Inspec­tors search a sus­pected weapons site in Iraq

My buddy, George Paine at war​blog​ging​.com, alerted me to a report in the Wash­ing­ton Times that the Bush admin­is­tra­tion will declare Iraq in mate­r­ial breach of UNSCR 1441 imme­di­ately after Iraq sub­mits its report on its weapons of mass destruc­tion Sat­ur­day.
“‘It is going to be “mate­r­ial breach,” not as a casus belli [cause for war] but as a basis to begin ham­mer­ing Unmovic to do more,’ said an admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial famil­iar with the inter­nal debate,” the paper says.
Right. And the United States will be sat­is­fied if UNMOVIC declares to the Secu­rity Coun­cil the Iraq is com­ply­ing. Keep dream­ing.

U.S. offi­cials said the admin­is­tra­tion has been with­hold­ing detailed intel­li­gence on hid­den Iraqi arms pro­grams from U.N. inspec­tors. The infor­ma­tion deals mostly with Iraq’s covert chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal arms.
“We do not want to tip our hand,” the offi­cial said.
One piece of intel­li­gence includes details on a cache of more than 1,800 gal­lons of anthrax spores, the offi­cials said. Even tiny amounts of anthrax can be lethal. Less detailed intel­li­gence has been gath­ered on Iraq’s efforts to build nuclear weapons, the offi­cials said.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not look­ing for­ward to John Negro­ponte, America’s U.N. rep­re­sen­ta­tive, pulling an Adlai Steven­son on Iraq. (Steven­son dra­mat­i­cally proved the Sovi­ets were lying about their mis­siles in Cuba in Octo­ber 1962. ““Do you, Ambas­sador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is plac­ing medium and inter­me­di­ate range mis­siles and sites in Cuba?” he demanded before the world.)
But let’s look at what’s hap­pen­ing here. The United States’ defense pos­ture is to suf­fer no mil­i­tary rivals. It’s also got a strate­gic national inter­est in the oil reserves in the Per­sian Gulf. Iraq, while not a seri­ous mil­i­tary rival, is bump­ing up against both of these pil­lars of the new, mus­cu­lar Amer­i­can for­eign pol­icy. How­ever, if Iraq were to acquire weapons of mass destruc­tion, it would become a mil­i­tary rival not because its weapons would be offen­sive in nature (they wouldn’t and it’s unlikely Sad­dam would risk giv­ing them to ter­ror­ists) but because he could bully his neigh­bors (thus, impact­ing America’s inter­ests there) and deter the United States from coun­ter­ing his actions mil­i­tar­ily. So, in the Bush Uni­verse, he must be stopped. And the only reli­able way to do that is to take him out.
The United States has become caught in its own esca­la­tion of power. It asserts to the world that it will remain a global hyper­power. But in order to do so it must defeat all chal­lengers to the pax Amer­i­cana, or bet­ter yet, dis­cour­age other pow­ers from even attempt­ing to chal­lenge it. War against Sad­dam Hus­sein, in addi­tion to America’s short term goals, is a demon­stra­tion to the world. The United States is telling poten­tial pow­ers, such as China, “Do not attempt to deter our mil­i­tary abil­ity or we will crush you.” Amer­ica is going to war to prove that it is will­ing to go to war.
And that’s just crazy! Hav­ing the unre­stricted abil­ity to wage war has become a major of goal of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­icy. This is what I mean by an esca­la­tion of power. We have to wage war to ensure we can wage war. Funny, I always thought the point of diplo­macy was to avoid wars, not ensure that the option is always open.
This will lead to overex­ten­sion of our armed forces, a more dan­ger­ous world and rest­less­ness among the natives, old chap.
I’m often asked by peo­ple I talk to about this, “Do you really think we’ll go to war?” I always answer, yes, I do. Because with our defense pos­ture, we can’t afford not to. Karl von Clause­witz said in “On War,” “War is regarded as noth­ing but the con­tin­u­a­tion of state pol­icy with other means.” What hap­pens, though, when state pol­icy becomes the abil­ity to wage unre­strained war?