27 gennaio 2003 09:57
UN inspectors deliver key reports as US talks war
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 (Reuters) - U.N. weapons inspectors
deliver a crucial report on Monday saying they have been unable
to resolve key questions about Iraq's former arms programs but
not corroborating U.S. charges that Iraq has rebuilt its
arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
After two months and more than 350 inspections, the
reports by inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to the
U.N. Security Council (10:30 a.m. EST) (1530 GMT) are expected
to fuel U.S. arguments in favor of war but prompt other
nations, including France and Russia, to say inspections should
go on.
To underline the Bush administration's aims, Secretary of
State Colin Powell, only hours before the report, said the
United States would go to war against Iraq alone if European
allies would not join the fight, regardless of inspections.
"To those who say, why not give the inspection process more
time, I ask, how much more time does Iraq need to answer these
questions?" Powell told an audience at the annual World
Economic Forum at Davos in the Swiss Alps.
Blix, a 74-year-old Swedish diplomat in charge of chemical,
biological and ballistic arms teams, has listed unresolved
issues, which his staff said were not settled after he and
ElBaradei, responsible for nuclear weapons programs, came back
from a trip to Baghdad last weekend.
OBTAINED MISSILE ENGINES
He has said that documents Iraq submitted in a 12,000-page
weapons declaration submitted on Dec. 7 have not answered
questions about its former weapons programs, including the
whereabouts of the deadly VX nerve gas, 2 tons of nutrients or
growth media for biological agents, such as anthrax, and 550
artillery shells filled with mustard gas, among others.
His teams have also found that Iraq, which says all weapons
had been accounted for or destroyed since the 1991 Gulf War,
obtained missile engines as well as raw material for rocket
fuel and chemical agents, a violation of an arms embargo that
is part of 12-year old U.N. sanctions.
And despite assurances from Iraq that it would encourage
its scientists to submit to private interviews, no such talks
have taken place and Baghdad has blocked the use of U-2
surveillance flights over all parts of Iraq.
"Satellites can't loiter over an area. If you have
inspections in an area, a U-2 can hover over it," Blix said.
But at the same time the inspectors have not found evidence
of banned activity or production facilities at any of the sites
investigated that the United States says exist.
Both Britain, whose officials briefed reporters on
intelligence findings on Sunday, and the United States say they
have evidence of Iraq squirreling missile parts out of a
production site or trucks leaving facilities during
inspections. Blix, after his return from Baghdad, said Iraq had
generally opened all sites to inspectors, who had not found
"any hidden large quantities of anything."
THOUSANDS OF DOCUMENTS
Blix's U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission teams, however, found thousands of documents hidden
in the home of an Iraqi scientist, and at least 16 empty and
undeclared chemical warheads, which are being tested.
ElBaradei, director of the Vienna-based International
Atomic Energy Agency, has prepared a 22-page report in which he
intends to make the case for continued inspections.
"I think we are making good progress in the nuclear area.
We, just as I said, need to exhaust the option of inspection,"
he said on arrival on Sunday.
ElBaradei earlier this month also told the Security Council
that aluminum tubes Iraq tried to purchase were meant for
artillery rockets they are allowed to have and not for
enriching uranium for a nuclear program, as the Bush
administration had claimed last autumn.
The U.N. Security Council debates the crisis on Wednesday,
amid strong signs the United States has delayed a formal
decision to go to war for several weeks. Germany, which holds
the rotating presidency of the council for February, would like
another report from inspectors on Feb. 14.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has sent thousands
of troops to join a U.S. military build-up in the Gulf, has
also said inspections should continue for a bit longer.
"I don't believe it will take them months to find out
whether he is cooperating or not, but they should have whatever
time they need," Blair said on BBC television over the
weekend.
In Davos, Powell said the United States would carefully
study the report of the inspectors and consult other members of
the deeply divided U.N. Security Council before acting.
But he made clear time was running out.
"We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid
Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction," Powell said. "When we
feel strongly about something, we will lead; we will act, even
if others are not prepared to join us."
((Reporting by Evelyn Leopold; Reuters messaging:
[email protected]; 1-212-355-7424)
Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited.
