White House Pressures U.N. Inspectors
URL:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&ncid=716&e=5&u=/ap/20021206/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq
By SANDRA SOBIERAJ, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House pressured U.N. officials and weapons inspectors to more aggressively court Iraqi weapons scientists with promises of asylum in exchange for evidence against Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
AP Photo
AP Photo
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"We take the issue very seriously and attach great importance to it. We hope the international community would also attach the same importance to the issue," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) told reporters.
Fleischer emphasized that the U.N. Security Council resolution demanding Iraq's disarmament and dispatching a weapons-inspections team to Baghdad "makes perfectly plain in black and white" that the inspectors are authorized — even encouraged — to squire scientists and their families to safety outside Iraq for debriefing.
"Given Iraq's history of brutal witness intimidation — including imprisonment, torture and murder — this is a key tool for inspectors to make certain that Saddam Hussein disarms. By providing for such interviews in its resolution, the Security Council expects inspectors to take advantage of it," Fleischer said.
He was careful to note that the handling of any Iraqi defectors would be a United Nations (news - web sites) responsibility.
The Security Council resolution unanimously approved on Nov. 8 demands that Iraq provide unrestricted access to "all officials and other persons" that Hans Blix's inspections team wants to interview "inside or outside Iraq." The United States is counting on this tactic to provide a breakthrough in making the case that Saddam, the Iraqi president, has been at work building chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Resolution 1441 also requires Iraq to provide by Sunday a full inventory of its weapons and weapons programs. Fleischer said Iraq's declaration could itself prove a "material breach," which is diplomatic parlance for the trigger that would lead the United Nations to consider authorizing war.
"Certainly, we don't rule it out," Fleischer said.
Meanwhile, U.S. and U.N. officials cautioned that the Iraqi declaration could be thousands of pages in Arabic that would take some time to translate and analyze. The material, once transmitted from Baghdad to New York, would be distributed first to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, officials said. |
