U.N. Short on Evidence, Cooperation

UNITED NATIONS -- Top U.N. arms experts told the Security Council on Thursday that no “smoking gun” has been found in Iraq so far, but they charged that Saddam Hussein’s regime has not cooperated fully with weapons inspectors.

“We need more proactive support on the part of Iraq to be able to move quickly to implement our mandate,” Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the council in a status report on the inspectors’ efforts to uncover weapons of mass destruction.

Chief inspector Hans Blix also reported to the council that Iraq had violated U.N. sanctions by buying engines for missiles and raw material for their fuel. He said inspectors had confirmed the presence of a “relatively large number” of the engines, and some were imported as late as last year.

Although the Baghdad regime has provided ready access to facilities, important gaps still exist in the information needed to determine whether Iraq is hiding forbidden weapons, Blix said.

“Prompt access is by no means sufficient to give confidence that nothing is hidden in a large country with an earlier record of avoiding disclosures,” he added.

“The absence of smoking guns and the prompt access which we have had so far and which is most welcome is no guarantee that prohibited stocks or activities could not exist at other sites, whether above ground, underground or in mobile units,” he said.

Blix and ElBaradei told council members that major issues need to be resolved.

Discrepancies exist in the number of chemical munitions left over in Iraq after its 1980-88 war with Iran. Lists of scientists who worked in weapons programs are incomplete and do not even include people who were previously named in documents submitted to the United Nations.

“We do not feel that the Iraqi side has made a serious effort to respond to the request we made,” Blix said.

ElBaradei said the willingness of Iraqi scientists and other personnel to be interviewed privately “remains a limiting factor.”

He said that in two cases in which nuclear arms searchers asked that questioning be private, the individuals requested the presence of an Iraqi government observer.

The Nov. 8 resolution that sent the inspectors to Iraq specifically mentions the need for interviews.

It states that arms searchers may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, or facilitate the travel of those interviewed and their family members outside of Iraq.

Further, it states that at the “sole discretion” of the inspectors, the interviews “may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraqi government.”

The disclosures by the U.N. experts prompted warnings from members of the Security Council.

“On the basis of both our own review of Iraq’s declaration and the first few weeks of inspections, there is still no evidence that Iraq has fundamentally changed its approach from one of deception to a genuine attempt to be forthcoming in meeting the council’s demand that it disarm,” U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte said during the closed-door meeting, according to a transcript.

“Iraq’s cooperation with inspections to date has been legalistic and superficial,” he added.

Jeremy Greenstock, the ambassador from key U.S. ally Britain, also expressed concern. “As the days go by, I think the failure to proactively cooperate ... will be an increasingly serious matter,” he said.

But even as the complaints about Iraqi cooperation echoed in the halls of the United Nations, there were signs that the inspections will run on well beyond the Jan. 27 due date for the inspectors’ first comprehensive report to the Security Council.

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Cabinet members that Jan. 27 should not be seen as a deadline for a military campaign against Iraq and that the arms searchers should be given time to do their job.

Greenstock repeated his government’s view bluntly to the scores of reporters gathered outside the Security Council’s chambers.

“My advice is to calm down about the 27th of January,” he advised.

In Baghdad, the government’s chief science advisor disputed assessments by Blix and ElBaradei in the council that Iraq’s 12,000-page weapons declaration, which was handed to the U.N. last month, was incomplete.

“People who claim there were gaps, I could tell you right away they have not read it,” Gen. Amir Saadi said. “There were no gaps, and I could give you where to find the answers in the specific pages or tables and information.”

During his appearance before the council Thursday, Blix gave the massive document low marks.

“It is rich in volume but poor in new information about weapons issues and practically devoid of new evidence,” he said.

After the meeting, a Western diplomat provided a much harsher review, saying: “We asked for a declaration. We got a bundle of paper in very high volume and very low quality.”

Referring to efforts to speak to Iraqi scientists, Blix told reporters after the meeting that a lot of interviews have been carried out and a lot of information has been gathered when inspectors visit installations.

But, pointing out that Iraq is a totalitarian state, he said: “We do not want to have interviews where people are intimidated. That happened in the past.

“We are ready to use the options we can, and, at the same time, we cannot force any individual to speak if he doesn’t accept that. We cannot force anybody to go abroad or force them to defect,” Blix said.

ElBaradei said he and Blix will travel to Baghdad later this month and will press the Iraqis for a complete list of scientists.

He told the council that, to date, no evidence of a prohibited nuclear program had been discovered, although laboratory tests of materials collected by the inspectors are not complete.

ElBaradei said aluminum tubes that were initially suspected of being part of a clandestine nuclear arms program appear to be destined for other uses.

He told the council that inspectors need to find out what happened to Iraq’s stockpile of the high explosive HMX, which can be used to detonate nuclear weapons.

“They have told us some of the HMX material has been used in cement mines, and we are going through the accounting of all the HMX material in Iraq before we come to a conclusion,” ElBaradei said.

Negroponte told council members that concerns of the United States included 3,000 tons of chemicals, some of which could be used for the production of nerve gas, and possible mobile biological laboratories.

“Iraq is very familiar with the fact that only declarations supported by evidence will give confidence about the elimination of weapons,” Blix said. “In this respect, we have not so far made progress.”