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Analysis: Powell's success
By Bill Schneider
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell achieved a crucial breakthrough Wednesday at the United Nations. He shifted the burden of proof. Before Powell addressed the U.N. Security Council, the burden of proof was on the Bush administration. Could it produce a so-called "smoking gun?" But before he even spoke, Powell told the world, "There will be no `smoking gun.'" What the secretary of state produced instead was an impressive array of evidence to back up his central argument. "Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort, no effort, to disarm," Powell told the Security Council The demand for a smoking gun suddenly vanished. The onus had shifted. "It amounts, if I may say, certainly to a transfer of the burden of proof from the United States to Saddam Hussein, " Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said. As a result of Powell's testimony, Iraq is now presumed guilty. Of what? Of failing to comply with U.N. disarmament resolutions. Now the burden is on Iraq to prove that it will, after all, disarm. The Russians say so. "Iraq should be the first to be concerned about providing final clarity about the question of weapons of mass destruction," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said. The Germans say so. "Iraq must give clear answers to all open questions," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said. The U.N. inspectors say so. "They need to show drastic change in terms of cooperation," International Atomic Energy Association chief Mohamed el Baradei said. Even Democrats say so. "War or peace is now Saddam's choice," Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, said. And time is running out. "It's a last chance for the people of Iraq to change the regime themselves and avoid the consequences of war," Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Connecticut, said. The world is now waiting for Iraq -- not the United States -- to decide. U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Thursday, "I think we will all wait for an Iraqi determination to be forthcoming on the matters of substance." The United States no longer has to prove something. Iraq does. That's the new reality. Powell created it with his testimony. -- Bill Schneider is CNN's senior political analyst.
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