How Blair Helped Clinton
GELB, NORMAN
THE IRAQ CRISIS-2 How Blair Helped Clinton By Norman Gelb London At a tense moment, as United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan sought to arrange a diplomatic agreement that would...
...The Prime Minister, meanwhile, doubts the agreement Kofi Annan extracted during his Baghdad visit is enough to guarantee unhampered inspections...
...Conservative analysts in London are concerned about the broader significance of the Secretary General's intervention...
...It published an opinion poll showing that the public—staggered by projections of megadeaths that would be caused by the use of anthrax and other biological warheads—favors bombing by a margin of 56 per cent to 32 per cent if all else fails to bring Iraq to heel...
...British intelligence agencies, Scotland Yard and the Home Office were said to have drawn up contingency plans in case President Saddam Hussein ordered biological or chemical attacks in London, and to have rehearsed appropriate rescue operations...
...We will keep a military presence in the area until we are sure that Saddam's words are matched by his deeds—as insurance against the deception and broken promises that have marked the past seven years...
...THE IRAQ CRISIS-2 How Blair Helped Clinton By Norman Gelb London At a tense moment, as United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan sought to arrange a diplomatic agreement that would preempt American-British air assaults on targets in Iraq, it was disclosed that security had been tightened in England against possible Baghdad sponsored acts of terrorism...
...In any case, the Foreign Office says that although it would like to see a change of government in Iraq, "as a policy we do not recognize govemments-in-exile...
...The Bennites were not very successful either in ridiculing Tony Blair as "America's Poodle" for flying to Washington at the height of the confrontation with Saddam to personally express approval of President Clinton's tough stand...
...True, even some pundits who agree that military action against Iraq might ultimately be unavoidable thought Blair's going so far as to do a buddy-buddy act with Clinton at a White House press conference was demeaning...
...and British military commanders...
...Norman Gelb reports regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...
...There has not been such an example of weakness neutering strength since Delilah gave up hairdressing...
...It is commonly agreed here that the world would be a better place without Saddam Hussein, but who would replace him...
...Neither the prospect of Iraqi retaliation, however, nor concern about provoking anti-British feel ing in the Arab world, has lessened the determination of the government to join the United States in resorting to force against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction should that finally be the only choice...
...When the crisis first seemed to be escalating toward military action, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook spoke on the telephone with Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright almost every day...
...The expense of maintaining a standby attack force is a drain on his Labor government's coffers and potentially on its popularity...
...Giving voice to the government's skepticism...
...The problem for many parliamentarians who only reluctantly accept military action, as well as for the Bennites who oppose it passionately, is not being able to find any credible alternative in the event that UN weapons inspectors are not permitted to get on with their jobs...
...They remain in close contact, and so do the senior U.S...
...We are a long way from standing down our forces," he said...
...An opinion poll taken after the trip found that 57 per cent of Britons believed the Prime Minister had handled himself well...
...In accepting the role he has played, they ask, have the United States and Britain put themselves in a position where it will be morally impossible for them to ever again take military action in pursuit of an international objective without the approval of the United Nations...
...Assuming Saddam Hussein has not changed his spots, we may shortly know whether or not Roberts is right...
...Hopes that Iraqi dissidents in Britain and elsewhere could establish an active anti-Hussein movement have been undermined by their lack of both dynamism and credentials, not to mention their inability to work together...
...Voices of dissent on ethical grounds are also being raised in the newspapers, on television and at public rallies...
...Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister during the Gulf War, and who at that time cautioned President George Bush not to "go wobbly" in dealing with Iraq, has declared she is certain Saddam will not comply with the UN document he signed...
...The London Daily Telegraph warns that the goal of destroying Hussein's terror capabilities cannot be achieved by aerial bombardment alone, a view echoed by some former senior British military officers...
...But with the votes of the Conservatives in the House of Commons, Blair emerged from a debate on the issue with a majority 20 times that number...
...Historian Andrew Roberts thinks the answer is yes: "By effectively cheating President Clinton and Tony Blair out of a war they were ready for, and felt the West should fight, Annan's deal has emasculated Atlanticist policymaking...
...They are poised to strike if the last-minute accord negotiated by Annan proves to be worth nothing more than the paper it was written on...
...Twenty-one Labor Party MPs felt compelled to reject employing force as apreventive measure...
...But the Ministry of Defense offers no suggestion that Britain is contemplating committing land forces to an invasion of Iraq should Hussein renege on hisprormses...
...Foreign Secretary Cook has warned Baghdad that British warships and bombers will remain where they are...
...How effective they might be, though, is a subject of open debate...
...Nor will it comment on reports that Special Air Service (SAS) commandos, like those that operated behind Iraqi lines during the Gulf War, are standing by in Kuwait to be deployed again...
...Reflecting budding signs of fatigue with the lingering situation, Jenkins maintains that British and American "blustering" is foolish and declares, "Saddam will fall in his own time at the hands of his own countrymen.' Some observers believe British leaders (and President Clinton) were being naïve or disingenuous, or were simply accepting that they had been finessed, when they expressed relief and satisfaction that Kofi Annan produced at least a temporary diplomatic solution to the Iraqi crisis...
...Others, while recognizing that Blair's chumminess was as much a gesture of moral support for the President amid the fuss over Monica S. Lewinsky as it was a sign of solidarity on Iraq, still considered it undignified...
...Nevertheless, as the Iraqi situation stabilizes without indications yet of significant progress in finding and destroying weapons of mass destruction, deeper questions are coming to the fore...
...Domestically, things could get tricky for Prime Minister Tony Blair...
...Gadfly London Times columnist Simon Jenkins, who has never been an advocate of armed intervention in Iraq, rails that "British policy on Iraq is slithering from senseless saber-rattling to incoherence...
...The most notable naysayers are veterans of the peace movement that flourished during the Cold War, men like Members of Parliament Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn...
...Lawrence Freedman, professor of War Studies at King's College, London, has cautioned that public support of the present policy should not be taken for granted...
...If the threat of force is to be cranked up again in the future," Freedman admonishes, "the allies must do a better job of demonstrating that they have a viable strategy...
...It already is facing howls of protest about trimming back the welfare state...
...He remains an evil, brutal dictator...
...The two leaders, Roberts continues, "were outmaneuvered and denied their war by a Secretary General who has no armies to command and only the flimsiest claim to moral force based on the uncommitted association of a large number of often undemocratic member states...
...Inevitably, there are questions about how many hospitals or schools could be built with the money being spent in the Gulf...
...But even the Guardian, their favorite outlet among the daily newspapers, was obliged to challenge their insistence that the British people oppose military action against Iraq...
...The Saddam Hussein we face today," Blair says, "is the same Saddam Hussein we faced yesterday...
...Yet such qualms were not widely shared by the public...
...Moreover, the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious is still threateningly on duty in the Persian Gulf alongside American naval vessels, and British Tornado bombers have been flown to bases in Kuwait...
...Backing for the government's position in Parliament is far stronger...
Vol. 81 • February 1998 • No. 3
