Hans Blix said on Friday that Iraq's cooperation fell short of U.N. Security Council demands
UN's Blix Gives Mixed Picture of Iraqi Cooperation
Fri Mar 7, 8:18 PM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said on Friday that Iraq (news - web sites)'s cooperation fell short of U.N. Security Council demands but applauded Baghdad's recent scrapping of al-Samoud missiles.
Reuters Photo
AP Photo
Slideshow: Iraq and Saddam Hussein
"The destruction undertaken constitutes a substantial measure of disarmament -- indeed, the first since the middle of the 1990s," Blix said. "We are not watching the breaking of toothpicks. Lethal weapons are being destroyed."
His colleague, Mohamed ElBaradei, who fields nuclear arms teams, was even more positive.
"After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq," ElBaradei said.
In delivering a fairly favorable report on Iraqi cooperation to the U.N. Security Council, Blix gave ammunition to those who want inspections to continue, although he made clear many disarmament issues were unresolved.
"It is obvious that, while the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as 'active,' or even 'proactive,' these initiatives three-four months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute 'immediate' cooperation," said Blix, in charge of chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles.
"Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance," he added.
'BETTER INFORMATION'
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), who is pressing the council to give Iraq a deadline to cooperate, said in an interview that the inspectors could only do so much.
"They are doing a reasonably effective job in light of what they are able to do, and they are only able to do what the Iraqis are really allowing them to do," he told ABC television.
"I think I have better information than the inspectors. I think I have more assets available to me than the inspectors do," he added, referring to U.S. intelligence gathering.
Asked why the United States does not give them that information, he said: "We are giving them as much as we can that is actionable, that really can cue them to something."
Blix praised Iraq's decision to destroy 34 of its al-Samoud 2 missiles, whose range exceeded U.N. limits, as well as four training missiles, two combat warheads, one launcher, five engines and two casting chambers since March 1.
But his presentation contrasted sharply with a 167-page document he gave to council members that lists 29 areas of unresolved weapons issues and a "to do" list of steps Iraq should take to comply.
This report, released by Reuters on Thursday, disputes Iraq's claim of how much anthrax it had destroyed, says it may be developing new banned missiles and calls on Baghdad to surrender any remaining biological, chemical or Scud missiles and to explain the fate of aerial bombs and missing chemical agents.
Blix said that if inspections continued and Iraq cooperated, "it would not take years, nor weeks, but months."
"Neither governments nor inspectors would want disarmament inspections to go on forever," he said.
story.news.yahoo.com |
