BAGHDAD/BRUSSELS, 17 January 2003 — The United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq yesterday found empty warheads designed to carry chemical warfare agents, a UN spokesman said in Baghdad. It was not immediately clear whether the warheads had ever contained banned chemicals and samples were taken for testing. The United States, which is massing forces in the Gulf, has made clear it is ready to invade if the inspectors find Iraq has lied in assuring the UN that it no longer possesses chemical, biological or nuclear weaponry.
UN spokesman Hiro Ueki did not expand on the significance of the find during an inspection of the Ukhaider Ammunition Storage Area, which lies 120 km south of Baghdad. “During the course of their inspection, the team discovered 11 empty 122 mm chemical warheads and one warhead that requires further evaluation,” he said in a statement. The team had gone there to view a large group of bunkers built in the late 1990s.
“The warheads were in excellent condition and were similar to ones imported by Iraq during the late 1980s. The team used portable X-ray equipment to conduct preliminary analysis of one of the warheads and collected samples for chemical testing.” There was no immediate comment from Iraqi officials.
Iraq immediately dismissed the report of the discovery of empty warheads as a storm in a teacup over arms that had long passed their sell-by date. “These are 122mm rockets with an empty warhead. There are no chemical or biological agents or weapons of mass destruction or linked to weapons of mass destruction,” said the head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, Gen. Hussam Muhammad Amin. “These rockets are expired ... they were in closed wooden boxes ... that we had forgotten about,” he told a news conference.
Inspectors complained again yesterday that Iraq has failed to provide evidence of action it says it took to destroy stocks of banned weapons after previous UN teams left in 1998. The experts returned following a new UN Security Council Resolution, 1441, passed in November, under which Iraq faces “serious consequences” for noncompliance — a phrase that Washington interprets as meaning a war to oust President Saddam Hussein.
UN weapons chief Hans Blix said Iraq must prove it has destroyed banned weapons and let its scientists answer questions freely to defuse what he called a “very dangerous” situation. With Washington sounding impatient, Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed El-Baradei embarked on a four-day diplomatic tour that will end in Baghdad on Sunday.
“The message we want to bring to Baghdad is, the situation is very tense and very dangerous and everybody wants to see a verified and credible disarmament of Iraq,” Blix said in Brussels where he met European Union officials. On the eve of today’s 12th anniversary of the US-led 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait, all sides agreed war was not inevitable.
But Blix and El-Baradei said to avoid it, Iraq must be seen as not only cooperative but “proactive”. “One way would be to let (Iraqi scientists) talk without any minder present. Another would be to accept that they go abroad, if they want to do so,” Blix said. In Moscow, El-Baradei said: “There have been lots of open questions, particularly in the area of chemical and biological and missile weapons ... and also some in the nuclear field.” Oil prices hit two-year highs after Blix’s remarks, which renewed fears of a big supply crunch if war cuts Iraqi exports.
Iraqi presidential adviser Amir Al-Saadi said his country was ready to resolve any problems and answer any questions. “All this will be discussed and we will reply officially and hand it over to the Security Council,” Saadi said. After talks in Baghdad, Blix and El-Baradei are due to brief the UN Council on Jan. 27.
Diplomatic efforts to avoid war intensified with Russia, a veto-holding member of the Security Council, dispatching Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov to Baghdad yesterday. Russia charged that “some circles” in Washington were piling pressure on UN teams to wrap up their missions quickly, in an unusually harsh rebuke of the US role in the arms inspection process. “We are concerned by the growing pressure put on international inspectors and heads of inspection teams in Iraq by some circles in Washington,” Interfax news agency quoted Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov as saying.
Ivanov accused Washington of either hiding secret information at its disposal about Iraq’s weapons or otherwise falsely accusing Baghdad of pursuing a program of weapons of mass destruction.
Turkey, which also opposes war in Iraq, has invited five Middle Eastern leaders to Ankara next week for a summit. Turkey officially invited five countries — Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria — to a meeting to discuss ways of resolving the Iraqi crisis peacefully, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Ankara. “We have evaluated the possibility for regional countries to issue a call to the Iraqi administration to take all initiatives to allow the peaceful resolution of the problem,” Yusuf Buluc told reporters after a meeting at the ministry with the ambassadors of the five countries.
Separately, inspectors visited the Baghdad homes of two scientists yesterday, taking one of them away with a box of documents, an AFP photographer reported. Faleh Hassan Hamza left with the arms experts after a inspection of his villa in the northwestern Baghdad suburb of Al-Ghazalia lasting several hours. Hamza, director general of Al-Razi Co., which is owned by the Iraqi Commission for Military Industrialization, left with a large box stuffed with documents, the nature of which was unknown.
Journalists overheard from afar conversations between Hamza and the inspectors related to going somewhere in Baghdad to photocopy documents. Inspectors also visited the residence of another scientist living in the same street, Shaker Al-Juburi, who has ties to Iraq’s former nuclear program. (The Independent)
