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December 10, 2002, 8:45 a.m. Iraqi Verification Déjà vu.

n some respects, listening to the debate over Iraqi compliance with U.N. Resolution 1441 reminds me of the arms-control debates of the 1970s. Back then, exploring the minutiae of verification was what passed for a comprehensive national-security discussion. Of course, the stakes were a lot higher, the foe more dangerous, and U.S. options severely limited. And unfortunately, as that decade showed, the U.S. was not at its best in that arena. It took years of concerted effort by the finest minds in our arms-control community to produce Soviet nuclear dominance. And it took Ronald Reagan to remind us that the process of arms control was not as important as the product; that in the end, these were national-security questions, not scholastic confabulations about how many isotopes may dance on the head of an SS-20.

Now arms-control fans have been presented with almost 12,000 pages of Iraqi documents to chew over. The Iraqis claim that they are free of WMDs now, but have admitted what they had previously denied, that Saddam's regime had pursued an A-bomb up until 1991. Saddam Hussein has been particularly obsequious this go-round. The only sign of resistance was the vote by the Iraqi Congress against the U.N. resolution, which he overruled. He has also released prisoners, returned stolen Kuwaiti documents, offered to allow oppositionists to return without being killed, and apologized for any "inadvertent" harm caused by his 1990 invasion of Kuwait. To him, Resolution 1441 sets the conditions whereby he can stay in power. The working assumption is that if he meets its conditions, he will no longer be in material breach of Resolution 687, and there will be no case against him. So he cooperates, even if he does not comply, and the more cooperative he appears, the harder it the U.S. case becomes for regime change.

Unfortunately, regime change is not a term you hear much of these days. It has been the stated policy of the U.S. government since at least 1998, and has been included in Bush administration statements since before the 2000 election. If anyone wanted to know exactly what regime change meant, if it wasn't obvious on its face, one could consult the Iraqi Liberation Act, supported by both Presidents Clinton and Bush, which read: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." Thus it was alarming several weeks ago when the argument was floated that if Saddam fully disarmed, the "essential nature" of the regime would have changed, and the objective of "regime change" would be achieved. One could only hope that this bait-and-switch was simply positional, a means of toning down the revisionist message in order to let the inspection process commence unencumbered. But let's be clear on this — the nature of Saddam's regime is not contingent on whether or not he has weapons of mass destruction — or more properly, whether we have detected his WMDs. Rather, the nature of the regime is defined at a much-higher level, in its essential character, its constitution, the personality of its leader. The nature of the regime is what impels Saddam to seek WMDs, to use them on his neighbors and his own population — which is to say that WMDs are the effect, the regime is the cause, and treating the symptom is not the same as curing the disease.

For now, the verification issue dominates the debate, with all the attendant problems that have always dogged this aspect of arms control. For example, consider the burden of proof. According to 1441, Iraq was and is current in material violation of 687, and it is up to them to prove otherwise. So the Iraqis have to prove a negative, that is, that they do not have the weapons the U.N. and others say they have. The recent magnum opus is their response. This shifts the burden of proof on the Allies, to show that the Iraqis have either perpetrated sins of commission or omission. It has the makings of a classic perjury trap. We claim they have weapons. They deny it on the record. We produce proof that they do. Iraqi Lieutenant General Amir al-Saadi excelled in the role of the straight man, saying the 12,000-page report was entirely accurate, and if the U.S. has proof to the contrary, it should show it. Revealing the smoking gun could be a moment of high drama, perhaps akin to Adlai Stevenson producing pictures of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 after they denied having them, or the equally embarrassing moment after President Eisenhower denied that the U.S. was flying spy planes over the Soviet Union and Nikita Khrushchev brought out his special surprise guest Francis Gary Powers.

But this raises another difficult question. Suppose falsehoods are found in the Iraqi report, and that they can be demonstrated conclusively. Just how false do they have to be to rise to the level of a casus belli? What omissions are so significant they justify war ("serious consequences") under the arms-control framework? And will our Allies agree? The U.S. has taken a stand that any material breach will bring consequences, but not all breaches are created equal. If a nuclear weapon were found under some clothes in the closet of one of Saddam's palaces, then fine. But suppose the violation was relatively minor? For example, Monday at the Al-Qaqa establishment, UNMOVIC confiscated some aluminum tubes suspected of being used in nuclear research, but according to the Iraqis actually used in the assembly of 81mm rockets. If these turn out to be nuclear-related from the program halted ten years ago, it will constitute a violation. Will the world rally around the war of the aluminum tubes?

Another emerging issue is the question of which countries helped the Iraqis develop their weapons and when. A hot debate broke out in the Security Council over which countries might see the unedited report, since the information was at a level of detail that it could constitute proliferation itself. General al-Saadi pointed this irony out in his press conference: "The Security Council is participating in proliferation of material sensitive in that area, in the area of prohibited weapons." Another reason to control access is the potential embarrassment to countries and companies that assisted Iraq in its pursuit of WMDs over the years. As al-Saadi put it, "Iraq is obliged to give full, credible, and accurate information about everything related to the previous program. This includes the suppliers, the companies, and the countries, in addition to what was manufactured. Would it embarrass these companies and countries? Yes it would. But the entire world is now supportive of Resolution 1441." Never let it be said that Saddam Hussein doesn't have a sense of humor.

All of this is very interesting, but it has overshadowed the legitimate national-security concerns of opposition to Iraqi aggression, exposure of Saddam's support for terrorism, punishment for his human-rights abuses, freeing the Iraqi people from his dictatorial rule, and returning Iraq to the community of nations. I do not for a minute believe that this debate impedes Allied war planning, nor do I believe it will materially affect the timing of the conflict, if it comes. The Iraqi report is the product of a process begun by the president last September in order to help build an international coalition for action against a regime that poses a significant threat to the Mideast region, and to the world. To the extent it achieves that, it is a success. And if it leads to disarmament under U.N. auspices, it will have the beneficial effect of setting a precedent that other states — such as North Korea — might profit by. But disarmament without regime change (by whatever means) will only be a palliative. And the greatest arms reduction in the history of man came about as a consequence of the decline of the Soviet Empire and the collapse of communism. That's the kind of arms control we can count on.

— James S. Robbins is a national-security analyst & NRO contributor.