A solution to the U.S.-Iraq conflict

Everybody inside and outside of the United Nations is talking about the U.S. demand on Iraq to destroy or surrender all of its weapons of mass destruction or else Washington will declare a war with or without a UN resolution.

The world's delegations in both the General Assembly and the Security Council as well as the secretary-general have all been preoccupied with the U.S. draft resolution demanding Iraq to give up its weapons of mass destruction or face an attack from the U.S. But what President Bush really wants is probably the replacement of Saddam Hussein and his regime with a democratic one.

A democratic Iraq would have to destroy the dreaded weapons voluntarily without outside interference. If this is the case then there is no need for war. Does President Bush want a peaceful solution to end this conflict? Just get rid of Saddam Hussein with a free and open general election the way they solved the civil war in Nicaragua and Cambodia.

The size of Iraq is much larger than these countries put together and so is the financial burden to pay for the election, but it would be both cheaper and more humane than war. Why don't we give peace a chance and discuss a democratic election instead of war?

With a democratic election in Iraq, everybody wins: the U.S. wins, the people of Iraq win, the Gulf region in particular wins, the world in general wins and peace wins.

Either one of the delegations or the UN secretary-general should draft a peaceful resolution at the Security Council and let's see what happens.

HIDAYAT SUPANGKAT, New York