Word: unscom
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Anyone who wanted to predict the timing of the air strikes merely had to consult Richard Butler's calendar. The head of the U.N.'s Iraq inspection team, known as UNSCOM, had been telling diplomats for weeks that he intended to give the Security Council a crucial report on Iraqi compliance by Dec. 15. Delivered right on schedule, it showed that the Iraqis had been up to their usual tricks: concealing equipment that could be used to make bioweapons, blocking interviews with workers at suspicious sites, lying about sealed documents detailing the military's past uses of chemical agents...
...President needed no prodding for war. A month earlier, Clinton had ordered a meticulously planned assault and called it off only at the last minute, when Saddam promised full cooperation with UNSCOM. At the time, Clinton declared that war would come without warning if Saddam misbehaved again. Months of Iraqi duplicity had convinced the White House that UNSCOM wouldn't get compliance. So when he got advance word on the contents of Butler's report on Sunday, Dec. 13, the President, in Jerusalem at the beginning of his Middle East trip, had no good choice but to act. He gave...
UNITED NATIONS: This is why Saddam Hussein didn?t fight back -- he has friends in high places. Security Council members France, Russia and China have officially called for an end to economic sanctions on Iraq and the firing of UNSCOM head Richard Butler, and the replacement of his inspectors with something about as effective as a gaggle of traveling salesmen. Their motives are as transparent as ever -- France and Russia want oil deals, and China just hates meddlers -- but that won?t make this tide any easier to turn...
...leaning on Kofi Annan to leave UNSCOM with its teeth, and is promising to use its council veto to keep sanctions intact. But TIME U.N. correspondent William Dowell points out that after the bombings, the Security Council just isn?t what it used to be. ?Nobody got a chance to veto when the U.S. and Britain acted alone,? he says. ?For the U.S., which doesn?t even pay its dues, it?s going to be hard to insist on having its way again. Iraq may simply cease to be a Security Council issue.? Which is why Pentagon head William Cohen...
Just a month ago, Clinton ordered an attack on Iraq but called it off at the last minute when Hussein promised to cooperate with UNSCOM inspectors...