U.N. Team Details Iraq’s Mustard Gas Use on Iran

Iraq is continuing to use mustard and nerve gas “on an intensive scale” in its eight-year war with Iran despite frequent pleas that it cease, according to a report by a team of U.N. experts released today.

“The secretary general cannot but express his deep regret at the mission’s conclusion that chemical weapons continue to be used against Iranian forces and positions,” U.N. chief Javier Perez de Cuellar said in a statement.

The 53-page report consists of two parts based on visits at the requests of the two governments to both Iran and Iraq.

It said clinical examinations of nine Iraqi soldiers showed their injuries had been produced by mustard gas. The Iraqis displayed mortar grenades that showed evidence of mustard gas and said they had been used by the Iranians, the team said.

The section on Iraq’s use of the weapons is more detailed, involving more patients and locations and studies of chemical bomb fragments. The report describes numerous injuries caused by mustard gas, but said the investigators could not confirm reports of nerve gas use because it disappears quickly.

Iran has charged that Iraq had used chemical weapons frequently and on a massive scale, killing thousands of people in the spring.

Iran ‘Ready’ for Truce

Meanwhile, the Iranian U.N. envoy said today that Iran, the U.N. secretary general and the Security Council were ready to announce a cease-fire in the Gulf war but were being halted by Iraq.

Ambassador Mohammad Jaafar Mahallati said Iraq was “persisting for a precondition, namely face-to-face talks, before a cease-fire.”

Mahallati reiterated Iran could consider face-to-face talks only after a cease-fire was in effect.

“As far as we, Iran, and the Secretary General and the Security Council are concerned, I think everything is ready for the announcement of a D-Day,” he told reporters.

He was commenting on separate talks Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar has been holding for almost a week with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati and his Iraqi counterpart, Tareq Aziz.

D-day is the U.N. designation of a date for putting into effect a year-old Council resolution--accepted by Iran only on July 18--which calls for a cease-fire, a troop withdrawal to internationally recognized boundaries, a prisoner of war exchange and other provisions.