Diplomacy must be given a chance: Congressmen’s plea to Bush govt
BAGHDAD, Sept 30: Three anti-war US Democratic congressmen visiting Iraq on Monday urged the United States to give diplomacy a chance, but warned Baghdad that Washington was “very serious” about enforcing arms inspections.
“There is a way to resolve this, and the way to resolve it is for the Iraqis not to interfere (and) the United States not to interfere with the inspection process which will commence in a couple of weeks,” said David Bonior of Michigan, second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives.
“I don’t think there should be attempts made to make it impossible for those inspections to work because I think we should allow them to work so that we can disarm Iraq,” added Jim McDermott, who represents Washington state.
Bonior and McDermott, speaking at a press conference on the edge of Baghdad, condemned the UN sanctions regime slapped on Iraq in 1990 and warned of the consequences of a new US offensive against President Saddam Hussein’s government.
“The barbaric implications of the sanctions are such that the American people and the world community need to know,” said Bonior.
McDermott added that “while the sanctions have punished the Iraqi people, they have not affected the leadership.
“They have not brought about regime change and my view is that to do this all over again is simply to punish the Iraqi people more and put our own people, our own soldiers in harm’s way in this country for a problem which I think can be handled diplomatically.”
McDermott hailed Baghdad’s Sept 16 decision to allow the unconditional return of weapons inspectors as the “way to go and I think the United States should allow that to happen”.
But Bonior warned that the US government was very serious about enforcing arms inspections.
“The other point that we have made very forcefully while we were here is to make sure the the government of Iraq understands how serious the US is, at least its executive government and perhaps the Congress as well about the need to have unrestricted and unconditional inspections.
“They are very serious about enforcing that and we wanted to make it very clear to all the officials we met that this is very serious,” Bonior said.
The Iraqi government “needs, in October, to open up to Hans Blix and his crew completely so that they can make the verifications that are necessary in order for the sanctions to be lifted and to avoid war”, he said.
McDermott said for his part that it was better to wait for Blix to submit his report to the UN Security Council after the “not too long a period” of 60 days.
He added that US Congress would not be unanimous in granting President George Bush the power to hit Iraq.
US lawmakers are debating the language of a draft resolution Bush has asked them to pass, granting him the authority to “use all means” to disarm Iraq.
While many opposition Democrats have questioned what they see as Bush’s headlong rush to war, others said Washington must stand firm in demanding unfettered access to Iraqi sites.
“War should always be the last option,” Mike Thompson of California said later after meeting some Iraqi MPs.
But “to avoid war, Saddam Hussein is going to have to allow the weapons inspectors free and open access to every square inch of this country,” Thompson warned. Two non-profit groups, the Seattle-based Church Council and the Life Foundation of Detroit, asked Bonior, McDermott and Thompson to report on the humanitarian situation in Iraq.
The three Congressmen, who arrived in Baghdad on Friday, have met Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and Health Minister Omid Medhat Mubarak.
Bonior said their visit, which ended on Monday, was “to bear witness to what we have read and heard for so many years and to do everything we can to make the humanitarian crises in Iraq known to the rest of the world”.—AFP
