LONDON/BAGHDAD, 17 December 2002 — Disparate Iraqi opposition groups meeting in London early yesterday extended a conference for an extra day after failing to agree on the make-up of a committee that will articulate their vision of a post-Saddam Hussein era.
The final scheduled session had broken up Sunday night after a dispute over a blueprint for the transitional period which would follow the eventual fall of the Baghdad regime.
That row was apparently resolved after the introduction of a clause in the document saying that Iraqis would be given the right to decide in a referendum whether they wanted the country to remain a republic or to reinstate the monarchy toppled in a 1958 coup.
The amendment was demanded by the Constitutional Monarchy Movement (CMM) which seeks the restoration of Iraq’s monarchy.
In another development, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said UN arms inspectors have so far found no evidence of nuclear or chemical weapons production in Iraq, as the United States warned Baghdad it would be given no second chance to fill any gaps in its declaration of arms capabilities.
IAEA chief El-Baradei warned, however, that Iraq must continue to cooperate to avert war. “Now we are making good progress in having Iraq cooperate,” El-Baradei said during a lecture in Abu Dhabi late Sunday.
“I think Iraq can avert conflict by maintaining this cooperation and providing us with authentic and sufficient information about its military capabilities,” he said at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research. With the implementation of the United Nations new disarmament Resolution 1441, “the use of force no longer appears as the first option but is now regarded as the last resort.
“This a very positive development,” the IAEA director-general said. He stressed that the IAEA had so far found no evidence to support allegations that Iraq is producing nuclear or chemical weapons.
But in Washington White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: “I think it was abundantly plain from the will of the United Nations, this was Iraq’s last chance to inform the world in an accurate, complete and full way what weapons of mass destruction they possessed.” Asked he meant there would be no second chance, Fleischer referred to a series of UN resolutions Iraq has been accused of violating. “They’ve had 16 already,” he said.
British officials were quoted yesterday as saying they were “very disappointed” by Baghdad’s 12,000-page dossier on its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs, handed over to the United Nations earlier this month.
US and UN officials have also said in recent days Iraq’s declaration failed to account for all of its chemical and biological agents. A UN resolution adopted in November warns Iraq of “serious consequences” if it fails to comply with UN disarmament demands.
But British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday Iraq, which denies having weapons of mass destruction, could still avoid war.
“Military conflict in Iraq is not inevitable. What is inevitable is that Iraq will no longer be allowed to continue threatening its neighbors and defying the UN,” he wrote in Britain’s Financial Times newspaper.
As UN weapons inspectors, who returned to Iraq last month after a four-year gap, visited more sites, Syria’s President Bashar Assad, said he was optimistic about a peaceful resolution.
UN arms inspectors entered six suspect sites yesterday buoyed by reinforcements which have taken their number above 100, as Iraq announced they had begun taking the names of its weapons scientists.
One UN team swooped on the biomedical institute of Baghdad University, the first time that an academic facility has been inspected in the three weeks.
“I am optimistic now,” Assad, who held talks with Blair in London yesterday, told a news conference. “What we see is good cooperation from the Iraqi government. We hope this cooperation will continue and that this crisis is solved peacefully.”
Assad said he did not think “anyone was looking for war”. But Blair made clear in a joint news conference with Assad that they did not agree on how to deal with Iraq.
The British premier, Washington’s staunchest ally in its attempts to make Iraq disarm, said if Baghdad were found to be in breach of the UN resolution which laid the basis for the weapons inspections, then “action should follow”.
In Turkey, a senior military official said Ankara had deployed troops and engineers near its border with northern Iraq to prepare for any US-led attack on Baghdad. “The reason for the deployments is ensuring that the Turkish military is ready in all ways for the possibility of an Iraq operation,” he told Reuters. He gave no figures but local sources put it at 10,000-15,000 troops.
In his Financial Times article, Blair argued that Britain must continue preparing for military action so that Saddam realized the threat against him was serious. “Sometimes the only way of avoiding war is to be clear that you are prepared to use force,” Blair wrote.
In another development, news reports said yesterday a convoy of around fifty trucks carrying American-made light weapons has entered northern Iraq, while Turkey has deployed extra troops along its border with Iraq. The reports gave no indication of how many troops had been deployed along the 400 km frontier, and the Turkish authorities have refused to comment.
However, the arms convoy that reportedly moved into northern Iraq at Habur was carrying enough light weapons to supply around 2,000 Kurds who have been receiving training from some 500 US advisers there, the reports said. (Agencies)
