Escuse me but here are three recent examples of references supplied to support my arguments.
Message 18465105
Hans Blix and just about anybody with a capacity for reasonable thought, except Bush-Cheney, share my view in the matter; not yours.
Well, I see nothing to disagree with in Hans Blix's recent statements about Iraq.
abc.net.au
Blix tells Iraq more cooperation is needed
AM - Monday, January 20, 2003 8:24
LINDA MOTTRAM: In other news today, a last chance to avoid war, is the message carried by the United Nations' top weapons officials, Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei who are back in Baghdad, before they give a report to the security council next week on Iraq's weapons programs.
Middle East correspondent Mark Willacy reports.
MARK WILLACY: Known for his diplomacy and ice cool demeanour, Hans Blix’s patience is being sorely tested by Saddam Hussein.
First his weapons inspectors uncovered 11 empty chemical warheads at an Iraqi munitions dump.
Now they’ve discovered 3,000 pages of documents apparently hidden in the Baghdad home of an Iraqi scientist.
HANS BLIX: These are not weapons of mass destruction. Documents are not weapons of mass destruction, nor are empty shells weapons of mass destruction.
But they are a sign, they are a symptom that not everything has been properly declared.
MARK WILLACY: Accompanying Hans Blix to Baghdad is Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
It’s not so much what the 3,000 pages of documents reveals which bothers him, but rather where they were found.
MOHAMED EL BARADEI: They appear to be relevant to laser enrichment technology. Why are these documents have not been provided to us? Why they have been kept in a private home?
MARK WILLACY: Both Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei believe Iraq is so far failing to offer genuine or sufficient cooperation to UN weapons inspectors.
Dr Blix says in talks with Iraqi officials over the next couple of days he’ll be pushing for a change of attitude. But he says failure to cooperate more fully does not automatically mean war.
HANS BLIX: The message after our travelling around to capitals of Somalia [inaudible] Moscow and together with the French President, myself in Brussels, in European Union headquarters and in London is the impression that war is not inevitable.
No, I don't think anyone wants war but the alternative to this are inspections that are effective, that are credible and which require active cooperation by Iraq.
MARK WILLACY: The scientist found in possession of the 3,000 pages of documents argues that Iraq is cooperating as best it can.
And Faleh Hassan Hamza accuses weapons inspectors of employing mafia-like intimidation in their hunt for weapons of mass destruction.
The nuclear scientist says inspectors barged into his home and used his wife’s illness to try to convince him to leave the country and tell all.
FALEH HASSAN HAMZA: My wife was sick, and she was sleeping and they were looking in the sleeping room. Do you accept somebody looking in your private things. Do you accept this?
Unfortunately for Faleh Hassan Hamza and other Iraqi scientists, they’ll have to accept it.
Barring any more discoveries, the next big date for Iraq is in a week’s time when weapons inspectors hand in their final status report to the Security Council.
While Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei want more time to search for weapons of mass destruction, the Bush Administration could use the final status report to push even harder for war - with or without UN support.
LINDA MOTTRAM: Middle East correspondent Mark Willacy.
In the United States, Secretary of State Colin Powell has said overnight that even if no weapons of mass destruction are found, Baghdad could still be in breach of UN resolutions.
COLIN POWELL: Dr Blix says he has found a smoking gun but he has also said that all he is getting from the Iraqis is passive cooperation. Catch us if you can, if you find something we might admit it, but we're working hard to deceive you, to hide things and make it harder for you to get to the truth.
Message 18462811
UN inspectors uncover proof of Saddam's nuclear bomb plans
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 19/01/2003)
telegraph.co.uk.
United Nations weapons inspectors have uncovered evidence that proves Saddam Hussein is trying to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons, The Telegraph can reveal. The discovery was made following spot checks last week on the homes of two Iraqi nuclear physicists in Baghdad.
