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Inspecting Iraq: A Record of the First 40 Days compiled by the Project on Defense Alternatives, Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 4, 2003
January 3, 2003: UN inspectors check more sites as Baghdad repeats it has no banned weapons (Agence France Presse) *************** UN inspectors check more sites as Baghdad repeats it has no banned weapons UN arms experts checked more suspected sites Friday as Baghdad insisted that it has no weapons of mass destruction ahead of chief UN inspector Hans Blix's pivotal visit to Iraq later this month. On their 35th day of work, inspectors visited Al-Rashid firm, 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of Baghdad, which is involved in missile production, and the Al-Bassel company east of the capital, the information ministry's press center said. A mixed team headed west to the town of Ramadi and a team of biologists travelled to the main southern city of Basra, it said. Experts from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been working even on Friday -- the Muslim day of rest -- since resuming arms inspections in Iraq on November 27 after a four-year break. The inspectors have visited 230 sites since the resumption of inspections, 37 of which had not been previously checked by UN experts, the head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, General Hossam Mohammad Amin, said Thursday. Reiterating that Iraq has no prohibited weapons, Amin said Blix, who heads UNMOVIC, would arrive in Baghdad in the third week of January, but there was no exact date for the visit. Iraq has invited Blix for talks to improve coordination between the two sides, ahead of a crucial report he is due to present to the UN Security Council on January 27 on Baghdad's cooperation with the inspectors. That report is viewed as a potential catalyst for whether the United States launches a military offensive on Iraq. Washington has threatened to invade unless Iraq confiscates its alleged secret weapons programme and has engaged in a massive troop buildup in the Gulf in preparation for possible military action. Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, in remarks published Friday, said the past five weeks of UN inspections had served to disprove US and British charges that Iraq is pursuing weapons of mass destruction. The experts found none of the weapons which US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair charged were in Iraq's possession, he was quoted by the official daily Al-Iraq as saying. "The inspectors visited all the sites and facilities which Bush, Blair and their media claimed were still working on so-called weapons of mass destruction programs," Ramadan said. But they "found nothing to substantiate the lies contained in the reports of these evil people, which proves that Iraq is free of mass destruction weapons," he said. As a result, "Bush's ally, (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon, came up (with the theory that Iraq's banned) weapons had been transferred to Lebanon, Syria and Libya," the Iraqi vice president said. This was a "scenario" deliberately devised "so that no one would be able to say that Iraq is free of mass destruction weapons," he added. Ramadan last week called "stupid" Sharon's claim that he had information Iraq had transferred chemical or biological weapons to neighboring Syria. Sharon also charged that Iraqi experts were working in Libya's nuclear industry. Ath-Thawra, mouthpiece of the ruling Baath Party, also repeated on Friday that Iraq had not engaged in any banned armament activity after UN inspectors fled the country in December 1998 ahead of a US-British bombing blitz. "Iraq accepted Security Council (disarmament) Resolution 1441 ... and has been cooperating fully with the arms inspectors ... in order to expose the US administration's lies about Baghdad's possession of mass destruction weapons," the paper said. *************** UN arms experts visited six sites Thursday: spokesman UN arms experts inspected six sites Thursday, the 34th day of their search for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, their spokesman said in a statement. A team of missile specialists returned to the Al-Fatah State Co. in Baghdad, a site already inspected on December 14, for technical talks with key site personnel of the Iraqi Solid Propellant Missile Programmes, Hiro Ueki said. A mixed team went to the vast Al-Taji military complex north of the capital to inspect the Ibn Firnas State Co., an engineering and procurement entity supporting the air force. The team then visited the Al-Fatah State Co. to verify information on aviation-related matters. A UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) chemical team travelled 280 kilometres (175 miles) northwest from Baghdad to inspect the Al-Hadar State Co., formerly known as Ash Sharqat Uranium Enrichment Facility, a chemical plant that produces nitric acid and ammonium nitrate. An UNMOVIC biological team inspected the Technical Military Depot for the air force at Al-Taji. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors meanwhile visited the Falluja Lead Recovery Plant and a storage site at Khan Dari, both located approximately 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of Baghdad. Experts from UNMOVIC and the IAEA resumed arms inspections in Iraq on November 27 after a four-year break. The United States has threatened to disarm Iraq by force unless it does so peacefully, but Baghdad insists it no longer has any prohibited weapons. *************** Inspector states no banned weapons found in Iraq so far UN inspectors searching Iraq for banned weapons of mass destruction have found nothing so far. An inspector, quoted yesterday from a US report by the Guardian, revealed that the "silence" of the teams was not intended to "create the illusion" they had found indications that Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weaponry. "I must say that if we were to publish a report now, we would have zilch to put in it," the unnamed inspector stated. During repeated visits to sites which formerly housed real and suspected weapons-making facilities, experts fielded by the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) have found no trace of chemical or biological agents which Iraq is alleged to possess. Installations used to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs had been "practically undisturbed" since being closed and sealed by previous inspectors. An Iraqi source said the inspectors had found nothing because there was nothing to find. The comprehensive 95-page summary of the former inspectorate's activities, produced in 1997 before the UN terminated the effort, indicated that Iraq's prohibited weapons programmes had been wound up and there were very few loose ends. Dr Amir Saadi, Iraqi liaison with UNMOVIC, said these would have been tied up if the inspectors had remained. The only recent Anglo-US allegations which seem to have some truth in them concerned the purchase and alteration of aluminium tubing. Iraq is not supposed to buy or adapt such items without receiving the approval of the UN committee vetting its acquisition of dual-use equipment. It was alleged that the tubes were meant to be used for a centrifuge to refine uranium but, during an interview last week with an Iraqi metallurgist, Mr Khadhim Mijbel, UNMOVIC discovered the tubes had been used to make battlefield rockets, which Iraq is permitted to have. UNMOVIC has repeatedly complained that the US and UK have not provided the inspectors with intelligence about materials or facilities which could prove that Iraq is in breach of Security Council resolution 1441. UNMOVIC's chief, Dr Hans Blix, has been invited to visit Baghdad this month ahead of his January 27th report to the UN Security Council. *************** Weapons teams discover nothing UN inspection teams in Iraq have found "zilch" so far, but have had little help from intelligence agencies to guide them in their hunt for illicit weapons, one of the inspectors said yesterday. "If our goal is to catch them with their pants down, we are definitely losing," the inspector told an American newspaper. "We haven't found an iota of concealed material yet." The inspector's comments - given to the Los Angeles Times - give the first direct insight into the Unmovic teams' lack of progress. Unmovic is saying nothing officially until it presents its report to the security council on January 27. "By being silent we may create the illusion that we did uncover something," the inspector told the paper. "But I must say that if we were to publish a report now, we would have zilch to put in it." Unmovic's chemical experts have found no trace of the tonnes of chemical agents that Iraq is suspected of possessing, according to the inspector. Biologists have taken air samples to check for spores, but any biological agents were probably buried or disposed of long ago. On the nuclear side, Unmovic found that the installations used to enrich uranium were "practically undisturbed" since being sealed by the previous inspectors. The only breaches of UN resolutions, the inspector said, might come from Iraq's handling of aluminium tubes which were allegedly part of a centrifuge to enrich uranium. The Iraqis say they were intended for air-to-ground missiles but were later adapted for anti-aircraft use. Altering the tubes and buying replacements without informing the UN would be a breach of resolutions on dual use goods. *************** U.N. arms inspectors start New Year with visits to four Iraqi factories including a soft drink bottler U.N. arms experts inspected four government and commercial sites in and around Baghdad on Wednesday, taking no time off for New Year's Day - much to the annoyance of a manager of a truck repair shop who complained he had to host the inspectors on an official holiday. A U.N. statement said the sites inspected included a missile maintenance facility, a brewery and Baghdad's 7UP soft drink bottling plant. It did not explain what interest the inspectors had in beer or bottling plants. Also Wednesday, Iraq's official media renewed its warning for Washington not to attack Iraq. The army newspaper Al-Qadissiya said Washington was only contemplating an invasion - which was sure to meet defeat - because it does not understand "the Iraqi character, nor the intimate deep relationship between it and the land of Iraq." U.S. and British warplanes attacked an Iraqi mobile radar system Wednesday after it entered the southern no-fly zone, the U.S. military said in a statement. The radar near al-Qurnah, about 380 kilometers (240 miles) southeast of Baghdad, was a threat to coalition aircraft, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on its Web site. The official Iraqi News Agency said the planes attacked civilian installations, killing one person and wounding two others. The U.S. statement made no mention of casualties. The inspectors made a first visit to the al-Magd company, which repairs heavy trucks, in Baghdad and a return visit to the Al-Harith workshop, 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of the capital, which does maintenance work on aging Soviet-designed SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6 anti-aircraft missile systems. The U.N. statement said the al-Harith facility contained electronics