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Unanimity in the U.N.

IF THE U.S. administration can take pride in its success at getting all 15 members of the United Nations Security Council to endorse a tough new resolution that enjoins Iraq to fulfil its disarmament obligations, the rest of the international community can also find relief in the fact that it has been able to rein in Washington's unilateralist impulses. Resolution 1441 which was passed unanimously by the Security Council on November 8 unambiguously urges Iraq to comply with its disarmament obligations, provides a time-frame within which Baghdad is to indicate its willingness to cooperate and actually begin to do so and also provides that the global community will address the issue again if the required cooperation is not forthcoming. In extending support to certain essential aspects of a draft resolution presented by the U.S. and the United Kingdom, the Security Council has emphasised that the dismantlement of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) potential, and not the change of regime in Baghdad, is the desired and legitimate objective of concerted global action. It has also reaffirmed the principles that directives to states that are perceived as threats to global peace and stability will be issued through the appropriate forum for collective security (that is itself) and not by one power acting on its own, that the use of force will be kept in abeyance so long as there is a chance that the desired objective can be achieved without recourse to armed action, and that there will be a collective reassessment of the efficacy of the warning before measures against the recalcitrant party are authorised. Other member-states of the U.N., both within and outside the Security Council, have also obtained from the U.S. statements on record that there are no "hidden triggers" and no "automacity" (i.e. automatic resort to the use of force if Iraq does not comply) inherent in Resolution 1441.

Washington can claim that although multilateralism has been followed in form the Security Council has essentially endorsed the Iraq policy that it has vigorously promoted. The Council did endorse the U.S. view that Baghdad was in "material breach" of the agreement that ended the Gulf War and subsequent resolutions passed by the world body. Iraq has been left with no leeway to refuse to cooperate with weapons inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Weapons inspection teams are to have immediate and untrammelled access to all suspected storage sites, production facilities and personnel believed to be connected to the WMD programme with neither Presidential palaces nor other sensitive areas sanitised from their purview. Finally, the check-list to determine whether Iraq is complying or not will not be based on the details that Baghdad will provide but rather on the information that has been gathered by not just international inspectors in the past but also the intelligence agencies of any concerned country. If Iraq fails to comply, the Security Council will meet again and, although it has not been specifically stated, that meeting will surely consider nothing other than the "serious consequences" that Iraq must be forced to face for its non-compliance.

The U.S. administration now puts out that its threat of unilateral action and its pronouncements in respect of its desire for a "regime change" in Baghdad were really intended to goad the Security Council to get serious about implementing resolutions obliging Baghdad to dismantle its WMD potential. The rest of the global community does have a stake in ensuring that an Iraqi regime that has used its WMD capabilities in the past does not retain the potential to do so again. If all the parties that endorsed Resolution 1441 are honest about their objectives there has been a very welcome convergence of views. If Iraq does comply with their unanimous demand there would be a real chance to resolve a situation that has periodically brought the world to the brink of a crisis.

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