Iraqi crisis - War cannot be justified at present

WITH the UN Security Council and the NATO alliance still riven

Were it not for the steady hand of Dr Hans Blix, chief of UNSCOM and head of weapons inspections in Iraq, US President George W Bush and his gung-ho regime would already have unleashed showers of uranium-tipped missiles to rain down on the Iraqi people.

For the second time within weeks, Dr Blix yesterday brought sanity to a most uncertain scenario, telling the Security Council that Iraq appears to be taking a more active approach to disarmament.

Clearly, the tyrannical Saddam Hussein must provide more dramatic and more convincing evidence to back his claims that he is not in possession of banned weapons, including anthrax, nerve agents, and long-range missiles. But the work of Dr Blix and his team of inspectors has put a serious question mark over the war-mongering of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Ironically, Mr Bush is more likely to be deterred by falling support in US opinion polls than by all the warnings of France, Germany and other governments not to plunge the region into conflict with a grave capacity to create a spiral of terrorism and violence for years to come.

In global terms, the stakes could hardly be higher. The central issue is whether the United Nations or the United States can claim legitimacy as a world peacemaker. If Bush has his way, the UN will effectively be castrated and the US will hijack the role of global policeman.

In a stinging rebuke of the US line on Iraq, Dr Blix cast doubt on claims by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that mobile weapons factories are in use there.

Against this backdrop, those in the pro-war axis, waiting to seize on any sign that Iraq is in serious breach of UN resolutions, will be disappointed by the Blix report. Against that, the anti-war lobby will be reassured by the manner in which the inspector has faced down the United States.

It is now clear that Saddam Hussein can no longer play games with the UN and the international community and hope to get away with it.

But war is not the answer, as millions of people who take to the streets in global anti-war protests today will testify. Significantly, Bishop John Kirby of Clonfert has called on all Catholics to join the anti-war demonstration in Dublin.

As head of the Trócaire aid agency, he has first-hand experience of the repercussions of conflict and famine. Given its plummeting popularity, the Government can ill-afford to ignore his call for a show of opposition to any war against Iraq.

Nor should the Coalition turn a deaf ear to the bishop’s plea that in the event of a unilateral attack on Iraq without UN approval, Ireland should withdraw all co-operation with the US military at Shannon.

Moral principles must take precedence over economic consequences.

As the French ambassador to the UN succinctly put it, war cannot be justified in the present situation. Any military conflict should only be embarked upon as a last resort.

It is difficult to disagree with the argument that war is the ultimate sanction of failure.