A rchive Date
[ 09-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.N ]
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[http://www.msnbc.com/news/842500.asp?vts=010920031050
Blix says ‘no smoking guns’ found in Iraq
Top inspectors brief Security Council
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
BLIX MADE the comments to reporters as he and the head of the United Nations atomic watchdog agency arrived at the United Nations to brief to Security Council. “We have now been there for some two months and been covering the country in ever wider sweeps and we haven’t found any smoking guns,” Blix said.
However, Blix also said Iraq’s 12,000 - page weapons declaration - submitted to the Security Council last month - was incomplete. “We think that the declaration failed to answer a great many questions,” he said.
The Swedish diplomat told Reuters that his team would begin interviewing scientists and other Iraqi experts within a week. But he did not say whether the Iraqis would be taken out of the country for that purpose, as the United States has insisted.
Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, gave their updated assessment of the inspections - which resumed Nov. 27 after a four - year halt - to a closed meeting of the Security Council.
The purpose was to give council members an assessment of the arms declaration and update them about “our increasing capability in country, including the use of helicopters, the opening of a temporary regional monitoring center in Mosul and other steps to make us more effective,” Blix’s spokesman, Ewen Buchanan, said.
Blix is to give the council a formal report on the inspections on Jan. 27. After his last briefing to the council on Dec. 19, Blix urged the United States and Britain to hand over any evidence they have about Iraq’s secret weapons programs so U.N. inspectors can check it.
MORE INFORMATION
The apparent failure of inspectors to find any evidence of the banned weapons program has triggered more calls for intelligence from Western governments.
On Wednesday, France asked governments to give U.N. inspectors any evidence they have on suspected Iraqi weapons programs, a request that appeared directed at the United States and Britain ahead of the key Security Council meeting.
The United States has promised to share information with inspectors, as long as U.S. intelligence sources aren’t compromised. “We have and will continue to provide information to the inspectors,” a U.S. official said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The United States has hesitated for weeks to supply intelligence, fearing the data would leak. But U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told The Washington Post in an interview, published on Thursday, that the United States has begun giving inspectors “significant intelligence” that has enabled them to become “more aggressive and to be more comprehensive in the work they’re doing.”
But Washington is holding back some information to see if inspectors “are able to handle it and exploit it. ... It is not a matter of opening up every door we have,” Powell said.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said his government wants the council to adopt a resolution that requests all countries to provide information on Iraq’s “prohibited programs” and recommend sites to be visited and Iraqis to be interviewed.
IRAQ’S RESPONSE
Anticipating Thursday’s briefing at the U.N., Amir al - Saadi, and adviser to President Saddam Hussein, told a visiting South African delegation in Baghdad that he could cite specific information in the report, submitted to the United Nations last month, to refute claims that Iraq has not eliminated banned weapons.
“People who claim there were gaps, I could tell you right away they have not read it,” al - Saadi said. “There were no gaps, and I could give you where to find the answers in the specific pages or tables and information.” Referring to the declaration, al - Saadi said those who found gaps in the information may not be “fully acquainted with our voluminous report or they lost their way.”
He referred to questions raised by U.S. and British officials as “off - the - cuff remarks by tendentious people.” But he did not specifically mention similar complaints about the report by Blix or ElBaradei.
In an editorial Thursday, the newspaper Al - Thawra, published by the ruling Baath Party, complained that the Americans and British were threatening war to disarm Iraq before U.N. arms experts have made their first substantial inspections report.
“The inspectors are still in Iraq, their work is not over yet ... so we challenge the rulers of Washington and London to present any proof verifying their allegations,” the editorial said.
Referring to Washington and London as an “axis of mediocrity,” the newspaper said the two governments would have already made public their evidence against Iraq if they had any.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
- In Baghdad, inspectors visited six sites Thursday, according to Information Ministry officials. The visits included return inspections to two military installations - the al - Harith missile maintenance workshop north of Baghdad and the al - Rafah facility west of the capital that specializes in checking missile engines.
- In London, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Thursday that Britain is pressing the United States for any war to be delayed for several months to give weapons inspectors more time to gather evidence against Saddam. The newspaper said senior British officials believe there is no clear legal case for military action against Baghdad.
- With tensions rising, Philippine Foreign Minister Blas Ople said Arab governments were trying to persuade Saddam to step down and go into exile. Ople, speaking to reporters in Manila, said he learned of those efforts from Arab ambassadors, but he refused to identify them. The German newspaper Tageszeitung, in a report for publication Thursday, said Russian officials had been in Baghdad since November evaluating the chances that Saddam would step down.
- The United States has asked fellow NATO member the Czech Republic for assistance, especially from its anti - chemical warfare troops, in a possible war against Iraq, a Czech military official said on Thursday.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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