Critique of US Draft UN Resolution
A Detailed Analysis of the Draft UN Security Council Resolution
Proposed by the U.S. Government
(Latest publicly available version, October 23, 2002)

"Claims of a threat posed by Iraq to international peace and security are entirely untenable. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet refuted Bush's claims in a letter to the Senate, where he said clearly the threat of an Iraqi WMD attack was virtually nonexistent, except possibly in the eventuality of a U.S. war for 'regime change.' Nobody claims Iraq has nuclear weapons, nobody has produced any evidence that Iraq is capable of weaponizing biological agents, and it's quite clear that Iraq can have no more than a nominal chemical weapons capability."

"This language is specifically designed to set the stage for a U.S. military attack."

"The word 'consequences' used in this paragraph is a code word for war. It is not at all clear that war is warranted over major or minor disputes that may arise over interpretations of Security Council resolutions."

"The multi-speak coming from Washington allows the allied leaders, and especially the P-5 [Permanent 5] governments, to put a good face on the deal they are striking with Washington. They don't want it to appear that war is 'automatic.' But everyone understands that war is automatic."

"According to this paragraph, any false statement by any Iraqi official, or any statement interpreted as false, whether false or not, could become a pretext for war."

"The numerous provisions above add up to an attempt to provide for a military occupation without having to fight a war. Note especially the right to create 'exclusion zones and/or ground and air transit corridors.' An earlier draft explicitly stated that these could be enforced by the military of 'member states,' meaning the U.S. military. That language has been removed, but the United States likes to maintain a certain 'creative ambiguity' -- if the language doesn't explicitly forbid enforcement by member states, they will likely claim that it allows such enforcement. In toto, these conditions amount to unrestricted military to any site it deems fit, unrestricted overflight rights, right to commandeer and control the entire electromagnetic spectrum over Iraq, unrestricted right to appropriate materials, and especially unrestricted right to occupy areas and completely control access and transit. This is remarkably like the demands the United States made of Yugoslavia in the draft Rambouillet accords ('negotiations' broke down shortly before the U.S. started bombing) and to the demands that the United States made of the Taliban before the Afghanistan war. In each case, the United States calls for the target country to completely relinquish its sovereignty, allowing an indefinite, roving military occupation. Since no sovereign state grants such rights, the clear inference is that the U.S. deliberately sets its demands so high they cannot be met and then claims that it has justification for war. In this case, Hussein has made some remarkable concessions and it's not clear just how far he will go -- what is clear is that no matter how much he concedes, the Bush administration will continue to refuse to take 'yes' for an answer."

"This language is aimed at demanding Iraqi compliance with the U.S.-British air patrols and bombings going on in the so-called 'no-fly' zones. Neither creation or military enforcement of those zones was ever authorized by the United Nations; no UN resolution before this one ever even mentioned 'no-fly' zones.

Critique of US Draft UN Resolution
A Detailed Analysis of the Draft UN Security Council Resolution
Proposed by the U.S. Government
(Latest publicly available version, October 23, 2002)

"Claims of a threat posed by Iraq to international peace and security are entirely untenable. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet refuted Bush's claims in a letter to the Senate, where he said clearly the threat of an Iraqi WMD attack was virtually nonexistent, except possibly in the eventuality of a U.S. war for 'regime change.' Nobody claims Iraq has nuclear weapons, nobody has produced any evidence that Iraq is capable of weaponizing biological agents, and it's quite clear that Iraq can have no more than a nominal chemical weapons capability."

"This language is specifically designed to set the stage for a U.S. military attack."

"The word 'consequences' used in this paragraph is a code word for war. It is not at all clear that war is warranted over major or minor disputes that may arise over interpretations of Security Council resolutions."

"The multi-speak coming from Washington allows the allied leaders, and especially the P-5 [Permanent 5] governments, to put a good face on the deal they are striking with Washington. They don't want it to appear that war is 'automatic.' But everyone understands that war is automatic."

"According to this paragraph, any false statement by any Iraqi official, or any statement interpreted as false, whether false or not, could become a pretext for war."

"The numerous provisions above add up to an attempt to provide for a military occupation without having to fight a war. Note especially the right to create 'exclusion zones and/or ground and air transit corridors.' An earlier draft explicitly stated that these could be enforced by the military of 'member states,' meaning the U.S. military. That language has been removed, but the United States likes to maintain a certain 'creative ambiguity' -- if the language doesn't explicitly forbid enforcement by member states, they will likely claim that it allows such enforcement. In toto, these conditions amount to unrestricted military to any site it deems fit, unrestricted overflight rights, right to commandeer and control the entire electromagnetic spectrum over Iraq, unrestricted right to appropriate materials, and especially unrestricted right to occupy areas and completely control access and transit. This is remarkably like the demands the United States made of Yugoslavia in the draft Rambouillet accords ('negotiations' broke down shortly before the U.S. started bombing) and to the demands that the United States made of the Taliban before the Afghanistan war. In each case, the United States calls for the target country to completely relinquish its sovereignty, allowing an indefinite, roving military occupation. Since no sovereign state grants such rights, the clear inference is that the U.S. deliberately sets its demands so high they cannot be met and then claims that it has justification for war. In this case, Hussein has made some remarkable concessions and it's not clear just how far he will go -- what is clear is that no matter how much he concedes, the Bush administration will continue to refuse to take 'yes' for an answer."

"This language is aimed at demanding Iraqi compliance with the U.S.-British air patrols and bombings going on in the so-called 'no-fly' zones. Neither creation or military enforcement of those zones was ever authorized by the United Nations; no UN resolution before this one ever even mentioned 'no-fly' zones.