A rchive Date
[ 27-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.N ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/01/27/16283-ap.html
Inspectors to deliver weapon's report
By DAFNA LINZER
Mon, January 27, 2003
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - UN weapons inspectors have prepared toughly-worded assessments that criticize much of Iraq's performance over the past two months but they won't be able to confirm claims by the United States that President Saddam Hussein is rearming, UN officials said.
The reports by Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, to be delivered as speeches to the Security Council on Monday, will be key to Washington's efforts to bolster international support for a war on Iraq and to efforts by skeptics to avert one.
Blix, a 74-year-old Swede with decades of experience in the field of disarmament, will address the open council meeting first. He spent much of the weekend personally writing his 16-page report which will deal with Iraq's alleged failure to address key questions on the fate of chemical and biological agents such as VX and anthrax that it succeeded in weaponizing on the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
"I have been working very hard and very carefully on the details," Blix told The Associated Press.
His staff said the speech would be stronger than originally anticipated because the Iraqis have failed to be forthcoming about information long sought by inspectors.
Despite assurances from Iraq that it would encourage its scientists to submit to private interviews, no such interviews have taken place and Baghdad continues to block inspectors from using a U-2 reconnaissance plane that could be helpful in the hunt for banned weapons.
In addition, UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission teams have recovered thousands of pertinent documents from the home of an Iraqi scientist, found 16 empty chemical warheads and illegally imported parts for its missile program.
ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has prepared a 20-page report in which he intends to make the case for continued inspections.
"We're just in mid-course and we still need to exhaust the option of inspections before we think of any alternatives," ElBaradei said Sunday. "We still need more time and that depends obviously on how intensive our work is and how co-operative Iraq is."
The Bush administration, convinced that Iraq has already failed to meet its obligations, is playing close attention to the speeches.
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte is expected to respond to the reports once Monday's session moves behind closed-doors. An administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ambassador would focus more on Iraq's obligations than on the inspectors' findings.
"He will remind the council that they all agreed in November that this would be Iraq's last opportunity to comply and that two months is more than enough time to test Saddam's intentions to co-operate," the official said.
Under Resolution 1441 inspectors don't need to prove Iraq is rearming.
Any false statements or omissions in Iraq's arms declaration, coupled with a failure to comply with and co-operate fully in the implementation of the resolution, would place Baghdad in "material breach" of its obligations - a finding that could open the door for war.
In Davos, Switzerland, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that he believed the inspections had run their course, though he did not explicitly call for their end. He said that as a result of Iraq's alleged lack of co-operation, he had lost faith in the ability of inspectors to fulfil their mission.
Most of the Security Council believes that's a determination they must make based on the inspectors' assessments. The 15 members of the Security Council will reconvene Wednesday, a day after President George W. Bush delivers the state of the union address, to discuss the inspectors' reports and begin debate on Iraq.
There is general agreement that Iraq hasn't been fully honest in its declaration and that it could be co-operating better with inspectors. But the absence of a smoking gun or cries for help from Blix and ElBaradei have led powerful council members such as France, Germany and Russia to argue against military intervention and in favour of more time for peaceful disarmament.
Late Sunday, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said UN inspectors needed more time to finish their job in Iraq and cautioned the United States against attacking Saddam without Security Council backing.
De Villepin, in an interview with France-3 television, said weapons inspectors should continue their search for banned weapons "probably for several weeks, or months."
"It is up to Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei to tell the international community: 'Here is the information we have, here is what we lack, we need this much time to obtain these things,"' he said.
While Blix and ElBaradei have criticized Iraq over the past 60 days, they have also praised the access inspectors were given at hundreds of sites, including presidential palaces, as well as Iraq's co-operation in the areas of logistics and supplies.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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