The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #56559   Message #890292
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
14-Feb-03 - 10:19 AM
Thread Name: BS: Should the Uk & US go to war with Iraq?
Subject: RE: BS: Should the Uk & US go to war with Iraq?
"How are we to get all those thousands of NEW weapons inspectors into Iraq ?? By Force ???"

What I assume the countries pushing that envisage is that, if Iraq does not volunteer to allow this, there should be a binding resolution which would require him to accept this. Should Iraq fail to accept it, the case for the UK/US alternative would be strengthened. It would only take a few days to get clarification on this - in fact I strongly suspect that before publishing the proposal the governments concerned will have done their homework, and have reason to believe that their proposals would be accepted by Iraq.

However in the existing climate I would expect that the UK or the US would be only too likely to veto such a resolution. I'd call that an unreasonable veto.

The real question is, why is there such a desperate hurry? And the answer to that is that once a war machine has been put into action it is awkward to stop it or pause it. That is generally given as the dynamic that caused the Great War in 1914.

Well, waiting a few months would be inconvenient, and it would be expensive. But so would a war. And there is no reason to think that a wait would strengthen Saddam's military position - if anything the reverse.