equipment and corrosion-resistant materials. At the al-Magd company, assistant director Khudeir Abbas told reporters the visit to his workshop lasted about an hour and described the inspectors' conduct as "very professional." Abbas, however, made clear he was unhappy about the visit taking place on New Year's Day. "Today is an official holiday and the beginning of the new year, yet we were forced to receive them," he said. So far, the U.N. inspectors are not known to have had any problems gaining access to Iraqi sites where they are searching for evidence that President Saddam Hussein's regime still has - or is trying to develop - chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. But this is the third time Iraqi officials have complained about the inspectors' methods. Last Thursday, Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, chief liaison to the U.N. arms experts, said the inspectors were not coordinating well with their Iraqi counterparts, sometimes calling at 6 a.m. to arrange visits that day. Later he complained that some inspectors upset managers at one inspection site by not explaining why they were conducting a search. U.N. Security Council resolution 1441, which sent the inspectors back to Iraq last month four years after the U.N. inspection program broke down, guarantees the arms experts unfettered access to any facility without advance notice. The United States has warned that any obstacles to the inspection could be considered a "material breach" of the resolution, opening the way for a military campaign to disarm Iraq. U.N. resolutions first demanded that Iraq eliminate its weapons of mass destruction in 1990 after its invasion of Kuwait. On Tuesday, U.S. military officials in Washington revealed that more American infantry troops were being sent to the Gulf to ready for a possible war, and U.S. President George W. Bush said at his Texas ranch that Iraq's response to the inspection program was still "disappointing." In its New Year's Day editorial, the official daily Al-Jumhuriya said that Iraqis remained united under Saddam's leadership in 2003 and were ready to defeat "any unjust aggression that might be launched by the bullies of the U.S. administration." The army newspaper Al-Qadissiya also said an invading force would meet a "bitter end," pointing out that the United States had been defeated in Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia and "even in Afghanistan." despite its technological superiority. It said the United States found itself in losing situations because it did not fully understand the psychology of other nations. "This means that America, which claims it knows the world countries more than they know themselves, is like a blind old woman who does not know where her legs are taking her and in which pit she will fall," the newspaper said. sny-na-ggl/jbm< *************** Repeated inspections but no hard evidence; To Iraqis, site visits are a pointless charade Outside a huge, hulking building in an industrial suburb of Baghdad, long white metal cylinders shaped like ballistic missiles sit in rows, glinting ominously in the sunshine. To American intelligence experts viewing by satellites miles overhead, the al-Nasr factory complex must look like a hiding place for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's reputed weapons of mass destruction. But when U.N. inspectors swarmed over the site, they found that the cylinders outside the building, and under construction inside, appeared to be exactly what the Iraqis said they were -- large pressured chambers in storage tanks for the nation's petroleum and petrochemical industries. Tension flared when inspectors and their Iraqi counterparts hurried from the main factory to a nearby office building and returned with a nervous Iraqi clutching a handful of keys -- a sign they had found a suspicious door that wouldn't open. Would the Iraqis find the right key? If not, would a locked storeroom be considered Iraqi stonewalling and thus another piece of evidence in the case for war? If the key were found, would the inspectors find a secret stash of documents or weapons behind the locked door? The inspectors soon emerged again, chatting amiably with the Iraqis, then got into their cars and left. The key had been found, the door opened, and nothing found amiss. Nor was anything else wrong in the factory during the three-hour visit Friday. NO HARD EVIDENCE Every day, as U.N. weapons inspectors fan out across Iraq, the news is the same -- no hard evidence of the chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or the long-range missiles, that the Bush administration insists Hussein's regime possesses. To Iraq, the result is proof the American charges are false and that there is no cause for war. "We are innocent of the U.S. charges, and the United Nations must be a fair court," said Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, director of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate. To the United States, the inspections process has failed to provide hard evidence refuting U.S. and U.N. suspicions that Iraq has unaccounted-for stocks of anthrax, botulinum toxin, mustard gas, sarin gas and VX nerve gas. "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says repeatedly, citing as proof Iraq's record of lying on its weapons declarations in past years. Put simply, the problem boils down to this: Is Saddam Hussein's regime innocent until proven guilty, or guilty until proven innocent? U.N. REVIEW COMING UP These competing presumptions will play a central role when the U.N. Security Council in late January evaluates the weapons inspections process and determines whether to authorize an invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies. Yet as the inspection of al-Nasr demonstrated, the U.N. inspections may be growing redundant to the point of near-irrelevance. Friday's visit was the third time in the past month that inspectors have gone to al-Nasr. In 1998, the factory was attacked by U.S. missiles, and from 1996 to 1998, it was visited repeatedly by U.N. inspectors. Not once was incriminating evidence found. Overall, the inspectors have made 202 site visits since they resumed work in November after a four-year hiatus. It's unclear how many of this year's inspections were repeat visits. To the Iraqis it's all a pointless charade. "We have never made missiles," said Ayad Hussein, deputy manager of the al-Nasr complex, as he led reporters through the cavernous building after the U.N. inspectors left. "They have bombed this plant, they have inspected it again and again. Why do they need to keep suspecting us?" Anger rose briefly in his voice. Then he shrugged and said blankly, "Fine, let them come again and again." REPETITIVE INSPECTIONS To explain the repetitions, U.N. spokesmen in Baghdad admit they have largely exhausted their list of possible weapons sites and must make repeat visits to stay busy. They have asked the United States to provide intelligence to help identify new sites. Although the Bush administration recently said it would share some secrets with the United Nations, it appears to have turned over little so far. Some administration officials reportedly oppose such disclosures on grounds that inspectors might leak the information to the Iraqis and that intelligence should be saved for U.S. attack planners during wartime. INTERVIEWING SCIENTISTS The other leading chance for new, incriminating information could come from interviews with Iraqi weapons experts. On Saturday, Iraq handed over a list of more than 500 scientists who had worked on the country's chemical, biological and nuclear programs. The United States is pressuring the United Nations to demand that the scientists leave the country, but chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear weapons agency, are resisting the suggestion. Although neither U.N. official has made fully clear the reasons for reluctance, some experts in the U.S. have said they fear the U.N. mission's autonomy could be called into question because CIA agents might be permitted to interview the scientists -- and presumably offer them bribes to defect. In spite of that controversy, the search for Hussein's presumed hidden weapons grinds on. While the number of U.N. inspectors has grown to about 110, and they are covering ever-wider areas of the country, their work is drawing in progressively smaller and smaller crowds of foreign journalists, who gather at U.N. headquarters every morning to follow them as they drive off to unannounced locations. PACE SLOWED DOWN When the visits started in November, the inspectors were tailed by hundreds of reporters and television crews in high-speed car chases through Baghdad -- causing several bloody traffic accidents in the process. Now, only a half-dozen cameras make the morning stakeout, and the pace is slower. Making sense of it all is difficult even for seasoned observers in Baghdad. U.N. inspectors are generally tight-lipped about their work and refer most questions to their superiors in New York. Diplomats view the Iraqi government's statements with extreme skepticism. Meanwhile, the Bush administration's apparent march toward war makes anything that occurs in Iraq seem of lesser importance. "What's happening here is an almost complete lack of information," said a European diplomat in Baghdad, who asked to remain unidentified because of what he termed "the extreme sensitivity of the Iraqi government," and because his own government tightly controls its policy statements on the issue. "If you want to find out what's going on, go to New York or Washington. That's where the news is. Here, among diplomats in Iraq, we're all in the dark." *************** Massive US buildup continues, inspectors find no arms As a massive US military buildup continued in the Gulf, UN weapons inspectors in their second month in Iraq conceded they had found no evidence of the weapons of mass destruction Washington and Britain claim exist. A spokesman for the inspectors said Baghdad, in keeping with a UN mandate, had turned over the names of some 500 scientists who had worked on military projects. There was meanwhile speculation that North Korea's escalation of its nuclear program was timed to coincide with the Iraqi crisis, to force a preoccupied United States back to the negotiating table. US President George W Bush is to send an envoy to Seoul for talks with South Korean president-elect Roh Moo-Hyun, a senior Roh aide said. The US and its allies suspended shipments to punish the energy-starved state for its perceived renewed drive to build nuclear arms. However, experts say Pyongyang is more interested in pushing ahead with nuclear brinkmanship to force the United States to negotiate at a time when it is preoccupied with Iraq. North Korea wants aid and recognition to guarantee the survival of its bankrupt communist regime, according to experts in Seoul. Paik Hak-Soon of the private Sejong Institute said Pyongyang was "cutting the salami very thinly" to ramp up pressure on Washington to force it to begin dialogue. "If the United States continues with its current game of chicken, the North would have no other choice but to go along the road to developing nuclear bombs," he said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also involved in Iraqi weapons inspections, was locked in a dispute with North Korea over Pyongyang's expulsion of IAEA monitors and reactivation of a nuclear program it had agreed to shelve. A British tabloid meanwhile claimed in its Sunday edition it had information a US-led war on Iraq would start on February 21 "at midnight". The Sunday Express said the date and time - not specifying which time zone - was given by Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a telephone call over Christmas. "The timing is confirmed by British defence chiefs, who have been told to expect war in the second or third week in February," the paper said, without giving the source of its information. There was grumbling from Gulf states about the economic effect of a regional war. Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher warned that the Middle East faced a bleak 2003 if the US led a war on Iraq amid continuing violence in the Palestinian territories. "Next year the region will witness very difficult political conditions if the escalation in the Palestinian territories continues amid the possibility of a military strike on Iraq," the official Petra news agency quoted Moasher as telling a Jordanian press syndicate meeting. Jordan is entirely dependant on Iraq for its petroleum products. And Egypt complained that revenues from shipping through the Suez Canal, which reached $US1.9 billion ($A3.4 billion) in 2002, would fall by 10 per cent in the event of a US-led war against Iraq. In 2002, 13,500 ships carrying 442 million tonnes of goods moved through the canal. Revenues reached almost $US2 billion ($A3.57 billion) in 2000, the highest recorded since the canal was inaugurated in 1879. The Suez Canal, which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, is Egypt's second main source of income after tourism. As preparations built up for possible war on Iraq, US television reported that the USS George Washington and another carrier group had been ordered to prepare to leave for the Gulf within four days. The Washington Post said Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had signed an order deploying significant ground forces, combat aircraft and logistics support to the Gulf - the last phase of the war preparations. The order identifies an array of forces and capabilities, including mechanised infantry units, midair refuellers and medical facilities to be sent to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and other Gulf nations. World powers meanwhile began hectic diplomacy over North Korea's perceived nuclear intentions as Washington refused to respond to Pyongyang's "threats and broken commitments". The IAEA said its inspectors had been asked by North Korea to leave the country by Tuesday. The team had been monitoring a reprocessing plant that can produce weapons-grade plutonium. Pyongyang said on December 12 it was reactivating the plant. The expulsion of IAEA inspectors, leaving the outside world with no means to monitor the North's nuclear program, prompted a flurry of diplomacy. South Korea was sending senior officials to the North's closest allies China and Russia, whose foreign ministers have already discussed the situation by telephone. *************** Iraq Gives the U.N. a List Of 500 Weapons Experts Iraq handed over to the United Nations office here today a list of more than 500 experts involved in the development of ballistic missiles and nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, setting the stage for one of the knottiest tasks facing the renewed inspections. The list fulfills one requirement of the United Nations Security Council's Resolution 1441, which was passed in November and re-established weapons inspections. But the extent to which these scientists will prove helpful in ferreting out any new information about Iraq's possible weapons of mass destruction remains an open question. The second Iraqi scientist interviewed by the nuclear inspectors -- even before the United Nations was given the formal list -- suggested at a news conference today that all Iraqi scientists should demand that a witness from the government be present at interviews with inspectors and that no one should leave the country to be interviewed. "How can an Iraqi man leave Iraq?" the scientist, Kadhim Mijbel, a British-educated metallurgist involved in developing light battlefield rockets, asked derisively. He noted that he had not been asked to leave but would have refused. His appearance seemingly was intended to suggest how Iraq expects all its scientists to behave. The subject of interviewing scientists is one of the most contentious provisions of the Security Council resolution. During the previous inspections of Iraqi arms sites, from 1991 to 1998, Iraq repeatedly declared that it had released a full, final and complete list of its weapons, only to have various defectors come along and disclose extensive hidden information. Thus the Bush administration put particular emphasis on giving the United Nations the right to remove scientists from the country, suggesting that they would be more forthcoming out of reach of Iraq's secret police. But Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector for nonnuclear arms, has said he does not want his inspection team to be transformed into a defections agency. The typed list, in Arabic, was delivered this afternoon to the headquarters of the weapons inspectors here and transmitted to New York as well as to the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which is responsible for inspecting possible nuclear arms sites. Hiro Ueki, a spokesman here for the inspectors, said it was impossible to characterize the list until it had been translated and studied. He said the question of taking Iraqi scientists out of the country, as well as issues of whether their families would go with them, was still under study. Iraq has said it will not block its scientists from leaving. But it is unclear just how popular the offer might prove. Mr. Mijbel's position illuminates the potential pitfalls ahead. "Only two interviews have taken place, so it's premature to conclude whether they are successful or not," Mr. Ueki said. All interviews will be voluntary, he said. In their first interview, the inspectors talked to a scientist who had been involved in the nuclear program in his university laboratory. Mr. Mijbel, though, was given 24-hours' notice through the liaison office, the National Monitoring Directorate. "It was to facilitate the interview," Mr. Ueki said. Mr. Mijbel, whose name was given differently in the official announcement on Friday, said that when an official at the directorate called about the interview, he demanded that a witness be present and refused to go the United Nations headquarters at the Canal Hotel here. "I look at this place as Guantanamo Camp," Mr. Mijbel said, referring to the base in Cuba where the United States has been holding suspected militants linked to Al Qaeda. "I am not a prisoner. I am a free Iraqi man. So I refused to meet at that place." Instead, he met the two inspectors -- Robert Kelley, the chief United Nations nuclear inspector, and Ahmed L. Gebaly -- for about an hour and five minutes on Friday in a conference room at Al Rasheed Hotel. Mr. Mijbel suggested the government-owned hotel, a slightly tattered place considered Baghdad's finest, as neutral ground. After the interview, the United Nations released a statement suggesting that the interview had been highly informative. "He provided technical details of a military program," the statement said. "This program has attracted considerable attention as a possible prelude to a clandestine nuclear program. The answers will be of great use in completing the I.A.E.A. assessment." Mr. Mijbel voiced outrage at that assessment today, saying he made it clear that he knew nothing about developing nuclear weapons or other intelligence matters. Mr. Ueki announced that he had not meant to suggest that the scientist had been involved in the past nuclear program nor that Iraq now had a hidden program. The 50-year-old metallurgist said his main connection with the military was his work as a consultant trying to stem the problem of seriously corroding aluminum pipes. http://www.nytimes.com *************** Weapons experts examine 7 sites War drums beating louder, Saddam warns Syria says it's not hiding Iraqi arms U.N. weapons experts visited seven suspect sites in Iraq yesterday, taking no break for Christmas, as President Saddam Hussein warned Iraqis the drums of war were beating louder. "They are in Baghdad to work and they will work their butts off as long as they are there," Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Christmas Eve. Teams from the IAEA and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) visited seven sites in central and southern Iraq on Christmas Day, a U.N. spokesperson in Baghdad said. The IAEA inspected the large Hatteen Fateh Explosives Factory, which produces explosives for bombs, shells and rockets and the Umm al-Maarik Factory, which produces military parts. An IAEA team joined Iraqi auditors at the Qa Qaa explosives plant where they made item counts of important dual-use materials and compared results, the spokesperson said. An UNMOVIC team inspected a liquid propane gas filling company in Taji area just north of Baghdad. Around two dozen experts who spent the night in the southern port city of Basra also inspected a paper plant. The inspectors returned to Iraq last month after a four-year hiatus to resume a hunt for banned weapons of mass destruction, amid threats of war by the United States if Iraq fails to disarm under the terms of a United Nations resolution. Yesterday, Syria brushed aside Israeli accusations that it was hiding Iraq's biological and chemical weapons. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Tuesday that Israel suspected Baghdad was transferring arms to Syria to hide them from the inspectors. Pope John Paul II, in his Christmas message from the Vatican, appealed to the world to avert conflict in Iraq. And in London, the leader of the world's Anglicans, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, used his first Christmas address to criticize the British and U.S. governments over possible war with Iraq. Meanwhile, Israeli military intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash told a parliamentary committee that a U.S. strike would logically follow the Jan. 27 deadline for the final weapons inspectors' report to the U.N. Security Council. "The assessment is that if there is an attack, it will be at the beginning of February." *************** Iraqi Scientists Quizzed in Private; U.N. Inspectors Try to Discover Extent of Nuclear Weapons Work The United Nations' nuclear arms watchdog has begun conducting closed-door interviews with Iraq's atomic energy experts, marking a critical new stage in the U.N. effort to verify Baghdad's claims that it has destroyed its most lethal weapons of mass destruction, according to a spokesman for the agency. Drawing from a list of hundreds of Iraqi officials linked to Iraq's former nuclear weapons program, officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are seeking to determine whether Baghdad secretly began rebuilding that program after U.N. inspectors left the country in December 1998 on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing campaign. While IAEA inspectors have routinely questioned Iraqi scientists at former nuclear weapons sites since they resumed inspections last month, this is the first time that they have asserted their right to conduct face-to-face interviews with individuals without the presence of an Iraqi government minder. It sets the U.N.'s nuclear sleuths ahead of their counterparts at the U.N. Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), who have yet to conduct confidential interviews with Iraq's biological, chemical weapons and ballistic missile experts. "We are moving from an information-gathering phase to a more probing, investigative phase," the IAEA's chief spokesman, Mark Gwozdecki, said in a telephone interview from the agency's Vienna headquarters. "We can't talk about who, how or how many," he said of the scientists being questioned. White House and State Department officials, meanwhile, dismissed an offer by Iraq this weekend to let CIA officials visit Iraq to participate in inspections and therefore, presumably, interviews. "It's nonsense," said one U.S. official. "The focus should be on Iraq coming clean." But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not rule out the possibility. "I don't know what the United States might consider doing," he said. "I suppose they invited intelligence people. And as I recall, I suppose the [intelligence] community is thinking about that at the present time." The Bush administration has stepped up pressure on Mohammed ElBaradei, the Egyptian director general of the IAEA, and Hans Blix, the Swedish executive chairman of UNMOVIC, to speed the pace of inspections and to exercise their authority to question some Iraqi specialists outside the country, where they can speak freely without the fear of reprisals. ElBaradei said in a recent interview that he would interview Iraqi scientists abroad if he received assurances from Washington that they could obtain political asylum or return safely to Iraq. "We are now in the process of interviewing people inside Iraq in private," ElBaradei added today in an interview with CNN. "But we are also working on the practical arrangements to take people out of Iraq." Although Iraq's nuclear weapons program was largely destroyed by U.N. inspectors after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the CIA and Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee believe that Baghdad has resumed its efforts, engaging in an intensive covert operation since 1998 to procure uranium and components that could be used in a nuclear weapons program. They have also raised concerns that Iraq has brought its nuclear weapons team back together. "In the absence of inspections, however, most analysts assess that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear program -- unraveling the IAEA's hard-earned accomplishments," according to a recent CIA report. While the IAEA declined to name Iraqi specialists who have been questioned, officials said several individuals would be obvious subjects. Jaafar Dhia Jaafar, credited by U.N. specialists with heading up Iraq's covert nuclear weapons program, and Mahdi Obeidi, a uranium enrichment specialist, are central figures in Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program. Jaafar was part of a senior Iraqi delegation that met numerous times with ElBaradei and Blix in New York and Vienna this year. Following one of those visits, Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Douri, complained that the United States approached three members of the Iraqi delegation with an offer of political asylum. The offer was rejected, he said. But it remains unclear whether Jaafar was among those who had been contacted by the United States. Pakistan, meanwhile, denied reports that the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, offered to help Iraq build a nuclear weapon in 1990. The Associated Press and the Times of London, citing U.N. documents, reported that an unidentified middleman, claiming to represent Khan, made the offer on the eve of the Gulf War. The IAEA maintained that Iraq never accepted the offer, according to the reports. "We find it preposterous," said Mansoor Suhail, a spokesman for the Pakistani mission to the United Nations. "No responsible Pakistani scientist would enter into a a nuclear deal with any country." *************** UN inspectors visit eight sites Tuesday: spokesman UN weapons inspectors visited eight sites in the Iraqi capital and outlying areas Tuesday, the 32nd day of their hunt for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, their spokesman Hiro Ueki said. Missile experts from the Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) went to Al-Mansur company, 10 kilometres (six miles) north of Baghdad, and the Al-Mamun factory near Al-Yussifiya, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) southwest of the capital. An UNMOVIC team of biologists inspected the National Centre of Drug Control and Research in Baghdad. Another team searched the Ibn Sina research centre, also in the capital. An UNMOVIC chemical team inspected two research centres in Baghdad -- the Chemical Engineering Research Design Centre, which is part of the Saad Co. and was inspected on December 29, and the Petrochemical Research and Development Centre, run by the oil ministry. Both inspections were focused on verifying the current status of their activities, as well as their activities since 1998, Ueki said. Another UNMOVIC team inspected the Chemical Corp.'s Training Centre, located approximately 120 kilometres (80 miles) west of Baghdad. The IAEA inspected the Mechanical Engineering Design Centre, which was separate from the chemical team's inspection. Experts from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resumed arms inspections in Iraq on November 27 after a four-year break. *************** Inspectors query an iraqi scientist un personnel return to metals plant to search for weapons United Nations arms specialists said yesterday that they had interviewed a scientist possibly linked to a clandestine Iraqi nuclear program. Iraqi officials said UN weapons inspectors scoured sites for signs of suspected weapons of mass destruction. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN affiliate, quizzed Kazem Mojbal, a metallurgist from the state-run Al-Raya company. Inspections team spokesman Hiro Ueki said Mojbal gave UN officials details about an unidentified Iraqi military program that "has attracted considerable attention as a possible prelude to a clandestine nuclear program." "The answers will be of great use in completing the IAEA assessment," said a statement Ueki released. A senior official in Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, the Iraqi body that deals with inspectors, said that UN officials interviewed Mojbal for an hour at Baghdad's state-owned Al-Rashid hotel. An Iraqi official was present during the interview. "For sure, I have no relationship with the nuclear program," Mojbal said on state-run television later yesterday. "I became upset during the meeting because they emphasized [providing] names of people," he said. "I'm specialized in minerals and have no relation with the previous [nuclear] program." On Tuesday. in their first session with an Iraqi scientist, UN inspectors quizzed a former member of Baghdad's nuclear program. While weapons inspectors have spoken to engineers and specialists at sites they have searched, it was the first request to interview a scientist privately. Under the toughened UN inspections regime that resumed Nov. 27, inspectors can speak privately with scientists and workers associated with Iraqi weapons and even take them abroad for interviews. US officials have said they hope the privacy will prompt scientists to reveal hidden weapons programs. UN inspections resumed one month ago yesterday after the last group of weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, before US and British warplanes bombed Baghdad for failing to cooperate with the inspections. Inspectors visited the al-Nasr al- Atheem State Company in Baghdad, a plant for chemical-processing equipment that used to be known as the State Heavy Engineering Company, the Iraqi Information Ministry said. The visit was a follow-up to one on Dec. 16. The inspectors, who resumed work in Iraq on Nov. 27 after a four-year break, had checked out the site during their inspections in the 1990s. "The company undertakes a wide range of metal working for both civilian and military purposes," Ueki said in his statement. Ayad Mohammed Hussein, assistant director of the company, told reporters that al-Nasr served the oil and electricity industries. "We do not have hidden weapons of mass destruction," he said. In their second visit yesterday, the inspectors went to al-Assriya Company, an old Baghdad factory that produces arrack, an anise-flavored liquor that is virtually the national alcoholic beverage of Iraq, the Information Ministry said. The inspections are being carried out under UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which authorizes the inspectors to visit any facility or property at any time. The resolution warns Baghdad of serious consequences if it fails to comply with the inspections. In a prayer sermon broadcast live on Iraqi state television yesterday, a preacher in a Baghdad mosque railed against US pressure on the country. "God rescue us from the Americans," Abdel-Razaq Al-Saadi said in the Abdel-Qader Al-Kailani Mosque. "It has become the duty of every Muslim to stand in the face of this American Satan, and to say no." *************** U.N. inspectors visit Iraqi milk factory International weapons inspectors in Iraq backed off on their schedule Monday, visiting a milk factory and two other sites suspected of secretly producing weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency traveled to Abi Gharib, about 20 miles west of Baghdad, to search the milk factory. The site, which is run by the ministry of industry and minerals, was hit by U.S. and British airstrikes during the 1991 Gulf War following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. "The inspectors fanned out in the factory and its production units and asked for information about certain technical matters, which we answered fully," the technical director of the General Company for Dairy Products, Youssef Nouri, said after the inspection. Meanwhile, a team of chemical experts inspected the Bitar Center for Research on Veterinary Medicine in the area of al Taji, 20 miles north of Baghdad. The chief technician at the center said: "We offered all the facilities and information which they asked for. The visit was completed without any incidents." He added the inspectors found nothing suspicious. The veterinary research center was not hit during the Gulf War and was under permanent U.N. monitoring, Iraqi officials said. The third site inspected Monday was the al Faw General Engineering Company, run by the national department of military industries. Speaking during a visit to the Jordanian capital Monday, Iraq's minister of industry and minerals said the inspection missions had obstructed the country's industrial capacity. "The mission of international inspectors is paralyzing the work of industrial installations and hindering their normal activities, and consequently influencing industrial capacities," said Maysar Shallah. The Iraqi minister reiterated his country's willingness to cooperate fully with the