In his speech Wednesday to the United Nations Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell offered satellite photographs, intercepted cell phone calls and eyewitness accounts as evidence that Hussein's regime has and continues to evade U.N. inspectors.
\Iraq's behavior demonstrates that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort--no effort--to disarm as required by the international community,"" Powell said.
In response to Powell's speech Daniel Chirot, professor of international studies at the University of Washington, said although Powell presented more convincing evidence than expected, he does not think many people's minds will be changed by the speech. He said the sending of a high ranking envoy like Powell sends a signal to the Security Council that the United States is resolved to go ahead with military action.
For the United States to receive U.N. approval to go to war, eight out of the 15 members of the Security Council would have to vote in favor and five of those countries would have to be permanent members France, China, the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom.
""The United States and the British are going to try and get a vote and try to get a resolution and the country they are going to put the most pressure on is France,"" Chirot said.
Nathalie Loiseau, director of the French Embassy in Washington, said there were some interesting assertions and some questions raised in the speech that would be for the inspection team to investigate.
""It's [the French government] still calling for more inspections. We have the feeling that inspectors need to have more means and we propose to give the necessary means to them,"" Loiseau said.
Dominique de Villepin, the French minister of foreign affairs, said in remarks to the Security Council that the inspection team could be strengthened by increasing the number of inspectors, increasing the capabilities for monitoring by using aircraft and the continued monitoring of sights that have already been inspected.
Chirot said if the French do not veto going to war then it is highly unlikely that either Russia or China will abstain. Jon Pevehouse, assistant professor of political science at UW-Madison, said a cynical view of France's position would be that they have a lot of economic interests in Iraq and a war and a regime change there would not bode well for their economic interests.
""While they're making this out to be kind of a humanitarian issue this is really about French self-interest,"" Pevehouse said.
He said he thinks the United States and Britain will push for a vote around the last week of February and that the United States would push to go to war around the first or second week of March.
However, Chirot said that if the United States and its allies go to war without U.N. approval they will in effect make the U.N. Security Council irrelevant, at least for a while if not permanently.
""It's sort of the way the League of Nations became irrelevant because it wouldn't do anything in the late 1930s. So people just stopped paying attention, Chirot said.
--Intercepted cell phone conversations between Iraqi military officials discussing evacuation of banned materials
--Satellite photographs showing movement of banned materials
--Founding of an Al Qaeda training camp in Iraq
--Iraqi scientists forbidden from granting interviews or forced to have an Iraqi official present
--Unaccounted-for biological weapons discovered after the Persian Gulf War
--Eyewitness accounts of mobile biological weapons laboratories on wheel and rail
