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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (46114)	9/22/2002 11:01:52 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

We'll see how close The Guardian comes: Dossier to show Iraqi nuclear arms race Government file to expose Saddam's aims to procure deadly missile parts Iraq: Observer special Peter Beaumont and Kamal Ahmed Sunday September 22, 2002 The Observer observer.co.uk Compelling details of how Saddam Hussein has created a massive secret weapons procurement network to rebuild his nuclear and ballistic missile programmes will form the heart of Tony Blair's long-awaited dossier on the threat posed by Iraq. The dossier, to be released on Tuesday, is expected to show how Saddam has accelerated his efforts to acquire banned technologies, particularly nuclear and ballistic missiles, since UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998. It will claim that the Iraqi dictator is more dangerous than he was in 1998, when the last UN inspectors were forced to leave Iraq. It is also expected to show how he has masked his activities behind a series of front companies, smuggling networks and middlemen in neighbouring states, all paid for by illegal oil transactions. Although the dossier is not believed to contain a 'smoking gun' - evidence that Saddam has already acquired the material to make a nuclear device - it will reveal his continuing vigorous efforts to do so. 'It is a sober assessment,' said one Number 10 official. 'On its own, it should not be seen as justification for military action, but it makes the case about his efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.' Another official said that it would 'confirm beyond any doubt' that Iraq would be willing to launch a 'first-use' strike against neighbouring states. The 50-page dossier, which has been agreed with the White House, will become the centrepiece of what Downing Street aides have described as the 'key week' in the action against Saddam. Yesterday, Russia, a member of the UN security council, indicated that it would agree to a new UN resolution only if was provided with convincing evidence that action needed to be taken. The Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, said that the first group of U.N. arms inspectors could arrive in Iraq in early October. Government sources said that they were hopeful that a new UN resolution could be agreed as early as this week, with a clear deadline for Saddam to comply with weapons inspectors or face a second resolution proposing military action. Although German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder reiterated his opposition to military action yesterday, officials said that the international community was falling behind the position mapped out by President George Bush and Blair - a last chance for UN inspections or military action will follow. But yesterday Baghdad said it would not agree to any new UN conditions. It said it already had agreed with Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, on how to proceed with weapons inspections. An Observer investigation has revealed that Saddam's covert procurement network has been modelled on the same techniques he used in the 1980s to procure the tools, materials and expertise necessary to build weapons of mass destruction. Co-ordinated by the Ministry for Military Industrialisation, Iraqi officials have been trying to acquire high-specification machine tools, production lines, computer equipment and expertise for its long-range missile and nuclear weapons efforts. Among countries that have been identified as partners are Belarus and the Ukraine, which have been at the centre of the secret Iraqi procurement effort since the mid-1990s. Arms control experts - including former UN weapons inspectors - have identified both countries as being of 'grave concern' in the proliferation of banned technology to Iraq. The involvement of both Belarussian and Ukrainian companies was uncovered by UN weapons inspectors before they were forced to leave in 1998 and is understood to be continuing. Among technologies uncovered at sites in Iraq were machines that could spray nuclear bomb components with anti-corrosion material, and gyroscopes for missile guidance systems. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

To: JohnM who wrote (46114)	9/22/2002 1:34:23 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

By the way, I thought you considered the Guardian an unacceptable newspaper. Is that true only when they offer views with which you disagree? Ouch. I said, if you can remember that far, that the Guardian was not a rag, but was a highly political paper. Thus, I read them with a much less suspicious eye when they print stories against their slant, like this one, than when they print stories that go with their slant. I have a higher confidence level in the facts when it's against their slant.