Reasonable Calls: Commentary

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Reasonable Calls: Commentary

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UN Chief Inspector Hans Blix and IAEA Director-general Muhammed el Baradei ended their visit to Iraq on the evening of February 9. During the visit, they held three rounds of talks with Iraqi officials. They made this appraisal: The talks got off to "a good beginning", and Iraq has expressed the wish of cooperation and adopted a serious attitude toward disarmament.

However, the United States deliberately turns a blind eye to the fact of certain progress achieved in inspection and is stepping up preparation for war. US and British total armed forces in the Gulf region have approached 120,000 people; the number of their fighter planes has topped 300; there are more than 20 war vessels of various types, three aircraft carrier battle groups have arrived at the combat water region, and another two aircraft carriers are on their way to the Gulf region. The disposition of US and British troops is near completion, giving people the sense of things like "the sword is drawn and the arrow is on the bowstring", only awaiting the order of President Bush to open fire.

At the same time, the United States repeatedly applies pressure on the United Nations, hoping that this would enable its projected military attacks on Iraq to be launched under a legal cloak. At the Munich International Security Policy Conference on February 8, US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld threatened that the United Nations must express its wishes for the use of force against Iraq when necessary, otherwise it would lose its good faith. America's arbitrary act has invited increasing resistance and criticisms from the international community. Barely had Rumsfeld finished speaking, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer pointed out tit for tat that the reasons given by the United States for the projected use of force are hardly convincing, the international community should not submit to the logic of military attack. Outside the meeting place, more than 20,000 German people from various parts of the country were braving the whirling snow in a demonstration, strongly protesting against US planned military attacks on Iraq.

This time, the international community's anti-war reasons are evidently strong.

Firstly, to this date the United States still fails to present any conclusive evidence proving Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction and its ties with Qaeda network. The evidence submitted by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council on February 5 gave the sense of something patched up and was suspected of plagiarism. On the other hand, since America has presented its evidence, but Iraq has flatly denied it, then the right way to deal with the matter should be: allowing the inspectors to carry out verification, so that the American pleas can be proved by a third party.

Secondly, inspection is proceeding and progress has been achieved in it, Iraq's attitude and stance toward inspection "has somewhat changed", then there is no reason for hurriedly resorting to the use of force without waiting for the completion of inspection. More importantly, the international community is stepping up diplomatic efforts, for example, France and Germany are drawing up a plan for intensifying inspection in order to guarantee the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Such being the case, the effort for peaceful solution is far from having come to a dead end.

Finally, US military actions are to be taken under the banner of "protecting America's own security and defending world peace". But people with a slight world knowledge do not believe that the United States is currently faced with "direct" and "imminent" threat from Iraq, the fact is that the circumstances of the two countries are just the opposite. Even if Iraq really constitutes threat to world peace, the matter should be tackled by way of what UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan proposed in his speech given at the William-Mary College in Virginia on February 8: Disarming Iraq is not a matter of a certain country, but rather it is an issue of the entire international community. If the use of force is not made out of self-defense, but is aimed at solving the problem that constitutes extensive threat to international peace and stability, then the legality of the Security Council authority in this regard is "irreplaceable". Peace or war is a matter of great importance, the United States should be calm and not impetuous, and should seriously listen to the reasonable call of the international community.

By People's Daily Online

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