Consequences for Iraq

Author: Drew Pugsley

In light of Iraq's recent "cooperation" with U.N. weapons inspectors with respect to the al-Samoud 2 missile system, I would not advise the United States to attack Iraq today, or tomorrow. Though I, as any rational citizen of this world should conclude, am certain that this is all part of Saddam's "game of deception," invading Iraq within the next week would set a bad international precedent.
That being said, I do not think that Iraq is about to, or will ever, disarm completely without military action.
In the whole course of these international protests and anti-war SGA resolutions we seem to have forgotten one fundamental issue in this conflict with Iraq: the reason for the U.N. resolutions and U.S. economic sanctions on Iraq. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The very first U.N. resolution requiring disarmament was a punishment for invading and seizing the sovereignty of a neighboring nation.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair maintains that there are "consequences of '[stopping] the war.'" Mr. Blair has staked his career and the future of his party on the Iraq conflict and the future of the United Nations. Two-thirds of the people in Great Britain oppose war with Iraq and yet Blair remains firm. In an effort to save his career, he makes a moral case for war with Iraq: he cites, most notably, the more than one in eight Iraqi children who die before age five of easily preventable conditions.
Financially, some have put the cost of war with Iraq at an upper extreme of about $100 billion. The cost to taxpayers of cleaning up two ounces of anthrax in the Senate offices was $42 million. The Brookings Institution estimates the cost of a biological attack on a U.S. city at $750 billion, not to mention the impact that an attack of this magnitude would have both psychologically and economically.
As much as I dislike simply regurgitating political rhetoric, the United Nations was formed to protect and maintain the collective security of its members. Iraq is a destabilizing force in the world, particularly in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein and his team of scientists have failed to account for a chemical and biological weapons arsenal that they have admitted to possessing.
In the Feb. 26 issue of The Campus, Bryan Goldberg was absolutely correct in asserting that the burden is on Iraq to prove that it no longer has these weapons. Why should Dr. Blix run around Iraq looking for these weapons when the very first resolution was in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait?
I personally believe that it is time for the United Nations to fulfill the mission for which it was created and enforce Resolution 1441. The members of the Security Council must realize that at some point there must be "serious consequences" for Iraq and any nation that threatens the spread of democracy and the security of the world in general.
In my opinion these consequences must be clearly defined and, in order to avoid irrelevance, the United Nations must enforce them. In 1962 President John F. Kennedy proclaimed, "the 1930s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war." The United Nations must stand up to this aggressor and do the job for which it was conceived.
Should the UN wait another 12 years before it finally decides to enforce these resolutions? The time has come for the Security Council to draft one firm and final ultimatum to Saddam Hussein.

Drew Pugsley is a political science - economics double major from Moreland Hills, Ohio.