As the Jan. 27 deadline approaches for a report from weapons inspectors in Iraq, people of conscience must recognize that inspections are worse than a sham, and more than a pretext for war. The inspections are a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. In building a strong anti-war movement, activists must stand up for Iraqi self-determination, and say no to these inspections.

Even former weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, agrees that Iraq is no military threat. He says, “The reality that, from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has in fact been disarmed has been ignored. The chemical, biological, nuclear, and long-range ballistic missile programs that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been destroyed or rendered harmless.”

Since UN inspectors returned to Iraq, they have investigated over 200 sites; they are authorized to turn the country inside out looking for weapons that may not even be there. Most of the inspectors are military experts from the U.S., Britain and other western allies. The intelligence they gather on their missions can be used during a later military attack on Iraq.

The inspections are based on the lie that Iraq doesn’t have the right to weapons. In truth, every oppressed nation is entitled to arm itself in its own defense. The inspections themselves are a crime – no nation should be subject to search by enemy spies. We must defend Iraqi sovereignty by calling for the inspectors to get out of Iraq. The U.S., with its bloody history, has no right demand that Iraq disarm.

One Iraqi newspaper recently supported Korea, for insisting on the right to possess a technology used by the Americans against the Japanese in World War II, and which is still being used to blackmail the world. If the UN inspectors were really looking for threats to peace and global security, they’d inspect the Pentagon and not Iraq.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the inspectors say in their January report. The Bush administration has already declared Iraq in ‘material breach’ of UN resolution 1441. That’s another way of saying Iraq is guilty with no chance of being proven innocent. The U.S. says that anything short of a perfect record is grounds for war. And with UN looking the other way, Bush is preparing for just that.

Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, said, “Despite the presence of the inspectors, U.S. aircraft carriers are heading to the region and U.S. and British soldiers are arriving and making preparations.” In fact, when inspectors report to the UN on January 27, the U.S. military will be ready for war. There will be over 100,000 well-armed U.S. troops near Iraq in early January.

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