Iraq Says It's Eliminated Banned Weapons but Refuses to Document it's Claims as Required by UN Resolution
Mohamed ElBaradei, left, executive director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, addresses the United Nations Security Council as chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, right, looks on at U.N. headquarters Monday, Jan. 27, 2003. (AP photo)
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By DIEGO IBARGUEN
and MARTIN MERZER
Knight Ridder Newspapers
UNITED NATIONS - Iraq hasn't accounted for thousands of chemical rockets, hasn't resolved questions about its anthrax stockpiles and hasn't fully complied with a last-chance U.N. resolution, top weapons inspectors reported Monday.
But the challenge confronting President Bush tonight when he delivers his annual State of the Union address to a nation &mdash and a world &mdash moving restlessly toward war was underscored by this:
Though the U.N. arms-inspection status report generally was unfavorable to Iraq, the inspectors also said they'd found no evidence of revived nuclear activity, and they repeatedly asked for more time to complete their search for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
"Our work is steadily progressing and should be allowed to run its natural course," said Mohamed ElBaradei, the United Nations' chief nuclear-weapons inspector.
"Provided there is sustained, proactive cooperation by Iraq, we should be able, within the next few months, to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear-weapons program," he told the U.N. Security Council.
"These few months would be a valuable investment in peace, because it could help avoid a war."
At the White House, where final touches were being applied to Bush's address, spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "Iraq is running out of time."
The president is expected to devote about half of his speech to the Iraqi crisis, but Fleischer said Americans "won't hear a deadline. They won't hear a declaration of war."
Along with diplomatic challenges, the administration faces logistical hurdles: Reports from the region Monday suggested that U.S. troops and equipment might not be ready for an invasion of Iraq until at least mid-March.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the administration isn't ready yet to seek U.N. approval for military action, but he also warned that Iraq is near the end of a dangerous road.
He said Saddam Hussein and his aides had ignored "every exit ramp, diplomatic exit ramp that was put there for them." Iraq is concealing "vast quantities of lethal materials" and rockets that can carry weapons of mass death across international borders, he said.
"The issue is not how much more time the inspectors need to search in the dark," Powell said. "It is how much more time Iraq should be given to turn on the lights and come clean."
At the United Nations, ElBaradei and Hans Blix, who's in charge of the search for Iraqi biological and chemical weapons, sketched a portrait of a nation claiming to be cooperative but in reality paying only minimal heed to the will of the rest of the world.
Blix's comments were particularly pointed.
Iraq "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace," he said.
The result, Blix said, was that inspections have been unable to substantiate either Iraq's assertions that it has rid itself of weapons of mass destruction or the Bush administration's assertions that Iraq is rearming.
So, the 60-day status report to the United Nations, once seen as a possible catalyst of immediate war, instead yielded a more complex mosaic of progress and frustration.
Though no evidence has emerged concerning nuclear activity, Blix said Iraq had failed to provide sufficient information concerning:
- Its stocks of anthrax, VX nerve gas and bacterial growth media.
"There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared," Blix said, "and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist."
- About 6,500 chemical bombs that inspectors haven't been able to find.
- Programs to develop missiles with ranges longer than the United Nations permits.
Blix said Iraq would comply with the letter and spirit of U.N. resolutions if it presented more substantive documentation to support its claims that it has destroyed banned weapons.
When documents are unavailable, he said, Iraq should provide witnesses, without Iraqi officials present, to share information about weapons programs.
He said such interviews should be conducted without Iraqi officials present. Blix said that while Iraq had agreed to encourage scientists to give interviews in private, none had accepted the offer.
Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed al Douri said his nation would answer any remaining questions.
"We open all doors to Mr. Blix and his team, and I think if there is something, he will find it, but if there is nothing, certainly he will not find it," al Douri said.
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