VIENNA, 18 November 2002 — United Nations arms inspections in Iraq are a chance for Baghdad to avoid war, UN arms inspection agency chief Hans Blix said yesterday. “Inspections are a chance for the Iraqi government and that’s what the Security Council has said,” said Blix before leaving for Cyprus on his last stop before flying to the Iraqi capital today with an advance team of inspectors. Asked whether a war against Iraq was inevitable, Blix replied: “No, it’s not.”
“We know what we have to do in Baghdad and we prepared ourselves for it,” said the head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). He said he hoped to meet with members of the Iraqi government today after he arrives in Baghdad with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed El-Baradei.
“It’s an important mission and we have a heavy agenda ahead of us,” said Blix, who arrived in Larnaca in the afternoon to visit UNMOVIC’s rear base on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Under UN Security Resolution 1441, adopted unanimously nine days ago and since accepted by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Iraq must submit to an enhanced regime of weapons inspections and faces “serious consequences” if it obstructs them.
Blix said in Paris on Saturday that his task in Baghdad would be “to initiate the new chapter of inspections. Of course we hope and expect to have full Iraqi cooperation.”
After two days of political talks in Baghdad, he intends to leave behind teams to prepare transport and communications. The first proper inspections should begin on Nov. 27, the 74-year-old former Swedish foreign minister said.
Blix and El-Baradei will lead a group of 24 inspectors, 14 from UNMOVIC and 10 from the IAEA. They will set up radio links with UN headquarters in New York and modernize a laboratory left over from the previous UN mission, UNSCOM, which was withdrawn in 1998. The lab will be used mainly to examine air and ground samples for traces of chemical weapons ingredients.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said a war against Iraq “should not be taken for granted” in an interview published yesterday in the Madrid daily El Mundo. “The clock started ticking when the resolution was approved by the Security Council. Now inspectors will go to Iraq and it is possible that there will not be a war.” (Agencies)
