Originally posted here by Negative

Now, to the point: yes we signed the UN resolutions, and YES, we will keep our word (namely the disarmament of Iraq). But what France, Germany and Belgium stood up against is, as mentioned before, NATO, not UN. Now lemme explain how we DO keep our NATO-word. NATO-rules are clear: unilateral military intervention is forbidden (a single NATO-member CAN NOT decide to wage war on any other country. Guess who's about to break that rule... right). Furthermore: in the case of an unilateral military intervention where the attacking country is the 'victim' of a counter-strike by the 'defending' country, all intervention by any other NATO-member is forbidden.
In this case: if Iraq gets attacked because the US use Turkish bases, then IRAQ is the state that can call in legitimate self-defense (according to international law). By not agreeing with help to Turkey (THAT'S what this 'crisis' is about, KD), France, Germany and Belgium are acting according international law, and according NATO-law. Period.
I think Korpdeath can be forgiven for the confusion between the UN resolution 1441 and the NATO position given that the problems at NATO are directly symtomatic of the Franco-Prussian position within the UNSECCO. Turkey's invocation of article 4 of the treaty really makes the NATO dispute a moot point however. Because of this invocation we are obliged to provide Turkey with the defensive - let me repeat that - defensive measures that they ask for.

As an aside to this argument and in terms of what is really a UN matter one has to question the relevance of an organisation (NATO) whose primary mandate expired with the fall of the communist block. My 2 cents on this aside would be that the secondary functions of the NATO mandate should be incorporated into the UN (though this has little relevance in the current discussion).

I think that the promise to which KorpDeath refers however is the promise of "serious consequences" made in resolution 1441. The unanimity of the international community in delivering this resolution of "last chance" to the Iraqi regime is severely diluted by the reticence of certain members in accepting the duty of delivering those serious consquences as promised. Many international observers, myself incuded, fear that such devisive actions by the Franco-Prussian alliance will offer the Iraqi regime the opportunity to slip through the loophole of our divisions.

Authorization for the disarmament of Iraq, yes.
Authorization for a war? Don't think so. Far from it.
And what did the L'Union Fait La Force think the "Serious consquences" described in 1441 meant? Authorisation to use harsh language? Or did the French believe "serious consequences" meant that they would have to finally stop selling Iraq prescribed material through it's African connections?

Turkey for example also still has the same weapons they used on their own people (hey look, a coincidence, 'their own people' are in both cases the Kurdish). I don't see anyone telling the Turkish to stop using WMD on their own people.
It's harder to proof you don't have something than proving you do have something, btw.
The plight of the Kurdish is a terrible thing and is often used to demonstrate how evil the encumbant Iraqi regime is. But at the end of the day this argument is a confusion between cause and effect (like the blood for oil argument). The effect of military action may be positive for the Iraqi people and the the kurds. The cause however is not some philanthropic gesture on the part of the US and UK, but a genuine concern by the executives of those nations for their own national security in an post 9/11 environment where the wests primary weapon, that of detterence, has been rendered impotent. Detterance is not an effective weapon against world terrorism because their attacks can be delivered without a return address. That is the essence of how the world changed on 9/11. The position can be summed up thus: Rouge states with connections to world terrorism cannot be allowed to have WMD programmes.

May I also remind you that France and German came up with an alternative plan? (You probably won't believe it since you seem to believe that we are even against the disarmament of Iraq, but still..).
Their plan is to tripple weapons-inspections, bring UN-soldiers to Iraq to supervise the disarmament of Iraq (which would turn Iraq into UN-controlled territory), prohibit air-flight above Iraq, and have Mirage IV planes patrol the area. An Iraqi violation would be sanctioned, and there would be a strict control of Iraqi import, also preventing it from smuggling oil.
That plan has now been rubbished as un-workable by everyone involved, incuding Hans Bix, and has since been withdrawn by an embarrased Franco-Prussian alliance. A regime bent on hiding such weapons can do so indefinately and under such circumstances, as Hans Blix points out, the number of inspectors is irrelevant. It was because of this fact that the trigger for the "serious consequences" described in 1441 was not the sucsess or failure of the inspectors to find prescribed material, but the success or failiure of Iraq to prove to the inspectors that they have finally "come clean".

In terms of deploying blue hat forces in Iraq, effectively moving right on to the occupation phase without first having a war (nice idea, but incredibly naive) would require the grounding of the entire Iraqi airforce and the return to barracks of all Iraqi soldiers. The Iraqi regime is even less likley likley to accept this option than the American suggestion of exile for Saddam Hussein, because these forces are required to impose the will of the rulling Bath party on the populus.

The position of the Republican Guard is in fact similar to that of the collaborator units of the Waffen SS that undertook the defence of Berlin in 1945. The fall of the regime woud be the pre-cursor for reprisals by the population for the 30 years of the excesses of dicatorship against these forces. In these circumstances these troops could well decide that western troops are 'crusaders', regardless of the colour of their helmets, and begin trading ordinance. Pretending that one could occupy Iraq without first dealing with the Republican Guard would be to sow the seeds of another Vietnam in the Persian Gulf.

History teaches that sometimes, despite appeasment and recurring last chances, conflict is inevitable. This may be such a situation. That decision has always been in the hands of the Iraqi regime. But the blood of every Iraqi tortured and executed by the regime between now and the end of Franco-Prussion procrastination is on the hands of those without the stomach to enforce the will of the international community with the ultimate saction, that of force.