international arms inspectors, however. Shallah conveyed his comments on the sidelines of a conference of Arab ministers of industry in Amman. *************** CIA invited to examine suspect sites; Adviser to Saddam says U.S. claims 'discredited' Iraq denied Sunday that it had failed to tell the United Nations about hidden weapons and invited CIA agents to lead U.N. inspectors to suspected arms sites. Amir al-Saadi, an adviser to President Saddam Hussein, said at a packed news conference that questions about Iraq's arms program had been dealt with in its declaration to the United Nations and in discussions with U.N. inspectors now working in the country. Charges by the United States and Britain that the Dec. 7 declaration contained omissions and fabrications "were based on old rehashed reports" from the previous round of "discredited" U.N. arms inspections, al-Saadi said. "We are ready to deal with each of those questions if you ask us," he said. "We do not even have any objections if the CIA sent somebody with the inspectors to show them the suspected sites." Al-Saadi also said Iraq would comply by year's end with chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix's request for a list of Iraqi scientists who might have knowledge of hidden weapons programs. Washington and London, he said, should await the conclusions of the U.N. inspectors before jumping to their own. "After 24 days of inspections covering practically all the sites named in those reports and after the submission of our declaration, the lies and baseless allegations have been uncovered," he said. Al-Saadi's comments were echoed Sunday in Iraqi newspaper stories. "Everybody knows that if they had concrete information, they would have put it on television all around the world before giving it to the inspection teams," said Babil, the newspaper operated by Saddam's son Odai. And Saddam himself, meeting with a visiting envoy from Belarus, said, "We have told the world we are not producing these kind of weapons, but it seems that the world is drugged, absent or in a weak position," Iraq's official news agency reported. In particular, al-Saadi defended Iraq's disclosure of efforts to obtain uranium from Niger and South Africa, an issue raised by the State Department when it called Iraq's declaration a "material breach" of U.N. declarations --- language that laid the foundation for military action. Al-Saadi said he had already discussed the matter with leaders of the U.N. inspection team. He said Iraq had obtained uranium oxide, not uranium, from Niger in the mid-1980s and that no such procurement had been made from South Africa. "Are we hiding our procurement? We have answered on the record what we did," al-Saadi said. Al-Saadi also said allegations that Iraq was trying to manufacture the nerve gas VX were based on information manipulated by U.N. inspectors in the early 1990s. He said sealed test samples were opened before testing for traces of the deadly agent, and that European lab tests conducted later found no evidence of VX. *************** UN experts inspect former Iraqi nuclear site International weapons inspectors probed Friday the al-Tuwaitha site, the former heart of Iraq's nuclear program, a UN statement said. It was the seventh inspection of the large complex, 25 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of Baghdad, since UN arms experts resumed inspections in Iraq on November 27 after a four-year break. "Even though it was a Muslim day of rest and there was only a guard at the center, the site was made available to full inspection," said Hiro Ueki, spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). An UNMOVIC chemical team inspected the al-Tuwaitha Industrial Chemical Research Center and two IAEA teams requested access to a facility during non-standard hours at the former al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex, he said. "The complex now conducts civilian research in the non-nuclear field. The IAEA team observed work-shift levels during this non-work day period," Ueki said. The previous inspections of the site were carried out on December 4, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 15. All were undertaken by the IAEA except the one on December 14, which was by an UNMOVIC biological team. During their previous visits, the IAEA teams carried out an inventory of nuclear material from Iraq's past nuclear program. Al-Tuwaitha was the location of the French-supplied Osirak nuclear reactor bombed by Israeli warplanes in 1981. Ueki also announced that two UNMOVIC inspectors arrived in Baghdad Thursday, bringing the total number of inspectors to 115, 96 from UNMOVIC and 19 from the IAEA. Iraq insists it has no weapons of mass destruction or long-range missiles, and that it has given up and dismantled its nuclear, biological and chemical warfare programs. But the United States charged Iraq on Thursday with trying to procure uranium used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons from Niger. The accusation was contained in a fact sheet detailing what the United States says are omissions in Baghdad's declaration to the United Nations on its weapons programs. It was the second time that inspections were carried out on the Muslim day of rest. One week ago, the inspection of a Baghdad medical lab hit a snag because the key holder was away and could not be located. The UN team tagged seals on several rooms and returned to the site the next day. *************** US not sharing intelligence, say UK agencies The United States has failed to provide Britain with full details of its "solid evidence" proving that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, security sources say. There is also concern in London that the Americans are again trying to link Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida network, a link British and European intelligence agencies do not believe exists. The latest manifestations include claims that Iraq supplied an al-Qa'ida-affiliated group, Asbat al-Ansar, with the nerve agent VX for terrorist attacks. Another tale likely to surface soon, the security sources say, will be that of a Shia prisoner held by Kurds in northern Iraq who claims to have been an assassin for both al-Qa'ida and Baghdad. Proof of Iraqi subterfuge over weapons of mass destructions (WMDs) is likely to be seen as a "material breach" of the United Nations resolution, and could provide the trigger for an attack by US and British forces. But although classified information is routinely exchanged by Washington and London, British officials say they do not have the " smoking gun" the Americans claim to possess about Baghdad's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear arsenals. British officials agree President Saddam has secreted material and documents about his weaponry. But their conclusion is based on analysis of a vast amount of raw intelligence which needs to be verified. The sources believe the Bush administration is "talking up" the strength of the information on Iraq's WMDs. "We know [of] material which is unaccounted for," a senior source said. "But we have not got a definite site, a grid reference, where we can say Saddam is hiding it. If the US administration does indeed have that kind of specifics, it has not been passed on to us. The main problem is known to us all. After all, it was Paul Wolfowitz [the hawkish deputy US Defence Secretary] who said, 'Iraq isn't a country where we've had human intelligence for years'." The security agencies are putting huge emphasis on getting access to Iraqi scientists and technical officials who helped develop Iraq's old chemical, biological and nuclear programmes. But despite the United Nations chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, writing to the Iraqis to demand such a list, it has yet to be produced. Pressure on US intelligence agencies from hawks in Washington to establish that the Baghdad regime is working with al-Qa'ida and its Islamist sympathisers have failed, with the "evidence" presented being met with scepticism in the US as well as abroad. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, is also being blamed for a lack of clarity over plans for attack. The divisions he has with military commanders on strategy mean the Ministry of Defence still does not know what exactly the Americans require from Britain. *************** UN Briefing Report on Iraq Inspections FIRST PART: SITUATION REPORT ON INSPECTION EFFORT Before I take up the major subject of my briefing, which relates to the Declaration submitted by Iraq under operative paragraph 3 of resolution 1441(2002), I should like, with your permission, to report briefly on where the UNMOVIC inspection effort stands today, 41 days after the adoption of the resolution on 8 November. As you will recall, inspections resumed on 27 November. * Since then the number of UNMOVIC inspectors in Baghdad has increased from 11 to over 90. In addition there are some 55 support staff. * Since the adoption of the resolution on 8 November, we have signed over 145 employment contracts, most of them for staff in Baghdad but some to strengthen our capacity here in New York. * During the autumn, we have signed contracts for equipment and services amounting to some 32.3 million dollars, assuming that the services run for a year. Out of this, the largest part of 22.3 million will be for air operations. * Since the adoption of the resolution, we have initiated an air shuttle between Larnaca in Cyprus and Baghdad, with a field office in Larnaca and service facilities at Saddam International Airport in Baghdad. * We have recently deployed one helicopter to Baghdad and are expecting 7 more before the end of the year. All will be stationed at the Rasheed airbase, where the Iraqi authorities provide service facilities. * We have put the Baghdad Ongoing Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Centre (BOMVIC) into operation and the Iraqi authorities are cooperating with us in the establishment of a field office in Mosul. The build-up could hardly have been faster. We have benefited from the extensive preparations which we made for deployment during the past years, the training of potential inspectors, the early identification of potential suppliers and the identification of sites to be inspected at the initial phase. We have also benefited from the excellent cooperation and assistance extended to us by many divisions of the UN Secretariat in New York and by the UN organizations in Baghdad, Cyprus and Brindisi. Here, in New York, we have been given more office space necessary for our functioning but difficult to obtain in the crowded buildings of the UN. For Baghdad, we plan to expand the premises as soon as possible. The Iraqi cooperation has been very helpful for our logistical and infrastructure build-up. SECOND PART: RESULTS SO FAR OF THE INSPECTION EFFORT Let me next report on some of our activities and experiences from the past three weeks: * We have inspected 44 sites declared by Iraq or inspected by UNSCOM or the IAEA in the past, among them 3 in the Mosul area and 8 newly-declared locations. * We have inspected some sites, which were previously indicated by Iraq as sensitive or presidential. They were now inspected in the same manner as other sites. * Access to sites has been prompt and assistance on the sites expeditious. It seems probable that a general