The United Nations' top weapons inspectors appeared before the Security Council Friday morning to deliver their latest status reports. Their presentations, long on technical specifics but short on major conclusions, appeared to give both sides in the ongoing debate plenty to chew on.
Chief chemical and biological weapons inspector Hans Blix and Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said Iraq had become more cooperative with inspectors since the last time the two presented at the U.N. on January 27. But Blix and ElBaradei also said Iraq must do more to answer questions about the presence of weapons of mass destruction within the country and about its weapons-making capabilities.
Blix said his team found evidence that Iraq possesses several items forbidden by U.N. resolutions, though none of the items was explicitly related to the production of chemical or biological agents.
In his presentation, Blix returned to a theme he sounded during his previous appearance at the U.N. He said Iraq had essentially met the requirements of the Security Council's Resolution 1441 on "process" by granting inspectors much of the access they have requested.
"In my 27th of January update to the council, I said that it seemed from our experience that Iraq had decided in principle to provide ... prompt access to all sites," he said. "This impression remains."
But Blix said Iraq's performance had not been satisfactory on "substance."
"The period of disarmament through inspection could still be short if ... 'immediate, active and unconditional cooperation' were to take place," Blix said, invoking language from Resolution 1441, passed by the Security Council last fall.
Blix said Iraq had demonstrated increased cooperation by:
- Decreasing the ratio of Iraqi "minders" that accompany inspectors during visits to facilities from five to one, to one to one.
- Allowing U.S. U-2 and French Mirage spy planes to commence reconnaissance flights over Iraq.
- Allowing inspectors to conduct 400 inspections at more than 300 sites.
"Access was almost always provided promptly," he said.
Blix said his team of inspectors has yet to discover any conclusive evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. "So far, UNMOVIC has not found any such weapons, only a small number of empty chemical munitions, which should have been declared and destroyed."
Still, Blix said Iraq had yet to answer key questions about the presence of chemical weapons within the country. He said the country had not sufficiently explained the whereabouts of 1,000 tons of chemical agent it previously indicated it possessed.
Blix also cited several examples of how Iraq was currently in violation of previous U.N. resolutions. He said Iraq possesses a system that could fire a missile more than 150 kilometers. "The missile system is therefore proscribed for Iraq," he said. Blix also said Iraq was found to possess the ability to arm missiles that could travel beyond the distance limit.
In concluding, the inspector declined to specifically identify a timetable to complete his team's inspections, but he said the period of time required to resolve the outstanding questions for Iraq could be short if the country were more forthcoming with information.
Perhaps alluding to mounting impatience on the part of the United States, Great Britain and others, Blix said of the Iraqi government, "They evidently need to work fast and effectively to convince us and the world that it is a serious effort."
For his part, chief nuclear inspector ElBaradei said his inspectors had yet to uncover evidence that Iraq possesses nuclear arms or the capability to produce them. But, like Blix, he said Iraq had yet to answer a number of important questions.
ElBaradei commended Iraq for providing his team an expanded list of relevant officials with knowledge of the country's nuclear program.
In regard to the issue of whether Iraq has imported uranium since the 1980s, ElBaradei said the International Atomic Energy Agency "recently received some additional information relevant to this issue, which will be further pursued, hopefully with the assistance of the African country reported to have been involved." But he declined to identify the nation or to say when the matter would be clarified. Uranium is a key ingredient used in nuclear reactors.
Addressing the subject of high-strength aluminum tubes, which the U.S. has said Iraq was planning to use to develop chemical weapons, ElBaradei said investigation into the matter is ongoing.
ElBaradei said his inspectors had acquired more than 2,000 pages from a top Iraqi scientist on January 16, but that "nothing in the document alters the conclusion previously drawn by the IAEA concerning the extent of Iraq's laser enrichment program."
Finally, ElBaradei said he was hopeful that recent actions by the Iraqi government demonstrated an increased willingness to cooperate with inspectors. He called the Iraqi legislature's adoption of a resolution prohibiting activities related to the developing of nuclear weapons "a step in the right direction."
Reaction to the weapons inspectors' statements fell somewhat predictably along previously staked-out lines. The United States and Great Britain, which have repeatedly claimed that Iraq is in breach of U.N. Resolution 1441, said the Blix and ElBaradei presentations buttressed their contention that military action could be the only way to get Hussein to disarm. France, Russia and China continued to argue that the inspectors are making progress and should be given more time to complete their work.
Speaking on behalf of the United States, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "What we need is not more inspections. What we need is not more immediate access. What we need is immediate, active, unconditional, full cooperation on the part of Iraq. What we need is for Iraq to disarm."
Powell also reiterated that the United States believes a military presence in the Gulf region is the only way to get Iraq to comply with U.N. resolutions.
"The threat of force must remain," he said. "Force should always be a last resort. I have preached this for most of my professional life as a soldier and as a diplomat. But it must be a resort."
Speaking on behalf of France, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin argued that now is not the time for military response. "War is always the sanction of failure," he said. "The use of force is not justified at this time. There is an alternative to war: disarming through inspections."
—Ethan Zindler
