BAGHDAD, 3 March 2003 — Iraq yesterday announced the excavation of large quantities of anthrax and the deadly nerve agent VX as it stepped up disarmament activities, saying it was doing all it could to avert a US-led war.
At the same time the US-British alliance against Iraq grappled with military and diplomatic setbacks.
As more than 240,000 troops were in the Gulf awaiting orders to strike, Iraqi technicians destroyed a second batch of banned missiles and experts met to discuss means to verify Baghdad’s claims that it has destroyed its biological and chemical weapons.
Iraqi presidential adviser Amer Al-Saadi announced that experts had dug up bomb fragments filled with tonnes of toxic agents which Iraq insists it destroyed after the 1991 Gulf War without UN supervision.
“So far we have reached a figure not quite 157 (tonnes of anthrax), but we are nearing it, there is work in progress,” he told a news conference. Saadi added that 1.5 tonnes of VX still to be accounted for “was unilaterally destroyed” and was being discussed with UN experts yesterday evening.
Saadi, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s scientific adviser, also said the destruction of the banned Al-Samoud 2 missiles, ordered by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, would stop if the United States decides to wage war against Iraq unilaterally.
“If it turns out that America is not going the legal way, why should we continue (with the destruction of prohibited missiles)?” Saadi asked, referring to a new draft resolution before the UN Security Council that could authorize military action. He said Iraq was doing its utmost to avert a US-led war. “My task, my only task (is) to remove all excuses for waging war. ... If war today takes place, it is not because Iraq did not do all it should regarding disarmament.”
London’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that Washington and London were prepared to launch an attack immediately after a new UN Security Council vote, regardless of its outcome.
A senior minister told the Telegraph: “Win or lose at the UN, the Iraqi Army will get flattened quickly. It will be almost immediate. We are not going to hang around.”
And New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday she believes war in Iraq was likely around March 17. She predicted a UN Security Council debate on the issue to open Friday, adding: “It’s thought that the United States and Britain will be ready to go to war on the 17th or that week thereabouts.”
Iraq yesterday destroyed six more Al-Samoud 2 missiles. Four missiles were destroyed Saturday out of a total of about 100 in what Blix called a “very significant piece of real disarmament”, while Washington dismissed the move out of hand as a propaganda stunt.
Proof of the destruction of chemical and biological weapons — which Washington claims the Iraqis are concealing and could pass them on to terrorist groups — was a key demand in a report by Blix to the UN Security Council two weeks ago.