Hans Blix was made aware of the discovery last week
Acting on information provided by Western intelligence, the UN inspection teams discovered a number of documents proving that Saddam is continuing with his attempts to develop nuclear weapons, contrary to his public declarations that Iraq is no longer interested in producing weapons of mass destruction.
The revelation follows last Thursday's discovery of a number of warheads at an ammunition storage facility south of Baghdad that had been designed for carrying chemical and biological weapons.
Although UN officials say that they have no comment to make at present on the documents found at the scientists' homes, a Western diplomat closely involved with the investigation into Saddam's nuclear capability yesterday confirmed that the documents showed that Iraq was still attempting to develop its own atomic weapons.
"These are not old documents. They are new and they relate to on-going work taking place in Iraq to develop nuclear weapons," the official told The Telegraph.
"They had been hidden at the scientists' homes on Saddam's personal orders. Furthermore, no mention of this work is made in the Iraqi dossier that was submitted to the UN last December."
UN nuclear experts are this weekend continuing to examine the seized documents. Officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have also been informed of the discovery.
The revelation that Saddam is working on nuclear weapons in defiance of the United Nations is further evidence that Iraq is failing to comply with the terms of UN Resolution 1441, which requires Baghdad to make a complete disclosure of its weapons of mass destruction programme.
A false or incomplete disclosure or a failure fully to co-operate with the inspectors would constitute a material breach of the resolution and result in military action against Baghdad.
Although Dr Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspections teams, was made aware of the discovery last week, he failed to mention it during talks with Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and Jacques Chirac the French president.
British officials are particularly concerned that Mr Blix appears to be playing down the significance of last week's breakthroughs.
He indicated that he did not feel the discovery of the chemical warheads was an issue that needed to be reported to the Security Council.
The inspectors' discoveries follow a radical improvement in relations between UN officials and Western intelligence which had been reluctant to hand over sensitive information for fear that it might fall into the hands of Iraqi officials, thereby risking the lives of agents working in Iraq.
In particular intelligence officials were keen that a team of UN inspectors visit the homes of two Iraqi nuclear scientists living in the outskirts of Baghdad.
This followed information from high ranking officials at Iraq's Ministry of Military Industrialisation (MIO) that suggested Saddam had ordered that top secret nuclear documents should be hidden at the homes of scientists working on the project.
As one inspection team discovered the empty chemical warheads, nuclear weapons experts were cordoning off the street where two scientists lived in Baghdad's al-Ghazalia neighbourhood.
They searched the homes of Faleh Hassan, a specialist in laser equipment, and Dr Shaker alJibouri, a nuclear scientist. Inspectors also accompanied the scientists to sites known to have been used for nuclear research.
Message 18449867
The sanctions would not be able to be maintained without UN approval. This is just hypothetical though. Saddam never cooperated with UNSCOM inspectors. Here's some brief excerpts from a very lengthy UNSCOM final report:
iraqwatch.org
4. From the inception of the relevant work, in 1991, Iraq's compliance has been limited. Iraq acknowledges that, in that year, it decided to limit its disclosures for the purpose of retaining substantial prohibited weapons and capabilities.
5. Actions by Iraq in three main respects have had a significant negative impact upon the Commission's disarmament work:
* Iraq's disclosure statements have never been complete;
* contrary to the requirement that destruction be conducted under international supervision, Iraq undertook extensive, unilateral and secret destruction of large quantities of proscribed weapons and items;
* it also pursued a practice of concealment of proscribed items, including weapons, and a cover up of its activities in contravention of Council resolutions.
...
12. Three basic points about this disarmament record need to be made. First, the overall period of the Commission's disarmament work must be divided into two parts, separated by the events following the departure from Iraq, in August 1995, of Lt. General Hussein Kamal. This which resulted in the provision to the Commission of an extensive cache of documents on Iraq's prohibited programmes. These documents and subsequent disclosures by Iraq indicated that, during the first four years of its activities, the Commission had been very substantially misled by Iraq both in terms of its understanding of Iraq's proscribed weapons programmes and the continuation of prohibited activities, even under the Commission's monitoring. Positive conclusions on Iraq's compliance reported to the Council previously by the Commission had to be revised. They were conclusions generally based on accepting Iraq's declarations at face value. Analysis of the new material shaped the direction of the Commission's subsequent work including the emphasis on: obtaining verifiable evidence including physical materials or documents; investigation of the successful concealment activities by Iraq; and, the thorough verification of the unilateral destruction events.