instruction has been issued not in any way to delay or impede inspection of the kind of sites we have gone to so far. This is welcome and it is to be hoped that such an instruction will extend to all sites we may wish to inspect in the future, regardless of location, character and timing. * With respect to the results of our inspections, I should note that several sites, which have been the subject of public discussion, have been inspected and questions as to their use may have been answered. * We have identified the location of some artillery shells and containers with mustard gas. They were placed under UNSCOM supervision in 1998. They will now be sampled, and eventually destroyed. * Criticism has been voiced by the Iraqi side regarding some inspections: * The inspection of a presidential site took place without problems - after a minor delay in access. However, it was subsequently stated from the Iraqi side that the inspection was unjustified and that the inspectors could not have looked for weapons of mass destruction, as they did not wear protective gear. Clearly, we do not need to justify any of our selections of sites and one does not need protective gear to look for documents or computer files. * Some sites were inspected last Friday - the Muslim day of rest. In one of them, the Iraqi staff were absent and a number of doors inside locked, with no keys available. The Iraqi side offered to break the doors open - while videotaping the event. However, they agreed with a suggestion that the doors in question could be sealed overnight and the offices inspected the next morning. Clearly, we have the right to undertake inspections at any time, night or day, whether on weekdays or religious holidays. We intend to exercise this right - not to harass - but to demonstrate that just as there are no sanctuaries in space there are no sanctuaries in time. Let me report, lastly, two formal requests that we have directed to Iraq in conformity with the resolutions of the Security Council. Under subparagraph 4 of paragraph 7 of resolution 1441 (2002), UNMOVIC has asked Iraq to provide the names of all personnel currently or formerly associated with some aspect of Iraq's programme of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. During my talks in Baghdad last month, I indicated that this request would be made and in the Declaration just submitted we find that, in several chapters, the Iraqi side has refrained from submitting names explicitly on the ground that they expected the request to come. We have asked that the names be submitted to us before the end of the year and suggested that Iraq may proceed in pyramid fashion, starting from the leadership in programmes, going down to management, scientists, engineers and technicians but excluding the basic layer of workers. The list of names may have several uses. It could, for instance, be of use to learn where those who earlier worked on the biological weapons programme, are now. Some persons on the list could be called for interviews. We certainly consider interviews in Iraq a potentially important source of information - as it has been in the past. Taking persons to be interviewed and family members out of Iraq is authorized under paragraph 5 of resolution 1441 (2002) and is an option. Although Iraq would be obliged to cooperate, the practical arrangements would have to be carefully examined. Clearly, we could not take anybody out of Iraq without his or her consent. The second formal request concerns legislation implementing Security Council resolutions. I have reminded the Iraqi side several times in the past year that it should be easy for it to enact such legislation, notably laws prohibiting legal and physical persons to engage in any way in the development, production or storing of weapons of mass destruction or missiles of proscribed range. Model legislation was, in fact, transmitted to Iraq by UNSCOM and the IAEA long ago. THIRD PART: A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF IRAQ'S DECLARATION OF 7 DECEMBER I shall now turn to discuss those parts of Iraq's Declaration of 7 December, which concern biological and chemical weapons and long-range missiles. I hope that my comments may be of some assistance especially to those Members of the Council who have only had the working version one day and who are about to begin their analytical work. Although UNMOVIC has had access to this text a whole week before the working version was made available, our analysts have been fully occupied preparing the working version and my comments must necessarily be provisional. I trust there will be a further occasion for discussion, when all have had more time for study and analysis. The first point to be made is that Iraq continues to state in the Declaration, as it has consistently done before its submission, that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, when inspectors left at the end of 1998 and that none have been designed, procured, produced or stored in the period since then. While individual governments have stated that they have convincing evidence to the contrary, UNMOVIC at this point is neither in a position to confirm Iraq's statements, nor in possession of evidence to disprove it. The purpose of the Security Council resolutions requiring Iraq to declare all WMD programmes and creating an extensive and intensive inspection system is to attain, through peaceful means, confidence that Iraq is rid of or ridding itself of all such programmes and proscribed items - verified disarmament. A declaration cannot, if it stands alone, create confidence. The listing of sites or of persons, the reporting of production, importation, destruction and consumption figures and the opening of doors, giving access to inspections, is not enough to create confidence that no weapons programmes and proscribed items remain. The statements need to be supported by documentation or other evidence. Only so do they become verifiable. During the period 1991-1998, Iraq submitted many declarations called full, final and complete. Regrettably, much in these declarations proved inaccurate or incomplete or was unsupported or contradicted by evidence. In such cases, no confidence can arise that proscribed programmes or items have been eliminated. Such was the situation at the end of 1998, when inspectors left Iraq. The many question marks are documented in a report to the Council early in 1999 (S/1999/94) and in the so-called Amorim Report (S/1999/356). To these question marks, nearly four years without any inspection activity have been added. In resolution 1441 (2002), Iraq was given an opportunity to provide a fresh declaration and to make it verifiable to the inspecting authorities by submitting supporting evidence. It remains to analyse in detail how much is clarified by the new declaration and supporting material. When we have performed a more thorough analysis, we may ask Iraq for supplementary information and clarifications. The overall impression is that not much new significant information has been provided in the part of Iraq's Declaration, which relates to proscribed weapons programmes, nor has much new supporting documentation or other evidence been submitted. New material has, on the other hand, been provided concerning non-weapons related activities during the period from the end of 1998 to the present time. It would appear that the part that covers biological weapons is essentially a reorganized version of a previous declaration provided by Iraq to UNSCOM in September 1997. In the chemical weapons area, the basis of the current Declaration is a declaration submitted by Iraq in 1996 with subsequent updates and explanations. In the missile field, the Declaration follows the same format, and seems to have largely the same content as Iraq's 1996 missile declaration and updates. Although it must be noted that much of what Iraq has provided in the weapons part of its Declaration is not new, there are some sections of new material. In the chemical weapons field, Iraq has further explained its account of the material balance of precursors for chemical warfare agents. Although it does not resolve outstanding issues on this subject, it may help to achieve a better understanding of the fate of the precursors. In the missile area, there is a good deal of information regarding Iraq's activities in the past few years. As declared by Iraq, these are permitted activities, which will be monitored by UNMOVIC to ensure that they comply with the relevant Council resolutions. A series of new projects have been declared that are at various stages of development. They include a design for a new liquid oxygen/ethanol propellant engine and replacement of guidance systems for several surface-to-air missiles. These projects will need to be investigated and evaluated by UNMOVIC. Iraq has also provided information on a short-range rocket that is manufactured using 81 mm aluminium tubes. Although this is not a new disclosure, the information may be relevant to well-publicized reports concerning the importation of aluminium tubes. At this stage, UNMOVIC has drawn no conclusions concerning the tubes, and further investigation of this will be conducted. While I am on the subject of new information, I would like to mention a document recently provided by Iraq. This is the so-called Air Force document, which was once in the hands of an UNSCOM inspector and which relates to the consumption of chemical munitions in the Iraq/Iran War. Potentially, it could assist in resolving some questions relating to the material balance of chemical weapons. We are now closely examining this document to establish the scope of the information and to evaluate it in the light of information in our archives. It is too early to say whether it will support the information in Iraq's Declaration. I now turn to some inconsistencies and issues that will need clarification. In the biological area, Iraq previously provided, in its submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999, a table concerning the additional import of bacterial growth media. Growth media was used by Iraq in the production of anthrax and other biological warfare agents. This table has been omitted from the current Declaration and the reasons for the omission need to be explained. In the civilian chemical area, Iraq has declared that it has repaired and installed equipment that had previously been destroyed under UNSCOM supervision, under Council resolution 687 (1991). The equipment is now at a civilian chemical plant and used for the production of chlorine and other chemicals. An UNMOVIC team has recently inspected both the plant and the equipment. Consideration will now need to be given to the fate of this equipment, as well as other equipment, which was presumed destroyed. In the missile area, Iraq has declared the development of a missile known as the Al Samoud, which uses components from an imported surface-to-air missile. A variant of the Al Samoud, with a larger diameter (760 mm) than the standard version (500 mm) has been declared. Because of the potential of such a missile, UNSCOM had informed Iraq that such a development should not proceed until technical discussions had resolved the question of capability. In the latest update of the semi-annual monitoring declarations, Iraq has declared that in 13 flight tests of the Al Samoud