The key to making the inspections work is the Iraqi government making the crucial decision that because of the international pressure Iraq has to disarm itself.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Don't invade Iraq. Inspections work, war won't.
The inspections started in 1991, right after the Gulf War. One of the conditions for the ceasefire was that Iraq had to do away with all of its weapons of mass destruction - biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
As leader of the effort of the Iraqi Survey Group, I spent most of my days not out in the field leading inspections. It's typically what you do at that level. I was trying to motivate, direct, find strategies.
What the UN inspectors can do is demonstrate to the world, help the Iraqi government demonstrate to the world that the Iraqis are cooperatively disarming if that is in fact what the Iraqi government decides to do.
The Iraqis need help establishing a government. We have to provide them with security.
But, as you have intimated, I am among those who would be very wary of any military action in the light of Saddam Hussein's willingness to allow the weapons inspectors to go in.
The purpose of the UN mechanism, this inspection mechanism, is not to engage in a cat and mouse game with Saddam Hussein and try to find weapons that the Iraqi government is working on concealing.
Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.
We have exhausted all of our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that... we have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily.
If the Iraqis fail to implement the reforms, if they fail to get a handle on the violence, there's nothing the United States can do, militarily or otherwise, that can solve those problems. They have to assume the primary responsibility to govern themselves.
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