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

To: jcky who wrote (57509)	11/17/2002 5:19:03 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What is it with you and LB? What it is, jcky, is that we tell it like it is, and you don't like it. You have all these built up Liberal ideas on how the ME should work, and when you post them, and get called on them, you can't answer. Nobody is going to ban you, just back up your ideas instead of expecting people to bow down to your fantasies.

To: jcky who wrote (57509)	11/17/2002 12:48:55 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

Iran Inspector: War Not Inevitable GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer Sunday, November 17, 2002 (11-17) 09:21 PST LARNACA, Cyprus (AP) -- The United Nations' top two weapons inspectors arrived in Cyprus on Sunday to assemble their team for the journey back to Iraq for a fresh assessment of Saddam Hussein's suspected clandestine arms program. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, who will lead the overall mission, and Mohamed ElBaradei, overseeing the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's search for nuclear arms, flew by commercial jet from Vienna, Austria, to Cyprus where other team members have been arriving and where the inspection operation will be based. After arriving in Cyprus, Blix said his team was prepared to ensure Iraqi compliance, but he hoped Iraq would not try to hide anything. "This is an opportunity for peace," ElBaradei said. "I hope Iraq makes full use of it" so Baghdad can "come back as a full member of the international community." Blix, ElBaradei and a 25-member advance team plan to head to Baghdad aboard a charter flight on Monday for preparatory talks with Saddam's regime. The absence of full Iraqi cooperation likely will lead to war with the United States. "The question of war and peace remains first of all in the hands of Iraq, then the Security Council and the members of the Security Council," Blix said. "But we have a very important role to play ... We will report cooperation and lack of cooperation." Blix has said preliminary inspections -- the first in nearly four years -- likely will resume Nov. 27, with full-scale checks beginning after Iraq files a declaration of its banned weapons programs by a Dec. 8 deadline. Blix has 60 days to report back to the U.N. Security Council with his findings. ElBaradei said, "Our role is to report objectively to the Security Council. It is for the council to evaluate our report and decide what to do next, whether there is compliance or not compliance." Blix's New York-based team, the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, will lead the hunt for biological and chemical weapons and the long-range missiles capable of delivering them. Inspectors with ElBaradei's IAEA will determine if Saddam still has a secret nuclear arms program. Before departing Vienna, Blix told The Associated Press war is not inevitable if Iraq cooperates with the inspectors. "It's a chance for Iraq, and that's what the Security Council has said," he said. Saddam agreed Wednesday to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return to search for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons after the Security Council approved a toughly worded resolution. Baghdad, however, insisted in a nine-page letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that it does not have any such weapons. The U.N. resolution gives Iraq "a final opportunity" to eliminate its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them. It gives inspectors the right to go anywhere at anytime and warns Iraq it will face "serious consequences" if it fails to cooperate. "If Iraq cooperates fully, if we are allowed to do our work in a comprehensive manner, I think we can avoid a war," ElBaradei said. "I think that's the hope of everybody and that's what we're trying to do." After Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the Security Council imposed economic sanctions that cannot be lifted until U.N. weapons inspectors verify that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that could deliver them. The advance team is charged with reopening the office used by the previous inspections regime and setting up new secure phone lines and transportation. The United States believes Iraq has been illegally rearming for several years. Inspectors, who have been out of Iraq for nearly four years, have not been able to verify that claim. The inspectors left Baghdad in December 1998, on the eve of U.S.-British airstrikes, amid allegations that Iraq was not cooperating with the teams and Iraqi accusations that some of the inspectors actually were spies. By the end of the 1991 Gulf War, inspectors discovered the oil-rich nation had imported thousands of pounds of uranium, some of which was already refined for weapons use, and had considered two types of nuclear delivery systems. Inspectors seized the uranium, destroyed facilities and chemicals, dismantled over 40 missiles and confiscated thousands of documents. Blix said in an interview published Friday in the French newspaper Le Monde that inspectors have identified some 700 sites to check in Iraq. Weapons inspectors will try to keep the location of the sites secret and provide no notice to Baghdad, said Blix, who warned last week that the United Nations would tolerate no Iraqi "cat and mouse" games. He also said an Iraqi delay of even 30 minutes in granting inspectors access to a site would be considered a serious violation. ElBaradei said, "We have a lot of information on where to go. We have a very good game plan."