WILLIAM SHAWCROSS WRITES on “Why Saddam Will Never Disarm:”

But the reality to remember is that Saddam will never voluntarily give up his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as resolution 1441 and 16 other resolutions demand. They are integral to his sense of his regime. His record shows that he considers no cost too high to retain his biological, chemical and whatever exists of his nuclear capability.

In 1991, the surrender agreement ending the war in Kuwait specifically guaranteed that Iraq would surrender its weapons of mass destruction within 15 days. Till then sanctions, imposed after his invasion of Kuwait, would remain. His refusal to do so has meant that the UN oil embargo has stayed for 12 years, costing Iraq more than $180 billion and its ordinary people great suffering. It is wrong to blame the West, or the UN, for the starvation and deaths of Iraqi children – Saddam is to blame and he considers it a small part of the price to pay for his proscribed weapons.

Saddam’s obsession with his WMD has deep roots at home as well as abroad. First, he sees the threat of such weapons as a means of internal control over the 60 per cent of Iraqis who are Shia. The use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1998 taught the Shia the dangers of revolt. In 1999 a Shia revolt in the town of Najaf was crushed by Saddam’s security forces accompanied by troops in white uniforms wearing gas masks. People were terrified that Saddam was about to gas them – with the weapons that Saddam denies having and for which the UN is still vainly searching. The Shia have been mostly cowed since.

WMD also helps to keep the regular armed forces in line.

Read it all. But here’s one more excerpt:

The inspectors may find some banned materials, by luck, perseverance and good intelligence – and because Saddam has made cunning tactical concessions. They will never find the bulk of the illegal weapons. But that is not their job. That is to monitor his voluntary disarmament. He is not doing that and he never will. He is in clear breach of resolution 1441 and he always will be. The decision the world faces is: will we let him get away with it again? George Bush and Tony Blair say No. They are right.

Keep this in mind: Saddam will do whatever he can get away with.

And France, Germany, and the “peace movement” want him to get away with everything, because — for reasons of their own that vary — they’d rather see that than a war.

Keep that in mind when you hear Chirac say that “inspections are working.” They are working — for Saddam, and for Chirac.