Blix Says Iraq Hasn't Accepted Demands
UNITED NATIONS (Jan. 27) -- Iraq has not genuinely accepted the U.N. resolution demanding that it disarm and while Baghdad is cooperating on access, it needs to do more on substance, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council Monday.
''Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it,'' Blix said at the beginning of a crucial assessment on 60 days of weapons inspections.
Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission said it was not enough for the Iraqi's to ''open doors.''
''It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access. A similar decision is indispensable to provide cooperation on substance in order to bring the disarmament task to completion, through the peaceful process of inspection, and to bring the monitoring task on a firm course.''
Touching on the question of how much time inspectors need, Blix said he shared ''the sense of urgency'' to achieve disarmament within ''a reasonable period of time.''
Blix said three questions remain unanswered:
-How much illicit weapons material might remain undeclared and intact from before the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and possibly thereafter.
-What, if anything, was illegally procured or produced.
-How the world can prevent any weapons of mass destruction from being produced or procured in the future.
Blix said Iraq's 12,000 page arms declaration contained little more than old material previously submitted to inspectors. One exception was an air force document which indicates that Iraq had failed to account for some 6,000 chemical rockets.
''The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to show that its declaration is currently accurate.''
Blix said inspectors have also discovered a mustard gas precursor during recent inspections.
AP-NY-01-27-03 1104EST
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. |
