A new report calls for intrusive inspections in Iraq backed by
an international military force.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace issued a report that
called on the United States to support a tough UN weapons inspection regime
as an alternative to a unilateral military campaign against Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein. The report said such an inspection regime must be intrusive
and backed by an international military force organized by the Security
Council.
The report envisioned the creation of an "Inspection Implementation
Force" that would enable UN weapons inspectors to enter any Iraqi facility, Middle East Newsline reported.
The force would be composed principally of air and armored cavalry units,
with the addition of forces deployed along the Jordan-Iraq border and an
air-mobile brigade in eastern Turkey.
The UN force would deploy at least two brigades in Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia as well as an infrastructure to accommodate a corps. The air support
would include fighter-jets and bombers and be bolstered by airborne
early-warning
aircraft. The force would be supported by intelligence provided by
satellites and other assets.
"The inspection teams would return to Iraq accompanied by a military arm
strong enough to force immediate entry into any site at any time with
complete security for the inspection team," the report said. "A credible and
continuing military threat involving substantial forces on Iraq's borders
will be necessary both to get the inspectors back into Iraq and to enable
them to do their job."
The Carnegie report was the result of discussions among leading U.S.
strategists on Washington's options to halt Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction programs. All of the discussants cited in the report rejected
unilateral U.S. military action to destroy the Saddam regime and urged the
Bush administration to choose a broad-based effort that would win Arab and
Iranian support for any campaign against Baghdad.
Strategist Jessica Mathews said in the Carnegie report that coercive UN
inspections would prevent the need to deal with such questions as regime
change in Baghdad, Iraqi disintegration and the need to deploy tens of
thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq for years.
Ms. Mathews said Russia's embrace of the United States after the Al
Qaida attacks on New York and Washington last year combined with U.S.
threats of
unilateral military action have created new opportunities that would enable
a tough UN inspections regime.
[Ret.] Air Force Gen. Charles Boyd, another member of the Carnegie team,
proposed that Iraqi military movements be severely restricted during UN
inspections. This would include a ban on the movement of Iraqi military
planes, helicopters as well as ground forces.
"The IIF commander, through established notification procedures, would
inform Iraq of the time, duration, and area throughout which Iraqi forces
must stand down," Boyd said. "Any violation of that prohibition would
constitute a hostile act subjecting the offending Iraqi forces to attack and
destruction, as well as the military installations from which they came."
The report called on the administration to be prepared to guarantee that
the United States would not launch any war against Iraq as long as the UN
inspectors are operating. Such an assurance could be included in any
Security Council resolution.
"The objective of removing Saddam's WMD but not Saddam himself must be
credible Ñ not only to Saddam but also to
those whose support we seek in the region and the Security Council," the
report said.