Here's a shocker: despite all the optimistic words from the Eurocrat crowd over the last few days, Iraq is not going to allow U.N. weapons inspections to proceed.
The Iraqi information minister said today the mission of U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq is "finished," the strongest official suggestion to date that President Saddam Hussein has no intention of allowing the inspectors to return.What would be stronger? Iraq actually dropping an atomic bomb on U.N. headquarters? Sheesh. (Not that I'd object to that. Heck, if he did that, maybe we'd call the score even.)
Even so, some refuse to believe Iraq, insisting that there's some chance that he might let inspectors back -- if the moon is in the right phase, and if they guess his favorite color, and if they say "pretty please." Which means that Saddam can keep stringing people along for months, if not years, as they think, "This time it will be different." Editorial boards across the New York Times will be filled with comments about how we need to "exhaust all diplomatic possibilities."
I don't know how long they want to wait, or when they'll finally admit that diplomatic possibilities have utterly failed. After Hussein uses weapons of mass destruction again?