The Hindu : U.S. satisfied with India's stand: Blackwill

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2003

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U.S. satisfied with India's stand: Blackwill

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI March 3. The United States is "satisfied'' with the Indian position on Iraq "thus far'' and Washington and New Delhi have been holding "intense'' discussions on the issue. Talking to this correspondent today, the U.S. Ambassador to India, Robert D. Blackwill, claimed that there was agreement on two central propositions between the U.S. and India — that Iraq should comply "fully and immediately'' with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 and that it should be done peacefully. ``We'll have to now see how this plays itself out in the future... much earlier on, the Government of India urged the United States, urged the Bush administration to take the Iraq issue to the United Nations. And we did....''

Stating that the U.S. was far more aware of India's equities and national interests with respect to Iraq now than it was in 1991, Mr. Blackwill said: "We have constant communication with the Government of India on this. I, in fact, had a long conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister last Friday about Iraq. So, the discussion is quite intense. Colin Powell called the Foreign Minister... little over a week ago....''

Asked about the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's comments that the U.S.' role outside the U.N. system could not be supported, Mr. Blackwill said that the U.S. had not rushed to war, but to the Security Council. ``In fact, as a diplomatic historian, I'd make the argument that we may have spent more time and energy and political capital with respect to the Security Council in the last five months then at any time since the 1967 war....'' If the U.S. was forced to take action because the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, had not complied with Resolution 1441 and 16 previous resolutions, it would be within the U.N. context. These were "more than enough'' to authenticate the use of military force in the U.N. context.

Was the U.S. prepared to give a commitment that it would abide by any decision the Security Council took? "The answer is that the U.N. Security Council has already taken a decision. It is called 1441.'' On the second resolution being moved by the U.S., the U.K. and Spain in the Security Council, Mr. Blackwill said "we do not believe that the second resolution is necessary to authenticate military action... again read 1441...

`Will not work again'

``Let me say something about the recent Iraqi decision to begin destroying some of its missiles... this is classical Saddam Hussein behaviour which is to wait till the last moment and then give a small compromise hoping that the U.N. will become distracted... My worry is that he may have decided that this has worked for him 16 previous times... and he may think it's going to work again. It won't work again.''

The destruction of a few missiles was the "tip of the iceberg,'' he maintained adding that Mr. Hussein and Iraq must ``stop lying.''

``It's time for Saddam Hussein to disarm. The onus is not on the Security Council, the onus is not on the U.S. to prove anything... the onus is on Saddam Hussein to reveal his WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programme and destroy them.'' While hoping for a last minute change of attitude in Baghdad because nobody wanted a war, Mr. Blackwill said "we've now come to the end of the road and Saddam Hussein is going to be disarmed one way or the other... he's not going to slip away again....''

On the U.S.' differences with France and Germany and their long-term implications, he said "these are great democracies and they are reflecting political process inside those countries. We just have a disagreement with those two countries in particular at the moment... not having to do with the objective, which is to disarm Iraq, but having to do with the role of the (U.N. weapons) inspectors and the time line.

And our view is that more inspectors are not going to solve this problem... and more time won't solve this problem. We continue though to work with them and to discuss these matters with the top of the two Governments and we'll see where we come out in the next couple of weeks.''

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