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BAGHDAD: Former Marine captain Scott Ritter successfully inspected Iraqi weapons sites Friday, accompanied by the standard Iraqi escorts. It was business as usual for the UNSCOM inspector, whose branding as a spy by Baghdad reignited the inspection crisis in January -- and that means Kofi Annan's deal with Saddam has passed its first test...
MacArthur had to wait years to fulfill his promise to ?return?; for Scott Ritter the wait was only two months. The former Marine captain expelled by Saddam Hussein in January arrived back in Baghdad today to lead his UNSCOM inspection team, marking the first major test of Kofi Annan?s agreement...
...Ritter is being sent back because Annan has to prove that he?s going to take a hard line with Iraq over weapons inspections,? says TIME?s U.N. correspondent William Dowell. Baghdad expelled Ritter not simply because he was American, but because he headed up UNSCOM?s attempts to expose Iraq?s concealment and deception, explains Dowell. ?If the Iraqis let him back in to continue his work, it?s a show of good faith on their part.? Of course, if Saddam decides once again to block Ritter?s efforts, the crisis will rewind to the (by now rather confusing...
...willing to go along with the suggestion of soothing Saddam's offended sense of sovereignty by sending Security Council diplomats along with the inspectors, but not if the diplomats get in the way or try to limit inspections anywhere and everywhere. "If a few diplomats were to accompany UNSCOM under certain conditions," says State Department spokesman James Rubin, "we don't have a problem with that." But the commission must have "operational control and access to sites it does not now have access...
...Lott might grudgingly admit, calling Mideast shots these days is no mean feat. Annan even got the unqualified support of Richard Butler, the UNSCOM chief who was recently hauled up before the secretary general for impolitic comments. The accord should help complete weapons inspections within the year, said Butler: "If [the Iraqis] follow what is in Kofi Annan's document and really cooperate with us... we are talking a relatively good, short time." So it'll all be over by Christmas...