Richard Butler, Grief of Baghdad

22 November 1998
Sunday Times of India

The Grief of Baghdad

Siddharth Varadarajan

Not even during the wildest bout of Fosters-induced delirium does a dinkum cobber in the Aussie outback ever imagine his words might one day decide questions of war and peace. By that yardstick, Richard Butler is truly a credit to his race. As head of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), his job is to eliminate whatever allegedly remains of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear arms programme. Until he certifies Iraqi compliance, sanctions -- a weapon of mass destruction as lethal as any other -- will continue. Not since Gallipoli have the lives of so many depended on the decision of an Australian. With that kind of power, Butler is clearly in no hurry to retire to the obscurity of Wollongong or Toowoomba.



Iraq is not off the mark when it accuses UNSCOM of prolonging inspections, for the US -- to whom Butler owes his plum assignment -- is certainly not interested in the embargo ever ending. By his own admission, Butler has functioned as little more than an amanuensis to US officials. He now says his November 12 decision to withdraw UN inspectors from Iraq -- a move criticised by the Security Council -- was taken solely on the advice of Peter Burleigh, the deputy US ambassador to the UN. Burleigh, incidentally, was posted in Calcutta in the 1970s and is believed by Indian intelligence sources to be a CIA man.

Earlier this year, Butler spread the canard that an Iraqi presidential site was as big as Washington. It was only when Secretary General Kofi Annan sent a technical team headed by Swedish diplomat Staffan di Mistura that the world realised the area was much smaller. Because Annan sidelined Butler, he was able to resolve that crisis and thwart US attempts to use force.

Though not publicly criticising the UNSCOM chief, Annan has pulled him up in private. In January, he ticked Butler off for saying he came from a ``Western tradition'' where truth-telling was important and that it was frustrating to deal with societies where this wasn't the case. Butler was also upbraided for alleging Iraq had enough anthrax ``to blow away Tel Aviv'', a wild claim at variance with UNSCOM's own findings.

Butler joined the foreign service in 1965 after studying economics in Canberra. After postings in Vienna and New York, he became private secretary to Bill Hayden, then leader of the opposition. When Labour came to power and Hayden became foreign minister, Butler was sent as ambassador to the UN in Geneva. Later, he went to Thailand and then to New York as Australia's UN ambassador.

After the Liberals won the 1996 elections, they made it clear his days were numbered. Butler, however, had a plan: he convinced foreign minister Alexander Downer that he would ensure US support for an Australian seat on the Security Council. But the US backed Portugal and Australia was routed. It soon became known that one of the reasons for the humiliating defeat was that many Asian and Pacific ambassadors had been alienated by Butler's arrogance in dealing with them. By the time Downer moved to sack him, however, Butler hitched himself to the skirts of Madeleine Albright, then Washington's UN representative.

Albright wanted someone to push the CTBT through the UN General Assembly after the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva had deadlocked due to the intransigence of the five nuclear weapon states. According to a former Indian diplomat familiar with the CTBT talks, Butler's job was to ram through a resolution which would endorse the draft. ``He did the piloting on the basis of a plan drawn up by the US'', the diplomat said, describing his approach as ``very abrasive and not at all polite''. It was also a violation of all procedural norms.

In 1997, Butler was rewarded by the US with the UNSCOM job. Albright got Downer to agree to Butler's appointment. According to Australian diplomatic sources, Downer agreed ``in the fond belief that he would not only be rid of an insufferable and arrogant upstart but also not have to pay him anything. So you can imagine the surprise here when we were told that the government had to pay Butler some $250,000 a year!'' Apparently, neither Butler nor Albright had informed Canberra of this condition. ``Butler, thus, effectively conned his own government!'', said a source.

In Australia, there is an acute sense of embarrassment at Butler's erratic conduct and his cultural insensitivity in dealing with Iraq. As a self-perpetuating bureaucrat, he is unlikely to end the inspection process since he would then be without a job. Unless he is removed as UNSCOM chief or the US changes its policy, a fresh crisis is bound to arise. There may even be bloodshed. And the whole world will then say... the Butler did it.

