Prospects for a peaceful resolution to the standoff in the Persian Gulf appeared to dim Thursday as the United States accused Iraq of again deliberately attempting to mislead the United Nations.
Calling the 12,000-page declaration of weapons capabilities Iraq submitted to the U.N. earlier this month "a catalog of recycled information and flagrant omissions," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell slammed Iraq for lack of candor.
"We are disappointed, but we are not deceived," Powell said. "This declaration is consistent with the Iraqi regime's past practices. We have seen this game again and again; an attempt to sow confusion to buy time, hoping the world will lose interest."
Powell also said that the U.S. now considers Iraq in "material breach" of U.N. Resolution 1441, which calls on the Gulf nation to fully disclose all of its weapons of mass destruction and weapon-making capabilities. Material breach is a legal term used to describe when one party fails to live up to the terms of a previously agreed-upon arrangement.
The Bush administration has been promising immediate action against Iraq if the nation is found to have violated 1441. But despite the tough talk from Powell, the U.S. says it will continue to wait for the team of U.N. weapons inspectors currently in Iraq to complete its work before considering further, possibly military, action.
Still, Powell warned, "Iraq is well on its way to losing this last chance" and that "the world will not wait forever."
Powell was not alone in criticizing the Iraqi declaration of weapons and weapon-making capabilities. Earlier in the day, U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix also said that the document contained less than the U.N. had requested. "There has been relatively little given in the declaration by way of evidence concerning the programs of weapons of mass destruction," Blix said after a briefing of the United Nations Security Council. Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, expressed similar sentiments.
But neither Blix nor El Baradei went as far as Powell in describing Iraq's declaration as a material breach. And Blix emphasized that, despite what he considered to be omissions from the report, Iraq could still comply with the U.N. resolution.
"An opportunity was missed in the declaration to give a lot of evidence. They can still provide it orally but it would have been better if it was in the declaration," he added.
Iraq rejected the U.S. charges, calling them "baseless."
"I would like to confirm that the Iraqi declaration is complete and comprehensive," said Mohammed Salmane, Iraq's deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Salmane said that the completion of weapons inspections in Iraq would demonstrate that Iraq had provided full disclosure in the document.
In his critique of the Iraqi report, Powell said that the document failed to address key questions that were raised during previous rounds of U.N. weapons inspections. Inspectors were last allowed into Iraq in 1998.
Shortly after Powell concluded his remarks, State Department officials distributed a "fact sheet" detailing many of the questions the Iraqi declaration had failed to answer. For example, the report did not account for 2,160 kilograms of growth media, which Iraq is believed to have previously possessed and which can be used to produce anthrax.
As the inspections in Iraq continue, Powell said the U.S. would insist that Iraq's scientists be interviewed in locations where they could speak freely about the country's weapons development plan, perhaps outside Iraq itself.
Powell also said that the U.S. expects U.N. weapons inspectors to continue to pore over the Iraqi document while redoubling efforts inside Iraq to seek out evidence of weapon-making materials.
