FOCUS
Invasion may end treaties on arms

By Michael Jones

The Bush administration's rush to use military force in Iraq threatens international mechanisms to control and eliminate weapons of mass destruction.

These mechanisms include treaties banning biological and chemical weapons and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is the basis for the inspections in Iraq by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If the United States attacks Iraq because the inspections are too slow and Iraqi cooperation is less than ideal, it will be even harder for international organizations to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs and to persuade India, Pakistan and Israel to eliminate their nuclear weapons.

Revulsion at the horrific effects of the chemical weapons used in World War I led to the 1925 Geneva Protocol which banned use of these weapons in warfare.

Possession and use of such weapons are prohibited by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, which set up an international organization to do inspections of suspected chemical weapons facilities.

Biological weapons are banned by the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, for which verification provisions are being negotiated by parties to this treaty.

The 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligates treaty parties without nuclear weapons to allow international atomic agency inspectors to verify that their nuclear facilities (primarily reactors) are not being used to produce nuclear weapons.

The international atomic agency has extensive experience conducting inspections and was part of the previous United Nations team in Iraq from 1991 until 1998.

The inspections in the 1990s uncovered evidence of biological and nuclear weapons programs despite Iraqi attempts to hide these programs and obstruct the inspections.

Much of the evidence cited in the British government's report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction last fall was derived from these inspections.

This emphasizes that thorough inspections can find secret programs. The weapons found and associated facilities were destroyed or disabled by the U.N. team.

A new U.N. team composed of International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspectors and chemical and biological weapons experts from UNMOVIC (the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) has been conducting daily inspections in Iraq since Nov. 27 to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441.

Daily reports of sites inspected are available at www.iaea.org/worldatom.

On Jan. 27, the head of the international atomic agency reported that its inspections had found no evidence that Iraq has restarted its nuclear weapons program. The head of UNMOVIC reported that Iraq has been cooperative with its inspectors but has not provided complete documentation about its chemical and biological weapons programs or about its missile programs.

The utility of the current inspections is demonstrated by the finding of 12 empty chemical weapons warheads on Jan. 16. Four more were found a few days later.

In January, the White House released a document, "Apparatus of Lies" detailing past and current Iraqi attempts to deceive.

It cites four items as evidence for material breach of U.N. Resolution 1441 — undeclared chemical weapons warheads found on Jan. 16, intimidation of Iraqi scientists, incomplete documentation of weapons programs and absence of "active" cooperation.

These are all serious matters that are being addressed by the U.N. inspection team and are appropriate for action by the Security Council. If incomplete documentation and lack of "active" cooperation were justifications for military attack, most governments, including that of the United States, would be on the target list.

Eliminating threats from weapons of mass destruction requires international support for treaties banning these weapons and associated verification provisions.

The response to North Korea's defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency and its withdrawal from the Nonproliferation Treaty provides a good example of coherent international action.

The United States should take a similar approach through the Security Council and insist that the inspections in Iraq be done thoroughly and expeditiously.

Military action should be taken only if Iraq refuses to cooperate, and if such action is approved by the Security Council.

Initiating military action without Security Council authorization would undermine international efforts to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and is unworthy of the country that helped establish the United Nations.

Michael Jones is a a physicist at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. The opinions expressed are his own.