13. Secondly, the Commission has been obliged to undertake a degree of forensic work which was never intended to be the case. This was derived, virtually exclusively, from Iraq's inadequate disclosures, unilateral destruction and concealment activities. These actions, all of which were contrary to the resolutions, made the Commission's work more difficult and, in many cases, continued even after 1995. Had this behaviour not occurred, a far less searching inquiry by the Commission would have been necessary. The work of verification of Iraq's declarations would have and should have been far easier and should have been able to be undertaken far more quickly than has proven to be the case. Such concerted obstructions naturally raise the question of why Iraq has carried out these activities.
...
14. Thirdly, these overall circumstances have meant that, in spite of the years that have passed and the extensive work that has been undertaken, it has not been possible to verify, fully, Iraq's statements with respect to the nature and magnitude of its proscribed weapons programmes and their current disposition.
...
17. In response to the Commission's requests for relevant documents, Iraq has repeatedly claimed that they no longer exist or cannot be located, a claim which often has been shown to be false, either because inspection activities have in fact located precisely such documents or because Iraq has reversed its stated position and then produced relevant documents. The Commission briefed the Council on its assessment of the existence and importance of documents in June 1998. The Commission has assessed that the documents provided in August 1995 were only selected categories of documents were provided and that other categories were retained by Iraq. It remains the Commission's strong view that, under the present circumstances, relevant documentation exists in Iraq and that provision of such documentation is the best hope for revealing the full picture, as required by the relevant resolutions.
18. On certain other occasions, Iraq has not claimed that documents sought by the Commission do not exist but has stated instead that they are not relevant to the Commission. The judgement of relevance of any given document is for the Commission, not Iraq, to make, as has been recognized by the Security Council.
...
Appendix IV
ACTIONS BY IRAQ TO OBSTRUCT DISARMAMENT
1. The history of the Special Commission's work in Iraq has been plagued by coordinated efforts to thwart full discovery of Iraq's proscribed programmes.
...
15. One notable document received from Iraq in August 1995 should be mentioned. "The al-Atheer Center for the development of materials production: Report of achievements accomplished from 1 June 1990 to 7 June 1991" (called "the al-Atheer document"). It illustrates how this key facility for the development of nuclear weapon devices implemented the instructions of the high level committee in April 1991 on concealment action. The facility was instructed to remove evidence of the true activities at the facility, evacuate documents to hide sites, make physical alterations to the site to hide its true purpose, develop cover stories, and conduct mock inspections to prepare for UN inspectors. These types of actions are precisely what the Commission has encountered in its inspection activities throughout its work in Iraq. Iraq has claimed such deliberate concealment activities were ceased in 1995. However, Iraq has provided no documentation to substantiate these claims and the Commission continues to find evidence that the opposite is the case. Documents are found occasionally and reports from inside Iraq indicate continuing attempts to prevent the Commission from discovering documents or other materials.
....
31. By the end of the 1998, there remained significant uncertainties in the disposition of Iraq's prohibited programmes.
32. The Commission has received information recently from multiple sources, identifying organizations that direct and implement the concealment effort in Iraq. While the information from these sources differs in some minor details, it agrees on several major points:
* The highest level of concealment-related decisions are made by a small committee of high ranking officials. The Presidential Secretary, Abed Hamid Mahmoud, chairs this committee;
* The Committee directs the activities of a unit which is responsible for moving, hiding, and securing the items which are being concealed from the Commission;
* The Special Security Organization plays a key role in the operation of this unit and in the tracking and surveillance of Commission activities. |
