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

To: stockman_scott who wrote (75754)	2/19/2003 5:43:13 PM
From: aladin	Respond to of 281500

Inspectors to Ask Iraq to Destroy Missiles 4 minutes ago Reuters to My Yahoo! By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix has decided to ask Iraq to destroy its al-Samoud 2 missiles but has not yet determined whether the rocket engines that drive them should be demolished also, diplomats and U.S. sources said on Wednesday. Whether or not Iraq destroys the missiles will be a key test for the United States of Baghdad's willingness to give up a defense system just as Washington is building up its military for a possible invasion. U.S. officials have signaled that an Iraqi refusal would violate Security Council orders that it surrender its ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction. Blix is expected to write a letter to Baghdad officials shortly after weapons inspectors complete their inventory of sites assembling missiles, launchers and other components, which they have been scrutinizing nearly every day this week. He first raised alarms about the al-Samoud 2 missile, which Iraq has openly admitted it developed, in his report to the Security Council on Jan. 27. He said that it appeared to be illegal because it exceeded the 90-mile range set down by the United Nations. Blix said the liquid-fuel al-Samoud 2 had been test-fired to a distance of 110 miles and noted that the al-Samoud's 760 mm diameter was increased from the earlier version. Iraq, he said, had also imported 380 rocket engines, chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and control instruments. How many of these components Blix may ask Iraq to destroy is not yet clear. Blix also has suggested that the missiles violated a 1997 letter from former chief U.N. inspector Rolf Ekeus, which banned the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles in ballistic missiles. Iraq has denied the missiles were illegal. Its U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, said on Feb. 12 that the range discrepancy was attributable to the fact that the missiles were not weighted during tests with payload guidance systems and fuel that would have limited their range. On Wednesday, Aldouri told reporters that the missiles were within the range set down by the United Nations and that Baghdad was asking for new technical talks with the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission that Blix heads. "The Iraqi side asked to have technical talks with UNMOVIC to reach a kind of mutual understanding on this very complicated issue," Aldouri said. (Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff)

To: stockman_scott who wrote (75754)	2/19/2003 10:39:43 PM
From: bela_ghoulashi	Respond to of 281500

'Please Send Help' A message from northern Iraq. BY CLAUDIA ROSETT Wednesday, February 19, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST From northern Iraq, in the U.S.- and British-protected no-fly zone, a friend sent me a message last weekend. I quote from it here at length because it is a bracing reply to the U.N. charades and the "peace" parades now filling the vacuum while the world waits for President Bush to act. This message comes from someone living on the front line, facing Saddam Hussein's army in the same region where Saddam years ago confirmed his zest for weapons of mass murder by gassing to death thousands of Kurds: Now, this UN business is really depressing me. Why can't they do the right thing? Many nations contributed to building this monstrous regime. Why not help to undo the damage inflicted on us? The "No Blood for Oil" signs are particularly galling. Loads of Iraqi blood has already been spilled. At least half a million in the Iraq-Iran war, a couple of hundred thousand are estimated to have died in the Gulf War, a couple of hundred thousand Kurds disappeared in the 1980s, I have no idea how many Shias and Marsh Arabs and other Arabs against the regime have been murdered. Thousands of prisoners have also disappeared or been executed. The list goes on. It is enough. Please send help. Everyone here wants this to be over. It is hard to imagine anything but celebrations if this monster is overthrown at long last. My friend adds, in a reference to Saddam's troops: "We hear regularly from the other side that they will not fight. They ask us all the time if the Americans are here already. They plead for us to tell them when the attack is starting so they can give up. They cannot do it until action starts, or they will be murdered." opinionjournal.com