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A matter of time, and
timelines
By Robert McMahon
NEW YORK - United States officials are concerned
by the plans of the chief United Nations weapons
inspector Hans Blix to follow the procedures set by
1999's Resolution 1284, which established his inspection
mission. Those procedures allow for Blix to present the
council with a new work program on Iraqi disarmament by
March 27, which could delay US efforts to get council
backing for a military confrontation against Iraq.
Council members France and Russia oppose moves
to undo that timeline, and the issue is seen as
potentially divisive for the council. Yet the US has
failed to persuade other Security Council members to
defer plans by Blix to report on Iraqi disarmament in
late March.
The US ambassador to the United
Nations, John Negroponte, told reporters recently that
Washington is concerned about sending the wrong signal
to Iraq. "We do have some question as to whether March
27 is the right time to outline the key remaining
disarmament tasks of UNMOVIC [the UN Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission] and to talk
about an ongoing verification and monitoring regime,
because we believe that that could leave the impression
that most of the disarmament tasks had already been
accomplished," Negroponte said.
Negroponte said
that the matter of timelines would be raised again after
the next scheduled report on January 27 by Blix and the
director of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
Mohammad ElBaradei. Negroponte stressed the importance
of keeping Iraq under pressure to comply with Council
Resolution 1441, approved in November, which gives
inspectors a strong mandate. "Both resolutions are
valid. Both of them are in force," he said, adding, "I
think there was a harmony of views within the council
that however we handled differences or nuances of
interpretation, that it's got to be done in a way that
maintains council unity on the one hand and keeps the
pressure on Iraq to cooperate immediately,
unconditionally and proactively with the inspection
regime."
Washington has stressed that the second
resolution requires urgent compliance from Iraq, and it
has accelerated troop deployments in the Persian Gulf
region to underline its seriousness.
Britain,
the United States' top ally, has contributed to these
deployments but has also expressed support for giving
inspectors more time to do their work. Britain's UN
ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, repeated this week that,
unless there are any dramatic findings, his country sees
the January 27 briefing by inspectors as part of a
series of reports. "The two resolutions both have their
jobs to do. [Resolution] 1441 is more pressing. We see
the next report of the inspectors as one of a series, a
series that's already started. We're fairly sure that
that series will continue into February and on,"
Greenstock said.
UN inspectors in Iraq,
meanwhile, appear to have intensified their search for
signs of chemical, biological, nuclear or ballistic
missiles or programs to develop them. Last week the UN
inspection mission reported the discovery of 11 empty
122-millimeter chemical warheads. The significance of
the finding was not immediately clear: Iraqi officials
said that the materials were already listed in the
country's December declaration on weapons of mass
destruction, but a UN spokesman in Baghdad told the
Associated Press that the warheads had not been
declared. Such an omission, coupled with a failure to
cooperate with inspectors, could constitute a further
"material breach" under Resolution 1441. Inspectors
recently also searched the homes of two Iraqi scientists
in Baghdad. One scientist was later taken to an
inspection site outside the capital before returning to
the inspectors' hotel with a box of documents.
Blix and ElBaradei flew to Iraq on Sunday to
address a range of what they said are unanswered
questions, including Iraqi programs to use anthrax, the
nerve agent VX, and other biological agents as weapons.
Iraqi presidential adviser Amir al-Saadi told a
news conference that his country was ready to answer any
questions. But he expressed doubt about Iraq's ability
to be more proactive in helping inspectors. "What is
required from us? If [it is] something like bringing
weapons out in the open and saying: 'Here we are. These
are the hidden weapons. Take them'. If you call that
'proactive', that will never happen, because we simply
don't have those weapons," al-Saadi said.
Blix
and ElBaradei have also said they doubt Iraqi statements
concerning their personnel associated in the past with
programs on weapons of mass destruction. Blix told the
council last week that Iraq had given a list of names
that included 117 experts for its chemical sector, 120
people for the biological sector and 156 people for the
missile sector. But he said this list did not include
experts listed on previous Iraqi weapons declarations.
A spokesman for Blix, Ewen Buchanan, told UN
Radio that the issue will be addressed in the upcoming
meetings in Baghdad. "Another issue which will be raised
is this list of Iraqi personnel which Iraq provided us
earlier, which we found inadequate, and we will hope to
get more information from the Iraqis on all of these
issues. It's an opportunity for them to give us anything
prior to Dr Blix having to write this 27th-of-January
update on the 60 days of inspections. So it's an
important time line," Buchanan said.
UN
officials say that if the experts once associated with
banned weapons programs can be proven to have moved to
authorized areas of work, this could strengthen Iraq's
assertions that it has eliminated its programs for
weapons of mass destruction.
Copyright (c)
2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC
20036
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