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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (1860)	10/1/2002 8:51:30 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 8683

That's a complete lie. What an apologist for Saddam you are. You ought to be being paid for the Iraqi propaganda you're propounding. The spying they did was necessary because Iraqi intelligence was obstructing and harassing the inspectors and hiding the things the inspectors needed to see to do their job. Here's some material that describes how the Iraqis dealt with the inspections. iraqwatch.org A. Proscribed missiles ... 30. On 6 December 1998, an inspection team visited two sites used by Iraq to hide biological and chemical warfare warheads for Al Hussein missiles prior to their declared unilateral destruction, stated by Iraq to have occurred in 1991. During these visits, the team marked specific storage pits that were identified by the Iraqi officers responsible for the activity at these sites. The team interviewed these officers and the Commission's aerial inspection team took photographs of the sites. Based on these site surveys, the Commission has established that discrepancies remain between the available evidence of the storage and movement of special missile warheads and Iraq's declarations, of July 1998, on their storage and unilateral destruction. 31. In the Executive Chairman's letter to Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister of 19 November 1998 (S/1998/1106), referred to earlier in the present report, the Commission reiterated its request of 5 August 1998 for the removal from Iraq, for laboratory analysis, of liquid propellant engine components from Iraq's proscribed indigenous missile production programme. The Commission views the analysis of these components as critical to its verification of Iraq's declarations concerning the achievements in its indigenous programme. In its letter of response of 25 November 1998 (S/1998/1125), Iraq stated that in its view the request for analysis was not justified on technical or scientific grounds. On 4 December 1998, the Commission's experts met with Iraq's representatives to discuss again the release of these components. On 6 December 1998, Iraq's representatives reiterated the official negative response. B. Chemical weapons 32. It was not possible to pursue any disarmament activities in Iraq in the chemical weapons area in the period under review. Iraq's unilateral claim of August 1998 that all outstanding disarmament issues had been resolved is in contrast to the Commission's findings on the status of the verification of Iraq's declarations on its proscribed chemical weapons activities. Iraq refused to provide documents and evidence required for the further verification of those proscribed activities requested by the Commission. C. Biological weapons 33. As the result of Iraq's decision of 5 August 1998 to stop the Commission's disarmament activities in Iraq, the Commission was unable to continue its disarmament inspections until returning to Iraq on 17 November 1998. Subsequently, three biological disarmament inspections were sent to Iraq to resume investigation of various aspects of Iraq's proscribed biological warfare programme. 34. An inspection team was in Iraq from 1 to 6 December 1998 and pursued the investigation on microbial agent research for biological warfare purposes and Iraq's planning for biological warfare agent production and weaponization. The team conducted numerous interviews with Iraq's representatives. These interviews yielded no new information that would enable clarification of outstanding issues. 35. A second inspection team was in Iraq from 6 to 10 December 1998, and held discussions with Iraqi officials on bacterial growth media for Iraq's biological warfare programme. The team requested Iraq to provide several specific documents to support its declaration, including a logbook with records of relevant imports for the biological warfare programme. Iraq did not provide the documents requested. The team also revealed to Iraq documentary evidence of the import of growth media for the biological warfare programme, previously not included in Iraq's declarations. Subsequently, Iraq admitted that this undeclared import had occurred, and as a result Iraq has recently provided to Council members an informal paper in which it has revised its previous statements on the material balance of growth media. ... During the period 8 to 12 December 1998, a Commission team conducted an inspection of sites in Iraq, the aim being to locate proscribed documents and items related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes. The team inspected six sites located either at Baghdad or in close proximity to it. On several occasions during the inspection process, Iraq made efforts to frustrate and harass the inspection team while the team was performing its mandated tasks. 39. At a site designated for inspection on 9 December 1998, protracted discussions on access to the site between the Chief Inspector and his Iraqi counterpart failed to yield satisfactory access. During these discussions, Iraq sought to introduce various new requirements, including a formal letter of request indicating what was being sought at the site. Similarly, <v>on 10 December 1998, Iraq delayed the team's access to another site for 45 minutes on the grounds that it was "sensitive". On gaining access to the site, it was found to have been deliberately emptied of its contents. In the light of such evidence that Iraq had taken advance actions at certain of the locations planned for inspection in order to defeat the purposes of inspection, the Executive Chairman decided not to conduct the full range of nspections that the team had planned. The chemical monitoring teams encountered serious restrictions on carrying out its mandate. These restrictions, carried out from the time of Iraq's August 1998 decision, sought to limit the range of sites to which access would be granted. There were problems regarding access to specific buildings and objections to inspections on Fridays and holidays. In one instance, the Commission's right to take photographic and video records of relevant munitions and other items was disputed by Iraq (S/1998/1172 and Corr.1). C. Biological activities 48. A non-resident inspection team was sent to Iraq from 3 to 10 December 1998 to conduct in-depth inspections of key biological sites. Iraq took actions to hinder the conduct of these inspections (S/1998/1172 and Corr.1). VI. CONCLUSIONS 55. As is evident from the body of this report, the Commission has not received, in the period under review, the cooperation required of Iraq to enable it to conduct its work as mandated by the Security Council. Unfortunately, this means that the Commission is not yet able to give the Security Council the assurances that it requires with respect to the final disposition of Iraq's proscribed weapons programmes and their possible reconstitution.