Iraq Seems Unwilling to Give Up Weapons, U.N. Inspector Says

UNITED NATIONS -- In a tough report that helps bolster Washington’s contention that Iraq has no intention of coming clean, the U.N.’s chief weapons inspector told the Security Council on Monday that President Saddam Hussein does not appear to be serious about disarming.

In 60 days and 439 inspections, Baghdad has provided prompt access to inspection sites, Hans Blix reported, but has offered little proof that it has rid itself of chemical and biological weapons.

“It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of catch-as-catch-can,” Blix said. “Iraq appears not to have come to genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it.”

The report by Blix came as President Bush, who will make his State of the Union address to Congress today, faces increasingly vocal demands from domestic and foreign critics of a possible war, including some of America’s oldest allies, to make a convincing case for military action. In the wake of the long-anticipated report, inspectors are likely to have at least several more weeks to work in Iraq while the United States and other members of a sharply divided Security Council make their next moves.

Some experts said they were surprised at how tough Blix was on the Iraqis.

“It was much stronger than I expected,” said Timothy McCarthy, a former U.N. missile inspector now at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

In contrast to the strikingly negative report from Blix, Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, said his team has found no evidence so far that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program. He asked for more time for his inspectors to work, saying it “could help us avoid a war.”

The reports did not contain clear-cut evidence that would provide an easy answer for the 15-member Security Council, which will meet again Wednesday to discuss whether Iraq can be disarmed through peaceful inspections or if that must be done by force.

Britain and the U.S. are exploring the idea of introducing a resolution containing a deadline for Iraq to provide the inspectors with specific information and authorizing military action if Baghdad fails to do that. But the majority of council members showed sympathy for ElBaradei’s contention that giving inspectors more time would be “a valuable investment in peace.”

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said that this week’s talks are not likely to be conclusive. Germany, which staunchly opposes military action, will take over the rotating presidency of the council Saturday and has asked the inspectors to report again Feb. 14 -- a move that would grant the teams at least a de facto two-week extension.

Speaking after the reports were delivered to the Security Council, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who has been the Bush administration’s main voice urging a cautious approach, accused Iraq of defying the U.N.

“The Iraq regime has responded ... with empty claims, empty declarations and empty gestures,” Powell said in Washington. “It has not given the inspectors and the international community any concrete information in answer to a host of key questions.”

He said that Iraq still could avoid war by disarming. But the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, said he did not see much in the report that “gives us any hope that Iraq will disarm” voluntarily.

“They are not cooperating unconditionally,” Negroponte said. “In the days ahead, we believe the council and its member governments must face its responsibilities.”

Russia, France, China, Germany, Mexico and Syria, however, said that the inspection process is working and should be allowed to continue.

Russian Ambassador Sergei V. Lavrov concluded that “all these new finds, documents and physical evidence do not change the basic assumption under which [the inspectors] are working. They don’t have any evidence that Iraq has resumed its weapons of mass destruction program, nor can they assert that all of these programs are stopped.”

In Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said at a news conference before the inspectors’ report: “We have done everything possible to let this country and this region avoid the danger of war by the warmongers in Washington and their ally [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair. They are fond of exporting destruction and death to other parts of the world.”

In a daylong presentation to the Security Council, Blix and ElBaradei detailed their intensive searches of past weapons-related sites and surprise visits to presidential palaces and scientists’ homes. They described daily frustrations, suspicions that their target areas had been whisked clean of evidence just before their arrival, and a series of suggestive discoveries.

Strongest New Evidence

Blix said that the strongest new evidence has been in the missile field, noting that in defiance of U.N. sanctions, Iraq has developed missiles that have a longer range than it is allowed and have been altered in a way that weapons experts say could allow it to deliver a nuclear warhead.

“These missiles might very well represent prima facie cases of proscribed systems,” Blix said.

Blix also expressed concern that Iraqi authorities might be moving materiel around in an attempt to hide it. He said that a dozen recently discovered empty 122-millimeter chemical warheads were moved to a newly built bunker during the last few years, when inspectors were not in the country. He also reported plans to follow up on intelligence tips about hidden chemical weapons and mobile biological weapons labs.

The 74-year-old Swedish arms chief said that although Iraq has cooperated “rather well” in providing access to sites, authorities have blocked the flights of U-2 surveillance planes and seem to have intimidated scientists into refusing private interviews with inspectors. The U.N. teams have requested 11 interviews with people who have knowledge of Iraq’s weapons program, and all have insisted on the presence of an Iraqi official, despite what appears to have been official encouragement that they accept.

During their inspections, however, U.N. officials have pulled Iraqi personnel aside for spontaneous talks and have conducted some group interviews, ElBaradei reported.

Intelligence reports passed on to the inspectors claim that Iraqi authorities are hiding documents and weapons materials in hospitals, mosques and private homes -- even under lake beds. Acting on such a tip, the inspectors visited two nuclear scientists’ homes and carted away 3,000 pages of documents about Iraq’s efforts to enrich uranium by laser technology. Although ElBaradei said the documents did not reveal much about Iraq’s nuclear activity, Blix said that the exercise suggested a pattern of concealment of secret documents in individuals’ homes.

“We cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated,” he said.

Blix highlighted the issue as a potential subject of further disagreement, adding: “There can be no sanctuaries for proscribed items, activities or documents. A denial of prompt access to any site would be a very serious matter.”

Both inspectors said that there was almost no new information in Iraq’s 12,000-page arms declaration and that Iraq has answered only one of the inspectors’ follow-up questions. ElBaradei said he told Iraqi officials in discussions last week in Baghdad that more “proactive engagement on the part of Iraq would be in its own best interest and is a window of opportunity that may not remain open for very much longer.”

Presence Is Deterrent

The Egyptian nuclear specialist pointed out that the mere presence of inspectors acts as a deterrent and that if Iraq actively cooperated, it would take only “a few months” for them to provide assurances that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program.

“These few months would be a valuable investment in peace because they could help us avoid a war,” ElBaradei said.

Though Blix has said in the past that the inspections process could take months or a year to complete credibly, he did not ask for more time, leaving that decision up to the Security Council. Thursday, in a meeting of his agency’s commissioners, Assistant Secretary of State John Wolf urged Blix to “stick to the facts.”

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Times staff writer Marjorie Miller in Baghdad contributed to this report.