Blix says he will change Iraq assessment
Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said tonight he will change his critical assessment of Iraq’s disarmament based on the country’s decision to destroy its Al Samoud 2 missiles.
“It is a very significant piece of real disarmament,” he said as he arrived at the United Nations in New York.
“As the reality changes, my reports change,” he said.
Blix said he received a letter from Iraq agreeing “in principle” to begin destroying the surface-to-surface missiles on Saturday, the deadline imposed by the chief weapons inspector.
In a draft report on the last three months of inspections, Blix called Iraq’s disarmament “very limited” because Baghdad had not provided crucial evidence about chemical, biological and missile programs.
The draft made no recommendations on future inspections. It is expected to be given to Security Council members tonight.
“When this report was written I had to note that while they had taken a number of steps” to accommodate inspectors, Iraq had taken no action regarding its missiles, Blix said today.
“So by next week, when I’m introducing my report in the Security Council, there surely are going to be more (updates),” Blix said.
Iraq’s co-operation is expected to be a key factor as nations on the deeply divided council decide whether to support a US-British-Spanish resolution to authorise a war against Iraq or a rival French-Russian-German proposal to strengthen and continue inspections.
The 17 page draft criticised Baghdad for missing an opportunity to clear up outstanding issues about its weapons programmes in its 12,000 page declaration submitted in December, which provided “little new substantive information.”
Blix also said he didn’t understand why Iraq waited until mid-January to take steps that could lead to the discovery of banned items or evidence about long-standing disarmament issues.
“If they had been taken earlier, they might have borne fruit by now,” he said.
“The results in terms of disarmament have been very limited so far,” Blix said.
Blix’s prior assessment that Iraqi co-operation had been ”very limited” was beneficial to the United States, but the draft report also contained ammunition for supporters of beefed-up weapons inspections to peacefully disarm Iraq.
Before its reluctant decision to comply with the missiles order, Iraq stepped up efforts to clarify outstanding issues about its weapons programmes.
A commission set up by Iraq to search for banned weapons should “do the job that inspectors should not have to do, namely, tracing any remaining stock or store of proscribed items anywhere in Iraq,” the draft report said.
But since the commission was established on January 20 it has only turned up four empty 122 mm chemical munitions and ”two complete R-400 aerial bombs” - one of which may be filled with a biological agent, Blix said.
A second Iraqi commission charged with finding missing documentation could also be important, Blix said. It has turned up documents about the country’s unilateral destruction of weapons.
Blix discussed the report earlier this week with his advisory College of Commissioners. In the draft report, they commended its approach, “in particular, its indication of actions Iraq could take to help resolve particular issues, which could only be successful if Iraq provided immediate, unconditional and active co-operation.”.
