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Barbara Nimri Aziz

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Legalized Kidnapping

“You Iraqis are bloody intelligent bastards.”* 

(“Today” #3 Nov. 28) by Barbara Nimri Aziz  (© Barbara Nimri Aziz)

“You Iraqis are bloody intelligent bastards.”* 

It’s explicit enough. You’ll find the agenda in Decision 5 in the list of ‘full compliances’ set out in UN Resolution 1441. 1441 is the latest Security Council resolution spelling how Iraq is to be disarmed. It’s bold, explicit, and threatening.  

”--- AND PRIVATE ACCESS TO ALL OFFICIALS AND OTHER PERSONS WHOM UNMOVIC (Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) OR THE IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) WISH TO INTERVIEW IN THE MODE OR LOCATION OF UNMOVIC’S OR THE IAEA’S CHOICE PURSUANT TO ANY ASPECT OF THEIR MANDATES; FURTHER DECIDES THAT UNMOVIC AND THE IAEA MAY AT THEIR DISCRETION CONDUCT INTERVIEWS INSIDE OR OUTSIDE OF IRAQ, MAY FACILITATE THE TRAVEL OF THOSE INTERVIEWED AND FAMILY MEMBERS OUTSIDE OF IRAQ, AND THAT, AT THE SOLE DISCRETION OF UNMOVIC AND IAEA, SUCH INTERVIEWS MAY OCCUR WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF OBSERVERS FROM THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT

The first three lines of the directive laid out in Decision 5 are widely discussed. “…Iraq shall provide unimpeded, unconditional, unrestricted access to …” etc. but the forth line introduces a new demand. With not even a new sentence to point to its specialness, the sinister demand is marked merely by an innocuous ‘and’. 

Media pundits pass over these foreboding words for the most part, focusing instead on the less significant following lines about the 45 day deadline for Iraq to allow resumption of inspections.

Yet item 5 is one of the most important, menacing specifications in the resolution. Iraqis shudder over it. Indeed any sovereign nation should find it deeply troubling. Why? Because this clause gives the UN the right to “kidnap” any Iraqi, specifically highly trained Iraqi scientists.

Those individuals who the UN inspectors seek to remove for interrogation are men and women who have at one time or other been employed in Iraq’s defense industry. If you have doubts, read on. Under Decision 7, the fourth item reads UNMOVIC SHALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE PROVIDED BY IRAQ THE NAMES OF ALL PERSONNEL CURRENTLY AND FORMERLY ASSOCIATED WITH IRAQ’S CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL, NUCLEAR, AND BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAMS AND THE RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION FACILITIES. 

These ‘names’ are the pool from which inspectors would select those it decides to remove from Iraq for interrogation without the presence of government personnel. According to the US and UK, such individuals are the remaining “weapons of mass destruction” still in Iraqi hands and which the Americans and British are determined to eliminate.  

The last inspections team (UNSCOM) headed by Richard Butler from 1991-1998, had sought, unsuccessfully, to interrogate Iraq’s scientists. Although UNSCOM personnel interviewed many researchers, Iraq had refused to submit the names or allow any interviews with a classified group. This infuriated the Americans and Richard Butler. In citing Iraq for non-cooperation during his tenure, Butler repeatedly referred to Iraq’s continuing “capacity” to make weapons of mass destruction, even though it was reported that Iraq’s military facilities had been rendered useless. Butler’s “capacity” refers to the men and women who possess the training and brains to participate in potential weapons development, regardless of whether materials are available to them for their work. They may be geneticists and other biologists, chemists, industrial designers, aeronautical engineers, physicists, nuclear engineers and so forth.  

Interviewing these scientists is no longer enough for the American administration which insisted on this item in the new UN resolution. America wants them.

Thus the insertion of clause #5 specifically authorizing their removal-- “to interview in the mode or location of …. choice… conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq….

One country has already publicly offered a new home, financial support, new identities, protection, etc for such people. Kuwait. This assumes that at least some of those removed would not return. Doubtless other countries will be qualified to make similar offers as Kuwait to relocate them. 

If one pauses to consider the implications of this demand, it becomes even more terrifying. When Mr. Blix says: “You. I want you. Come outside Iraq with me,” what can one reply? The reference to accompanying family members suggests those removed would not return home. Moreover, which family members would qualify to accompany the individual? Their elderly parents? Their married brother and his family. Their father-in-law? And, having been ‘removed’ for interrogation, would these people be permitted to return, if they wished? Who would decide that!?  

Suppose a scientist co-operated with the UN and offered whatever information the interrogators sought. Suppose a debriefing was satisfactory as far as the interrogators were concerned. What then? The scientist would still possess “the capacity” would they not? Yet, that is what the UN mandate must destroy. What is to be done with these people if they insist on returning home with the “capacity to manufacture weapons”?

Can you imagine the UN helicopter escorting them back to Baghdad? And into whose hands? They would have to be debriefed by their own intelligence people, would they not? Could they be trusted at home after being interrogated outside?

The implications are chilling in this case. Equally frightening is the fate of those who may refuse to leave their country. Suppose a marked person, for personal, or ideological reasons, refuses the UN demand? Will that constitute a flagrant violation of the resolution on Iraq’s part? Will these individuals be forcibly removed? And if a person is removed by force, what would be their fate?

Some critics of US and UN policy have no doubt that any uncooperative scientists could be assassinated by their kidnappers. After all, if more than a million children are killed by sanctions in the American effort to disarm Iraq, why not a handful of redundant scientists. If there was ever a graphic example of the gangster word “to neutralize”, in reference to getting rid of one’s enemy, surely this is it. 
 

*“You Iraqis are intelligent bastards,” said one frustrated UNSCOM staff to an Iraqi citizen during the tensions over their 1997 inspections.