1999 E-mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

E-mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart and students from Marin Academy High School, UC Berkeley's Model UN Program, and Boalt School of Law: March 1999 with Harry Kreisler

The UN and Iraq

What in your opinion should the UN do about the situation in Iraq and the controversial bombings by the United States?

Model UN Program, Marin Academy High School

There is no easy answer to that question. Personally, I think the Security Council has to make a fundamental reassessment of the problem and of what useful steps can be taken to contain it and eventually to resolve it. It remains an extremely serious situation.

The World Health Organization reports that over 5,000 children under the age of 5 are dying every month as a direct result of the sanctions. Some analysts fear that a generation of Iraqi children are growing up with extreme anti-Western sentiments that will carry over into the next century and have devastating implications. Where do you stand on this issue?

Leila Yavari, Model UN Program, UC Berkeley

There always has been an inherent contradiction between some aspects of the United Nations Charter including the sacrosanct nature of national sovereignty on the one hand and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the other. In the Iraq case, there is a contradiction between the compelling need to do away with Sadam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, which are a major potential threat to the region and the world, and the means of achieving this, namely sanctions, which entail appalling hardships for the Iraqi people. There is no easy answer to which of these concerns has the priority. My own feeling is that the UN and the governments concerned need to take a long hard look at sanctions and the experience of the last eight years and try to find more effective and less inhumane ways of dealing with the very real danger of Sadam Hussein.

I am less worried about anti-Western sentiments than I am about finding the right way to deal with a very serious problem. Opinion after the fall of a dictator, which we hope will happen in the case of Sadam Hussein, is not predictable. I remember, for example, my surprise while a British soldier in Germany during 1945 at finding that within a week of Hitler's death the entire population was enthusiastically anti-Nazi.

Could you please give me your understanding of the effectiveness of UN enforcement of the Security Council Resolutions in relation to UNSCOM's mandate in Iraq, particularly looking at use of military force since 1991, the embargo, the no-fly zones, and the travel restrictions suggested in December 1997? Do you see any break in continuity since the October 1997 split Security Council vote? UNSCOM has accomplished a great deal. However, it has done nothing since Iraq unilaterally stopped their activities in the summer of 1998. Taking into account the Secretary-General's trip and MOU in February 1998, and UNSCOM's repeated declarations that there is still disarmament work to be done, has the inconsistency of support for UNSCOM from the SC and SG had a negative effect on the UN's future credibility in peacekeeping missions?

Michael A. Lysobey, Boalt School of Law, UC Berkeley

The greatest difficulty in the Iraq situation has been to sustain the virtual unanimity and support which made Desert Storm possible. The hope in 1991 was that the Security Council's resolution would be quickly implemented by Iraq in order to get the sanctions lifted. Unfortunately, this hope showed a lack of realism as regards Sadam Hussein's intentions, especially in regard to weapons of mass destruction. Personally, I do not think that in the United States people have given enough attention to the basic reason for Sadam's continued determination to have some weapons of mass destruction, which is almost certainly rooted in his deadly fear of Iranian revenge for the Iran - Iraq War and the knowledge that only a deterrent capacity is likely to keep Iran at bay. Of course, as in other questions, the previous unanimity of the Security Council has become frayed over the years especially because of the increasing discrepancy between American and British policy on the one side and Russia, France, and China on the other. The Secretary-General has in my view done everything he possibly can to preserve both the Security Council consensus and the effectiveness of UNSCOM. The events of late 1998 seem to have doomed his efforts to failure. UNSCOM is now more or less inactive and it is hard to see how its useful activity can be reinstated, especially in view of recent accusations and recriminations about its activities which have provided Sadam Hussein with invaluable ammunition. There is also a growing international demand for the lifting of sanctions on humanitarian grounds. I think that the Security Council needs to make a radical reassessment of the nature of the problem and how it can best deal with it in the future, particularly in light of all the regional factors concerned.