Blix Raps Iraq for Gaps in Arms Program Disclosure By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - With the United States escalating threats of war, the chief U.N. arms inspector sharply criticized Iraq on Monday for not disclosing all of its long-range missile, chemical and biological arms programs.
But Hans Blix, in addressing the U.N. Security Council, was not able to corroborate U.S. claims that Baghdad had rebuilt its weapons of mass destruction arsenal, saying he could not at the moment give a verdict one way or another.
However, Blix delivered his toughest assessment yet on Iraq's cooperation, particularly on Baghdad's 12,000-page arms declaration submitted on Dec. 7.
"It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of catch as catch can," he said. "Iraq appears not to have come to genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it."
After two months and more than 350 inspections, the reports by Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who is in charge of nuclear teams, fueled U.S. arguments in favor of war but prompted China, Russia, Germany, France and other nations to argue immediately that inspections should continue.
Blix, however, did not ask for more inspection time. ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, did and told the council he had "found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the program in the 1990s."
The U.N. Security Council debates the Iraq crisis again on Wednesday, a day after President Bush (news - web sites)'s State of the Union address, amid strong signs Washington has delayed any decision to go to war for several weeks. Bush is expected to lay out the case for possible war against Iraq in his address.
The council will hear from inspectors Blix and ElBaradei 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 (news - web sites) 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, U.S. Treasuries, the dollar and oil all weakened after the inspectors spoke.
U.S. ACCUSATIONS OF NON-COMPLIANCE, IRAQ OBJECTS
The United States, represented by Ambassador John Negroponte, immediately said Baghdad's lack of cooperation showed Iraq was in violation of a tough Nov. 8 Security Council resolution 1441 that threatens "serious consequences" in case of non-compliance.
"Iraq is not complying (and) it is not cooperating and it is time for the council to think about how it's going to respond and that will be the subject of this week's discussion," said another senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
To underline the Bush administration's aims, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), on the eve of the report, said the United States was prepared to go to war against Iraq alone if European allies would not join the fight.
Powell on Sunday also raised anew the Bush administration's claim of links between Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), saying Baghdad had "clear ties to terrorist groups, including al Qaeda." Washington blames al Qaeda for Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. But several members of Congress said on Sunday they had yet to see supporting evidence.
Iraq's U.N. 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.
Outside U.N. headquarters, hundreds of people protested against the war, holding up signs reading, "Let the Inspectors Work" and "No to Bush's Oil War." Seventeen people were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.
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 U.N. ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters.
"Flowing from this is the need for inspections to continue," Lavrov said.
And China's U.N. 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.
But Britain, which is amassing troops in the Gulf to augment the U.S. military build-up, while critical of Iraq, noted the inspectors would report again on Feb. 14.
"Most members of the Security Council, if not all members of the Security Council, regard this as a part of an ongoing process," British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock said.
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.
LIST OF UNRESOLVED ARMS ISSUES
Blix, a 74-year-old Swedish diplomat in charge of chemical, biological and ballistic arms teams, listed a series of unresolved issues.
He said that documents Iraq submitted in its Dec. 7 weapons declaration had not answered key questions. Among them were the whereabouts of the deadly VX nerve gas, 2 tons of nutrients or growth media for biological agents, such as anthrax, 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas and an accounting of 6,500 chemical bombs.
His teams have also found that Iraq 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.
Blix's teams, however, found thousands of documents hidden in the home of an Iraqi scientist, and at least 16 empty and undeclared chemical warheads, which he said were still being tested and analyzed.