A rchive Date
[ 28-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/01/28/17146-ap.html
Iraqi adviser criticizes U.N. report
Tue, January 28, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A senior Iraqi official insisted Tuesday that Iraq holds no banned weapons and said that U.N. inspectors' reports critical of Baghdad's cooperation did not represent the facts fairly or proportionally.
The U.N. inspection agency reported, meanwhile, that two more Iraqi scientists had refused to submit to U.N. interviews without witnesses, making it 16 that have rejected private questioning.
In the first official comment in Baghdad on Monday's crucial report to the U.N. Security Council, presidential adviser Lt. Gen. Amer Rashid rejected suggestions that Iraq is not cooperating with the arms inspections. "We are cooperating with all our capacity and if there is a demand for additional cooperation in some issue, here or there, we will do it," he said.
He also repeated Iraq's position that it possesses no weapons of mass destruction, forbidden to the Baghdad government since the 1991 Gulf War. He complained that the assessment given to the Security Council by chief monitors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei failed to note that their inspections do not support U.S.-British allegations of forbidden weapons work at specific sites.
"There was not proportionate presentation of the facts," Rashid told reporters. "We see, for example, some facts amplified and magnified on what are called problems." This, he said, creates a "somewhat negative" impact.
Rashid, a former military-industrial chief for Iraq, said that American and British intelligence reports last year spotlighted Iraqi sites that they contended might be conducting work on forbidden chemical, biological or nuclear arms. Inspections over the past two months have repeatedly covered these sites and no major violations of U.N. edicts have been reported.
Rashid said Iraq had expected that the reports by Blix and ElBaradei would have noted that "the White House report or the British report (have) been proven totally false." He said Baghdad "expected the report to be better."
Among the shortcomings cited by Blix was Iraq's refusal so far to agree to flights by American U-2 spy planes over its territory in support of the inspection mission. Rashid said Iraq has not ruled out the use of the U.S. spy planes but had asked for security guarantees, including suspension of U.S. and British air patrols over the northern and southern "no fly" zones during such flights by American U-2 planes.
On the subject of interviews, Rashid said Baghdad officials had encouraged - under an agreement reached Jan. 20 with Blix and ElBaradei - Iraqi scientists to submit to un-monitored questioning. But "all of them, they demanded a representative from (the government) or a friend or colleague as witnesses," he said.
"This is a very sensitive issue," he said. "Who can protect the rights of such scientists? This idea of having a witness present was an idea to protect the rights of those people." He said Iraq was willing to discuss the problem to find a solution. Iraq says it is doing all it can to persuade the scientists to be interviewed in private, but that they are resisting because they fear the information will be distorted.
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has accused the Iraqi government of threatening scientists with death if they speak to inspectors without an Iraqi official present.
U.N. inspectors in Iraq, meanwhile, continued their hunt for evidence of biological, nuclear and chemical arms, visiting at least seven sites, including a munitions depot where they discovered empty chemical warheads earlier this month. On Tuesday, the U.N. inspectors visited a military depot south of Baghdad where they discovered 12 empty chemical warheads Jan. 16. They returned to the depot last week to tag weapons there, but it was not immediately known why they went there again Tuesday.
Elsewhere, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., that Iraq had no plans to attack targets inside the United States in the event of war. Nonetheless, Aziz warned that Iraqis would vigorously defend themselves if the Americans launch a war. "I would say that if the Americans try to invade Iraq, they will be fought courageously and effectively and they will have a great number of casualties," Aziz said.
Asked whether Saddam's government would strike against other countries, presumably Israel, Aziz replied: "No. We will fight within our territory." Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles, all with conventional warheads, at Israeli cities in the 1991 Gulf War.
But Aziz hinted that those restrictions would not apply to Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990. The United States is assembling a large force in the neighboring emirate for a possible war.
"American troops are in Kuwait and preparing themselves to attack Iraq," Aziz said. "If there will be an attack from Kuwait, I cannot say that we will not retaliate."
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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