UNITED NATIONS/LONDON, 28 January 2003 — The chief UN weapons inspectors for Iraq said yesterday they had found no banned weapons in the two months so far available, but they warned Baghdad to cooperate actively to avert being disarmed by force. “Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it,” chief inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council.
While other council members said the inspectors needed more time to complete their work, the United States told them it expected them to make a decision on enforcing its resolutions on Iraq “in the days ahead”. “There is little time left for the council to face its responsibilities,” US Ambassador John Negroponte said in private consultations later, according to a transcript of his remarks published by his office.
Blix also told the Security Council that Iraq had cooperated with his investigators, but left many questions about its chemical and biological weapons unanswered. Contrary to the expectations of many diplomats, Blix did not directly ask the council for more time to complete the inspections which began Nov. 27.
But the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed El-Baradei, said several more months “would be a valuable investment in peace because they could help us avoid a war.” “No prohibited nuclear activities have been identified during these inspections” which began on Nov. 27, El-Baradei said.
He made it clear, however, that he would need several more months in order to provide any “credible assurance” that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program. “These few months would be a valuable investment in peace because they could help us avoid a war,” he said.
The two officials gave the council and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan a public one-hour briefing on progress made so far. Before the briefing, Annan told reporters that he expected the council to give the inspectors more time. “If they do need time, they should be given the time to do their work,” Annan said. “I suspect the council will allow for that time,” he added.
But in Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the United States wanted evidence that Iraq was complying fully with the council’s demand that it disarm. “If the answer is only partially yes, therefore the answer is no,” he said. The United States has clashed with other key council members over the need to give more time to the inspections, but Blix alluded only obliquely to the question.
The council met for about two hours behind closed doors immediately after the briefing before adjourning for lunch. It was due to reconvene at 2100 GMT. The Security Council debates the Iraq crisis again tomorrow, a day after President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address, amid strong signs Washington has delayed any decision to go to war for several weeks.
The council will hear from inspectors Blix and El-Baradei again on Feb. 14. But whether or not the United States will agree to another Security Council resolution authorizing war remains in doubt. Diplomats said Britain had drafted such a document, which will be a subject of discussion between Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair at a Camp David meeting on Friday.
The inspectors’ presentations did little to dispel the fear of war haunting world financial markets. Major stock indices, US Treasuries, the dollar and oil all weakened after the inspectors spoke.
Iraq’s UN ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, told reporters his country had disclosed everything. “We have no hidden reports at all. We gave everything and we put it in our report with the 12,000 pages and I think they have to carefully read this report,” Aldouri said.
The European Union sought to paper over its deep divisions on Iraq, as Britain denounced Baghdad’s cooperation as a “charade” but France and Germany called for the monitors to be given more time.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told reporters it was “important that the inspectors’ work be carried out within the time needed”. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer added: “The German position is that the inspectors should have all the time they need.”
Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency and is trying to give a single voice to the bloc’s disparate views, reiterated that the aim remains full disarmament of Iraq.
In Brussels, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the inspections a “charade” that showed Saddam was “cooperating on process but not on substance.” Turkey and Iran called for restraint and increased efforts to avert war. Russia, one of many nations opposed to war, was typical of opposition in the council to short-circuiting inspections.
“The main conclusion which we heard is that all these new finds ... is they don’t have any evidence that Iraq has resumed its weapons of mass destruction programs nor can they assert that all these programs have been stopped,” Moscow’s UN ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters. “Flowing from this is the need for inspections to continue,” Lavrov said.
And China’s UN envoy, Zhang Yishan, told reporters, “I think it is the opinion of most of the members that since we have started this process and there is no clear reason to stop it, that we should continue.”
In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he expected the Security Council to give the inspectors more time but he did not indicate how much time that might be. (The Independent)