High time U.N. ended U.S. rampage in Iraq

November 14, 1998
The Times of India

HIGH TIME UN ENDED US RAMPAGE IN IRAQ

By Siddharth Varadarajan

With war clouds gathering over Iraq for the second time in a year,
it is looking increasingly as if the US will ultimately launch
airstrikes against that beleaguered country. CNN has begun wheeling
out the usual experts from central casting to declare that there is
``no other option'' and the statements of Clinton administration
officials have acquired a hysterical tenor which suggests
Washington has gone beyond the point of no return. The US threats
have nothing to do with international law, morality, or even the
stated objective of smashing Iraq's ability to develop weapons of
mass destruction. From now on, the credibility of what Ms Madeleine
Albright calls the world's only indispensable nation is on the
line. In this Manichaean scheme of things, Iraq, of course, is
highly dispensable.

Human Disaster

Despite eight years of intrusive weapons inspections in which UN
inspectors have gone to any site they wanted to, Pentagon
spinfuehrers are putting out maps in which previously unheard of
``weapons facilities'' figure prominently as targets for possible
airstrikes. No `expert' ever asks a basic question: If such
facilities really exist, why did the UN Special Commission on Iraq
(UNSCOM) never come across them? UNSCOM chief Richard Butler is not
exactly the shy and retiring type. He would surely have loved the
chance to poke around.

Those who blame Iraq for the present crisis must say what Iraq is
supposed to do in order to bring an end to the nightmare of
sanctions. UNSCOM's inspections have long since degenerated into a
charade. Files once closed are again reopened on flimsy pretexts
and every attempt is made to prolong the process. The aim is not to
locate and destroy whatever allegedly remains of Iraq's capability
to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, but to ensure that
sanctions continue until the regime is overthrown.

To that end, the US Congress has sanctioned $100 million for the
so-called ``democratic'' Iraqi opposition. From time to time, US
legislators also make boorish calls for the murder of the Iraqi
president. The most recent gentleman to advocate such an
astonishing course of action -- technically illegal under US law --
is Senator Richard Lugar, who told reporters on Friday that ``if
need be, he should be killed''.

Any analysis of the present crisis must base itself on the fact
that after eight years of sanctions, the humanitarian situation in
Iraq is catastrophic. The `Oil for Food' programme has not been
able to halt the decline in living conditions. Thanks to the US and
British representatives on the UN 661 sanctions committee,
essential imports are blocked or delayed. When I was in Iraq last
February, UN humanitarian workers bitterly criticised the delay in
lifting sanctions. One even described the UN embargo as a ``weapon
of mass destruction'' because it has led to the death of several
hundred thousand Iraqis. Last month, Mr Denis Halliday, the UN
Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, quit his job in frustration and
called for an end to sanctions.

The Iraqi leadership wants a roadmap which stipulates a time frame
within which sanctions will end. When UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan visited Baghdad in February to resolve a dispute over access
to presidential sites, the Iraqis were led to believe that the
Security Council would soon make a concrete proposal in this
regard. But this never happened. Instead, just before the last
quarterly review, UNSCOM claimed that Iraqi missile shards under
analysis at a US army lab had tested positive for traces of VX
nerve gas. Although laboratories in France and Switzerland said no
VX traces could be found, UNSCOM continues to claim that Iraq is
hiding something.

UNSCOM Deadline

There is a way peacefully to resolve the present stand-off and that
is for the UN to establish a deadline for UNSCOM to complete its
work. The Iraqis will certainly agree to provide unfettered access
to neutral, impartial teams during this period if they know that
sanctions will be lifted at the end provided nothing incriminating
is found. The Secretary General's envoy in Baghdad, Mr Prakash
Shah, would no doubt have conveyed to Mr Annan the gravity of the
situation in Iraq and the desperation of its leadership and people.
US bombardment -- without the sanction of the UN Security Council,
or even the cover of morality or good sense -- will only cause
further suffering and hardship. It must be averted at all cost. Mr
Annan has a duty to intervene. He should travel to Baghdad once
again and strive for a peaceful solution. As for France, Russia and
China, the moment has come for them to prove how serious they are
when they say they are in favour of a multipolar world.