the missile has exceeded the permitted range. The greatest range achieved was 183 kilometres. The use of components from the imported surface-to-air missile, which I have just mentioned, was also the subject of the letters of March 1994 and November 1997 in which the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM stated that the activity was not permitted. Iraq disputed the UNSCOM view that the activity was in violation of its obligations. From its current Declaration, it appears that Iraq has, in fact, proceeded with the conversion in recent years. The whole issue will now need to be considered. I have covered new information in Iraq's Declaration, some inconsistencies, and issues that need to be considered or clarified through investigation or technical discussions. As there is little new substantive information in the weapons part of Iraq's Declaration, or new supporting documentation, the issues that were identified as unanswered in the Amorim report (S/1999/356) and in UNSCOM's report (S/1999/94) remain unresolved. In most cases, the issues are outstanding not because there is information that contradicts Iraq's account, but simply because there is a lack of supporting evidence. Such supporting evidence, in the form of documentation, testimony by individuals who took part, or physical evidence, for example, destroyed warheads, is required to give confidence that Iraq's Declaration is indeed accurate, full and complete. The issues that have previously been identified include the unilateral destruction of indigenously produced "training" missile engines, the accounting for 50 conventional warheads declared to be unilaterally destroyed but not recovered, 550 mustard gas shells declared lost after the Gulf War, declarations concerning the production and weaponization of the nerve agent VX, the declared unilateral destruction of biological warfare agents and Iraq's declaration concerning the material balance of bacterial growth media. While in most cases issues are outstanding because there is a lack of supporting evidence, in a few cases, there is information in our possession that would appear to contradict Iraq's account. At this point, I will only mention that there are indications suggesting that Iraq's account of its production and unilateral destruction of anthrax during the period between 1988 and 1991, may not be accurate. On this matter, we shall certainly ask Iraq to provide explanations and further evidence. FOURTH PART: OUTLOOK What role will the inspection system play if Iraq fails to provide evidence supporting its statements that there remain no weapons of mass destruction and that nothing was produced or developed or stored during the period from the end of 1998 until now? Inspections of sites have, as one important objective, the verification of industrial, military, research and other current activities with a view to assuring that no proscribed programmes or activities are regenerated at any site in Iraq. This side of the inspection system can be characterized as a form of containment. Through the other side of the system of reinforced monitoring, there is a continuation of investigations to complete the requirement of disarmament, as laid down in resolution 687 (1991) and many subsequent resolutions. The sites to be inspected in the future are not only those which have been declared by Iraq or inspected in the past, but also any new sites which may become known through procurement information, interviews, defectors, open sources, intelligence or overhead imagery. New techniques and increasing resources are available for this effort. The use of multiple teams - in all disciplines - operating in parallel all over Iraq has been the basis for planning our inspections. To decrease the possibility of prediction, no systematic patterns are being followed. Advanced technology will play its role once procurement is finalized. Not only monitoring equipment, such as cameras and sensors, will be used but also surveillance over-flights from various platforms, including fixed-wing aircraft, drones and helicopters. Inspection activities at sites seek to establish the operational objectives of sites. They comprise searches for proscribed material and equipment, as well as documents and computers. Sampling may also provide important information related to any undeclared activities at sites. Arrangements are in place for the procurement of chemical and biological analytical facilities to be installed at our Baghdad Centre. None of these tools and inspection activities will guarantee that all possibly concealed items and activities will be found, but based on the extensive authority given in resolution 1441 (2002) and backed by a united Security Council, they will make any attempted concealment more difficult. *************** UN probes Iraqi army missile unit as inspections enter fourth week UN arms expert in Iraq investigated Wednesday for the first time an army missile unit as their inspections moved into a fourth week, an Iraqi official said. Meanwhile, chief nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview with an Egyptian daily that no proof has emerged yet that Iraq worked on a nuclear programme since the previous inspection regime ended in 1998. A ballistics team of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) visited "one of the military units specialised in launching missiles" in Balad, some 70 kilometers (42 miles) northwest of Baghdad, the Iraqi official said. He reported no untoward incident. The daily statement issued by UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on inspections did not confirm the visit. It said one ballistics team "visited the site of the former Taji Project 144" of long-range missile and warhead production, "about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Baghdad." UNMOVIC and IAEA monitors have already inspected military sites, missile testing ranges and production facilities, but it was the first time they probed a military missile unit. UN Security Council Resolution 687, which defined the terms of the 1991 Gulf War ceasefire, prohibits Iraq from acquiring or developing biological, chemical and nuclear weapons as well as long-range missiles. During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq fired several improved Soviet-supplied Scud missiles on Israel and Saudi Arabia. Baghdad says all its long-range Scuds and locally-made Al-Hussein missiles were destroyed in 1991, either unilaterally or under the supervision of the previous UN body tasked with disarmament, the Special Commission (UNSCOM). But UNSCOM had said Iraq could not account for the destruction of two Scuds and seven Al-Husseins. According to the UN inspectors' statement, nine teams probed eight sites Wednesday, in and around Baghdad and in northern Iraq, checking military, industrial and academic facilities. One UNMOVIC biological team and another from the IAEA were working in the region of Mosul 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Baghdad, after arriving there Tuesday. The UNMOVIC team in Mosul inspected on Tuesday a phamaceutical company and a yeast factory the next day before winding up its visit to the northern region. The UN statement did not specify a visit to the biology department of Mosul University, reported earlier by an Iraqi official. Iraq admitted in 1995, after four years of denials, that it had weaponised germ warfare agents. According to UNSCOM, 30 tonnes of agents remain unaccounted for. The IAEA team was working near the Saddam Dam on the Tigris river, near Mosul, probably sampling water, according to the Iraqi official. The UN report did not disclose its activity. Other inspections covered a military depot and engineering and painting factories. UN spokesman Tuesday that some 100 inspections had been carried out at around 80 sites since UN inspections resumed on November 27, after a four-year absence. He explained that some sites were huge compounds containing several factories and their search required several inspections. ElBaradei, the IAEA director general, told the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram, there is "no proof concerning the development of a nuclear programme in Iraq since 1998." But he said that inspections were still in a preliminary stage, and the IAEA was expecting information on Iraq's nuclear programme from other countries. The inspectors plan to use helicopters to speed up their searches. Ueki said a Bell 212 helicopter was "almost ready" for use, the first in a planned flotilla of eight aircraft including five Bell 212s and three Russian-made Mi-8s to be supplied at the end of the month. There are currently 105 inspectors operating in Iraq -- 19 from the IAEA and 86 from UNMOVIC. *************** Small Clues to the Big Picture in Baghdad; U.N. Inspections Run Gamut, From Top Secret to Seemingly Mundane U.N. inspectors, wearing baby-blue baseball caps and armbands, were roaming through a missile factory the other day when they came across a room with a couple of ominous warning signs posted outside: "Caution," the signs said. "Risk of Ionizing Radiation." What's in there? the inspectors asked. Just an X-ray machine, the plant director answered. Show us, they said. So, as the plant director recalled, he escorted the team into the room and put some metal into the machine. Out came the film familiar to anyone who has been X-rayed, he said. In the three weeks they have been scouring Iraq for evidence of weapons of mass destruction, U.N. arms experts have been poking and prodding everywhere they can, testing seemingly innocent explanations, rifling through files, taking soil and water samples, measuring the air for radiation. At a distillery suspected of developing biological weapons, they smelled the alcohol. At a missile factory, they had a rocket test-fired to make sure it did not exceed range restrictions. The inspectors in Iraq, whose ranks increased over the weekend to 105, have accelerated their schedule to full speed and now fan out early each morning to facilities throughout the Baghdad area and beyond, from a cement factory to a pesticide store, from the most secretive of military bases to government research centers. They visited 13 sites yesterday, their busiest day yet, as they worked to collect and collate information to report to the U.N. Security Council on the status of Iraq's banned weapons programs. So far, the inspectors have disclosed few findings and drawn no conclusions. That is the work of higher-ups at U.N. headquarters in New York, where diplomats are keenly aware that the outcome of the searches could bring a decision by the Bush administration on whether to wage war on Iraq. "It will take us some time to come up with a bigger picture," said Hiro Ueki, Baghdad spokesman for the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or UNMOVIC. But as they settle into a routine, the inspectors have begun focusing more attention on a handful of the most critical facilities. Nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, for instance, have learned the route to the town of Tuwaitha all too well. About 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, it is home to the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, the heart of Iraq's nuclear program. Iraq has said it halted its nuclear weapons development program a decade ago. Inspectors have combed through the sprawling Tuwaitha facility six times so far to inventory nuclear materials, most recently on Sunday when they took samples of water and silt. Inspectors have also spent considerable time at the Qaqaa complex not far from Tuwaitha, where they have searched for indications of nuclear or chemical weapons. They first showed up there on Nov. 30 to remove an air sampler, and then returned five more times, including yesterday, to examine an explosives production plant and a sulfuric acid plant. More and more, inspectors are choosing to return to facilities they had already inspected. Most of the inspections yesterday, for example, were repeat visits. However, since making a visit to a presidential palace to test their ability to get in, they have not gone to any of the dozens of others, sticking at least for now to more conventional and less provocative locations. To avoid becoming too predictable, however, the inspectors have tried to maintain the advantage of surprise. Over the weekend, for instance, nuclear specialists showed up after dark at the Muahaweel military base south of Baghdad. So far, they have encountered none of the intransigence that marked their predecessors' experience in Iraq during the 1990s, which led to their withdrawal in 1998 and a subsequent four-day U.S.