Re: ongoing weapons inspections Blix says US, UK not giving him enough intelligence "They (US and Great Britain) have all the evidence in their archives and they could present that and they have failed to do so," Blix said. "The declaration per se is not credible."
(from Miami Herald)
By PAUL MAJENDIE
Reuters
LONDON - Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Friday the United States and Britain are not giving him the intelligence he needs to prove Iraq may be concealing weapons of mass destruction.
Asked if he was getting all the co-operation he wanted from Western intelligence agencies, Blix said: "Not yet. We get some but we don't get all we need."
"If the UK and the US are convinced and they say they have evidence, well then one would expect that they would be able to tell us where is this stuff," he told BBC radio.
As he called for more help from Western intelligence, his inspectors resumed their hunt for banned weapons in Iraq.
Working on the Muslim rest day for the second week in a row, they drove to the sprawling al-Tuwaitha complex, the main site of Iraq's nuclear program.
But Blix said they needed the eyes and ears of Western spies and satellites to make the search more effective.
"The most important thing that governments like the UK or the US could give us would be to tell us of sites where they are convinced that they keep some weapons of mass destruction. This is what we want to have," he said.
"We get a lot of briefings about what they believe the Iraqis have. But what of course you really need to have is an indication of a place where things are stored -- if they know it," he said.
"They have all their methods to look, to listen to telephone conversations. They have spies, they have satellite etc. They have a lot of sources which we do not have."
Washington said it was already providing Blix's team with information they needed.
"We will provide the inspectors with every possible assistance and all the support they need to succeed in their crucial mission. And we are doing that," a State Department spokesman said.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose country has threatened to disarm Iraq by force if need be, said Baghdad was in "material breach" of a U.N. Security Council resolution by failing to disclose its arms of mass destruction.
Britain said it was "deeply disappointed" with Iraq's arms declaration, given to the council on December 7, but stopped short of calling it a material breach, language that could be used to justify war against President Saddam Hussein.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Iraq had so far treated inspections as "a bit of a game of hide and seek."
Blix agreed, telling the BBC: "If the Iraqis gave us full co-operation, we would not need any intelligence."
Asked if the 12,000-page Iraqi dossier amounted to full disclosure, he said: "We don't know. It may be full disclosure or it may not be.
"We do not think that Iraq has submitted adequate supporting evidence for the text and therefore we would say that the Security Council can have no confidence that this is a complete document."
Asked what was missing from the Iraqi document, he said: "If you produce anthrax or mustard gas, then you have records and it should be possible to find them.
"They have all the evidence in their archives and they could present that and they have failed to do so," Blix said. "The declaration per se is not credible." |
