-- U.N.'s Blix Says Iraqi Arms Declaration Has Gaps --
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Chief U.N. weapons inspector
Hans Blix said on Thursday that Iraq's new arms declaration
contained little new weapons information that had not been
declared earlier by Baghdad.
He told Reuters, shortly before he was to address a closed
session of the U.N. Security Council, that gaps remained in
Iraq's 12,000-page arms declaration submitted on Dec. 7.
"There is a good bit of information about non-arms related
activities," he said. "Not much information about the weapons."
"The absence of supporting evidence is what we are talking
about mainly. That continues," said Blix, who is executive
chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission, known as UNMOVIC.
But diplomats said Blix was expected to avoid
characterizing the document as a violation -- as the United
States appears ready to do -- when he and Mohamed ElBaradei,
director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, give the
council their preliminary assessment of Iraq's document.
Blix said cooperation with his inspectors, who returned to
Iraq last month, had been good. "We are going to say that
there's been prompt access to sites all over and there has been
a good deal of help on the logistical side," he said.
After Blix and ElBaradei speak, U.S. Ambassador John
Negroponte in New York and Secretary of State Colin Powell in
Washington plan to deliver the U.S. administration's reaction.
Both were expected to say Iraq failed to reveal details of
past weapons of mass destruction programs and therefore was in
violation of a Nov. 8 council resolution aimed at forcing
Baghdad to disclose and eliminate any programs it has to make
biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.
Iraq denies it has such programs.
Blix said cooperation with his inspectors, who returned to
Iraq last month after a four-year hiatus, has been good.
"We are going to say that there's been prompt access to
sites all over and there has been a good deal of help on the
logistical side," he said.
ElBaradei will also say he is missing some data, including
diagrams for nuclear equipment inspectors destroyed in 1991,
officials said. But they stressed the assessment from the
inspectors would be tentative.
"Clearly it will only be an initial and preliminary
assessment because there is much more information in the
declaration that needs to be assessed against our existing data
base," Blix's spokesman, Ewen Buchanan, said. "And to do a
serious professional job will take more time."
Nevertheless, their assessment is crucial as most Security
Council members are skeptical at accepting American judgments
without backup from Blix and ElBaradei.
UNACCOUNTED WEAPONS AND MATERIALS
The arms inspectors, who were in Iraq from 1991 to 1998
before resuming searches last month, had accounted for
equipment and materials used to make an atomic bomb, 817 of 819
Scud missiles, 39,000 chemical munitions and more than 3,000
tons of agents and precursors.
But unaccounted for were 550 mustard-gas shells, 150 aerial
bombs that at one time were filled with either anthrax or other
biological agents and 200 tons of chemicals for the nerve agent
VX as well as some warheads with traces of VX.
Powell said on Wednesday that Iraq's declaration contained
"troublesome gaps and omissions." And in London, British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iraq had failed to account
for "large quantities or nerve agent, chemical precursors and
munitions" the inspectors had requested in 1998.
Under the Nov. 8 resolution 1441, Iraq was required to
declare all its nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic
weapons programs and related materials.
While the Bush administration is expected to say Iraq was
in violation of the resolution, U.S. officials haggled until
the last minute over whether Powell should declare that Baghdad
was in "material breach," words that could lead to war.
Most U.N. Security Council members, including Britain,
consider any declaration of a material breach, meaningless at
this time under the Nov. 8 resolution that gave Iraq one more
chance to disarm or face "serious consequences."
On material breach, the resolution has two requirements. It
says that false statements or omissions in the Iraqi
declaration, coupled with a failure to comply with inspections,
would be a material breach of Iraq's obligations.
This means the Bush administration still has to make a case
for war beyond any falsifications in Iraq's declaration, a
process that has to wait at least until Blix gives a scheduled
report to the council on Jan. 26.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Dominique Villepin said
U.N. arms inspectors should report violations to the council
"and it will be up to the Security Council and the Security
Council alone to draw all the conclusions."
Iraq submitted its 12,000-page arms declaration on Dec. 7
which the five permanent council members -- the United States,
Britain, France, Russia and China -- received two days later.
The other 10 rotating council members only got an excised
version of the document, some 3,500 pages, on Tuesday. Deleted
were the names of foreign firms that helped Iraq build its
arsenal and data that reveals how to make the dangerous arms.
(Bernie Woodall contributed to this report)
(C) Reuters 2002. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of
Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly
prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters
sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of
companies around the world.
19-Dec-2002 15:18:09 GMT
Source RTRS - Reuters News |
