Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=10/16/02

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=RUTH WEDGEWOOD

NUMBER=3-388

BYLINE=SUSAN YACKEE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

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VOA INTERVIEW WITH RUTH WEDGEWOOD,

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

BY VOA'S SUSAN YACKEE - OCTOBER 16, 2002

HOST: The United Nations Security Council is holding an open meeting to discuss calls for a new U-N resolution on Iraq. South Africa - the current chairman of the 130-member Non-Aligned Movement - requested the meeting to give U-N members, other than those on the Security Council, a chance to air their views on Iraq. Ruth Wedgewood is an expert on the United Nations at the Council on Foreign Relations. V-O-A News Now's Susan Yackee asked her about the various approaches to Iraq being discussed at the U-N.:

MS. WEDGEWOOD: The big debate is how much to push back on the restrictions that Saddam insisted upon in 1998, on the efficacy of the inspections, whether the palaces will be off limits, whether people inspecting sites have to be accompanied by diplomats. And the second great issue is whether there should be a resolution that explicitly or implicitly authorizes the use of force by members of the U.N. to enforce the inspection requirements. And the French are quite insistent that there should be no authorization of force in this current pending resolution.

The American position is that in fact force was authorized by the original resolution in 1991, Resolution 687. So I think a lot of the debate here has to do with how quickly you are willing to resort to force if Saddam, as one might predict, will violate the conditions of the inspections.

MS. YACKEE: Do you get any sense of which way the wind is blowing there at the U.N.?

MS. WEDGEWOOD: Well, my guess on the compromise is that the U.S. will eventually acceded to a resolution that is not explicit about the use of force I think, to be honest, in the confidence that, push come to shove, if necessity required, that we would feel comfortable going on with force on the basis of the 1991 resolution. So, belt and suspenders, you don't have to wear two ways of keeping your pants up.

But I do think that, for political reasons, to persuade Saddam that the U.N. is serious about this regime of inspections -- because Saddam has thumbed his nose at it for years and years -- it is helpful to have as pointed a reminder to him as possible that the consequences are not necessarily attractive for the continuity of his regime.

MS. YACKEE: Is this meeting being held because some governments have expressed resentment that the five permanent members of the Council are making important decisions about this?

MS. WEDGEWOOD: Well, that's an old story, that always the P-1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 meet privately to try to figure out what will fit amongst their vetoes. But there is also a trend in the Council to wanting to do more things that are collaborative, and indeed often having open meetings. More and more there are meetings that N-G-Os can attend. Because one of the long-term attacks on the continued legitimacy of the Council has been the claim that it is not representative, that it is outmodedly exclusive in its membership. So the Council has been trying to be a more porous and transparent institution.

MS. YACKEE: How long do you think this debate will continue?

MS. WEDGEWOOD: I hope not too long. You'll have to forgive my relatively hawkish views, but I think that we should have gone in in 1998 to take care of Saddam's booty of weapons of mass destruction, instead of giving him a four-year lead-time to weaponize and replenish and get ready for any discipline. So I think it's really tactically and strategically very dangerous to wait too long.

HOST: Ruth Wedegwood, a professor of international law at Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She spoke to VOA News Now's Susan Yackee.

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