A Nightmare to Love
How the Peace Movement Can Use Bush's "Almost Desperate Attempts" to "Destroy the Arms Inspection"

A nightmare scenario is facing the Bush Administration.

Imagine that Iraq continues to let UN arms inspectors inspect without impediment. By the December 8 deadline for reporting on its weapons of mass destruction, the Iraqi government makes an extensive declaration of activities and materials that might be used to make such weapons but also might have other purposes. The Iraqis then allow the inspectors to inspect all the sites they wish to enter. If the inspectors find some materials that might be used for weapons of mass destruction, they destroy them. The inspectors report to the Security Council; then most countries except the US and Britain declare that, whether or not Iraq once had weapons of mass destruction, it no longer does. Enforcement of sanctions begins to crumble and world pressure to lift them builds.

To prevent this scenario, the Bush Administration is working frantically to discredit the inspection process. As former assistant secretary general of the UN Hans von Sponeck recently put it, "No one, not even the casual reader, can miss the almost desperate attempts by the US authorities to destroy the arms inspection before it's properly begun."
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