in Iraq as soon as possible.
You wonder how Saddam can be so sure the Security Council won't allow the Gulf War to be resumed?
Basically, it's because of Monica Lewinsky.
In 1991, the U.N. had established, via U.N. Resolution 687, UNSCOM, the Special Commission, and charged it with destroying all Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological weapons – as well as the research, development and production infrastructure that was responsible for them. Then, to establish a permanent portal-monitoring system to ensure that the infrastructure was never rebuilt.
Just a few weeks ago, Chairman Hans Blix had said that – as a consequence of the excellent work done by UNSCOM – if the U.N.'s Monitoring, Verification and Inspection team was allowed into Iraq, he expected he could speedily confirm if Iraq was still in compliance on nukes. Confirming chem-bio weapon compliance and reconstituting the monitoring systems might take as much as a year.
Blix should know about nukes. As director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Blix had overseen the destruction of Iraq's clandestine nuke program. In late 1998, the IAEA was able to report that the destruction was complete and that the permanent IAEA onsite monitoring and verification systems would soon be fully operational.
But, according to Rolf Ekeus – who served as UNSCOM chairman until 1997, when he was succeeded by Richard Butler – and others, UNSCOM had been secretly hijacked by the U.S. intelligence community and used to spy on Saddam, personally, and his political regime. The U.S. reportedly shared that intelligence with Britain and Israel, but withheld it from Russia and France
Enter Monica Lewisky.
In late 1998, President Clinton decided to take his mind – and ours – off his impending impeachment. Clinton ordered UNSCOM to get out of Iraq so he could bomb the WMD out of Saddam, personally, apparently using intelligence he had obtained on Saddam's whereabouts by subverting UNSCOM.
It didn't work, of course. Saddam survived and the House impeached Clinton, anyway.
Clinton told UNSCOM to go back in. But Saddam wouldn't let UNSCOM back in. Saddam claimed that UNSCOM had basically become an agent for U.S. and UK spying. Which reminds us that, just because a man is paranoid, it doesn't mean that the world is not out to get him. Russia, France and China thought Saddam had a point.
So, here's how Saddam knows he has little to fear from U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection. The U.N. Security Council is effectively controlled by the big five – U.S., UK, Russia, France and China. No resolution can pass if any one of the big five votes against it. On the crucial U.N. 1284 vote in 1999 – which established U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection – Russia, France and China abstained.
It was their view that UNSCOM – even though hijacked – had largely completed its assigned mission. Hence, the Gulf War sanctions should be lifted, the bombing by the U.S. and Brits should cease, and there was no need for U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection. U.N. 1284 did provide for a partial lifting of the original sanctions, so they didn't veto it. But they didn't vote for it.
Hence Russia – and perhaps France and China – will veto any U.S. attempt to restart the Gulf War as a consequence of Iraqi non-compliance with U.N. 1284.
What happens next? Well, unless someone can convince Congress that Saddam has a smoking gun in his hip pocket stamped Sept 11, it looks like the invasion of Iraq – and the lynching of Saddam Hussein – will have to be indefinitely postponed.