-British bombing campaign. Iraqi officials have kept to their word in opening the gates when the U.N. teams arrive. The one time a lone duty officer did not have a key, the inspectors sealed rooms and returned the next day to find no sign of tampering. Recognizing that demonstrating openness may be the best way to undercut international support for war, Iraqi officials urge foreign journalists to cover the inspections each day instead of turning to another subject. "The weapons inspections carried out so far have uncovered the lies of Britain and the United States, and Iraq will continue cooperation with the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission to ensure the success of its mission," Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, head of the National Monitoring Directorate, the Iraqi liaison to the United Nations, told the official Al-Iraq newspaper last week. To test that further, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has asked Iraq to produce a list of scientists associated with its weapons programs by the end of the year, possibly so they can be interviewed outside the country. During an interview on Lebanese television yesterday, Amin reiterated that Iraq would comply. The inspection process has taken the U.N. experts far and wide. Not long ago, they showed up at the gate of the Al Abraj distillery, which produces about 100 cases of gin, whiskey and arrack a day. About six inspectors toured the factory, 12 miles south of Baghdad, checking out the bottling conveyor belts and the steam cleaners and the storerooms filled with labels, cardboard cartons and jugs of fruit flavors. Alber Poulus Younan, the plant director, pulled a rubber hose from the machines, let a liquid that was 96 percent alcohol spill over his hand and held it up for the inspectors to smell, as he did again yesterday for a couple of visiting journalists. Whatever else it might be, a look around left no doubt that the Christian-owned Al Abraj produces many bottles of booze. "It's a factory for drink," Younan said. "They're looking for something special. I don't know what it is." The answer came in what the inspectors showed most interest in -- the fermenters. Five giant, rusting 40-cubic-yard vats sat in a building with labels that were attached to the vats by other inspectors four years ago. The new inspectors checked the bar codes against their records and moved on. Fermenters can be critical to the weaponization of such biological pathogens as anthrax. But Younan and the distillery's owner, Shakir Easa, laughed at the notion that their machines produce killer spores. "It's funny, because any simple citizen of the world comes to this place and he can tell it's just an alcohol factory," Easa said. Another team of inspectors spent nearly three hours last weekend at a missile factory in Abu Ghraib, 25 miles west of Baghdad. The plant director, Hussein Mohammed, told the inspectors that he produces only al-Samoud liquid-propellant rockets that travel less than the 93-mile limit imposed by U.N. sanctions, contrary to assertions by the U.S. government. With the sound of clanging metal and the odor of industrial cleaning fluid in the air, men in white smocks and women in head scarves stared at the inspectors as they examined the 18 buildings surrounded by a fence topped with concertina wire. Hanging above them in the courtyard was a massive tile portrait of President Saddam Hussein. Mohammed said he had no warning the inspectors were coming. "Even as they were arriving, I learned they were here," he said. But neither, he added, did he have anything to hide. "We want the inspectors to show that we're not making any such weapons and we hope that the Security Council will take a decision to lift the blockade against the Iraqi people," he said. *************** UN inspectors put Iraq's germ warfare capabilities under microscope At least seven groups of UN weapons inspectors were out Tuesday searching for suspected weapons of mass destruction, focusing on Iraq's germ warfare capabilities. A team of biological experts from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) returned to the University of Baghdad, where a biotechnical institute was investigated Monday, an AFP correspondent reported. The target of the new probe was another biotechnology department that carries out basic research and post-graduate teaching, said UN spokesman Hiro Ueki in a statement. "It's their first visit to the department. They asked about the professors and employees, those who work here and who were transferred," the head of the department, Alice Krikor Hagop, told AFP. "We gave them all information; they visited all the labs." She said the department was created in 1999, after the suspension of the previous disarmament inspection regime implemented by the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM). The inspectors probed Monday the university's Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering. According to a 1999 UNSCOM report, the University of Baghdad was used to procure biological weapons equipment and agents. UNSCOM had asked Iraq to account for 30 tonnes of biowarfare agents, including botulinum toxin, anthrax and aflatoxin. In 1995, after four years of denials and a key defection, Iraq admitted it had run a germ warfare programme. But Baghdad insists it was terminated before the start of UNSCOM's operations in 1991, and that all stocks and records were destroyed. Four other UNMOVIC teams specialising in germ warfare, chemical weapons and missiles went out on inspection Tuesday together with two teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Ueki. Six teams probed sites in and around Baghdad. Also, one IAEA team and one UNMOVIC biological team headed for the northern city of Mosul and were expected to stay there overnight, said the spokesman, declining to specify the sites to be inspected in this area. Ballistics experts investigated plants producing fuels and motor cases for Russian-made surface-to-air SA-2 missiles and locally made short-range missiles. Chemical experts revisited the Falluja II site that produces phenol, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad. The inspectors plan to use helicopters to speed up their searches. Ueki said a Bell 212 helicopter was "almost ready" for use, the first in a planned flotilla of eight aircraft including five Bell 212s and three Russian-made Mi-8s to be supplied at the end of the month. He said around 80 sites were probed so far across Iraq since disarmament inspections resumed on November 27 to test Iraq's rejection of allegations that it still possesses and is developing weapons of mass destruction. There are currently 105 inspectors operating in Iraq -- 19 from the IAEA and 86 from UNMOVIC. In addition to searches, Iraq said Sunday the inspectors had begun taking the names of its weapons scientists. The United Nations announced last week that it had given Iraq until the end of this month to provide a complete list of scientists involved in its banned weapons programmes. "I understand they are working on it," Ueki said. Iraq's list should "include names from the top down to the level of scientists and engineers," he added when asked how far the list went down the chain of responsibility. Iraq's top liaison with the inspectors, General Hossam Mohammed Amin, had previously said Baghdad was drawing up the list and waiting for a formal request from the United Nations. Under Resolution 1441 adopted by the UN Security Council last month, the inspectors have new powers to whisk scientists and their families abroad so that they can be interviewed without any risk of Iraqi intimidation. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that the resolution "provides for those who need to be interviewed to be made available. "If Iraq does not comply with that requirement of the resolution, I'm sure the international community will take note and decide what action is appropriate," he said. *************** U.N. inspectors search Baghdad University U.N. arms inspectors searched several Iraqi sites Tuesday, including the department of natural sciences at Baghdad University. The head of the department, Lamis Karikor, told reporters at the end of the inspection by a team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, that the experts questioned a number of professors and teachers. "The questions were normal and common and not provocative at all," he said. "The professors at the department, which was set up in 1999, answered all the inspectors' questions. The search was completed without any findings." Another UNMOVIC team headed to an undisclosed site on the main road linking Baghdad to the northern city of Mosul. A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency inspected the Radwan site west of Baghdad that is run by the department of military industries. A team of UNMOVIC chemical experts also searched a medical plant some 360 miles north of Baghdad, while missile experts inspected an installation that manufactures missile parts for the second time in less than 24 hours. The Sawari site, also run by the department of military industries, produces parts for surface-to-surface missiles that have a range of less than 95 miles as permitted under U.N. Security Council resolutions. A foreign ministry statement said Tuesday the international inspectors searched on Monday the government-run al Rafidain Bank for the first time since inspections resumed Nov. 27 after a four-year gap. It said the inspectors also searched administrative and financial documents in suspected sites in addition to production departments for evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Monday night, President Saddam Hussein's armaments adviser, Brig. Ahmed al-Saadi, described as hasty and biased U.S., British, and Australian doubts about the content of Iraq's declaration of weapons of mass destruction, submitted earlier this month to the United Nations. But Al Saadi praised Hans Blix, who heads the U.N. inspectors, and IAEA President Mohammed AlBaradei for their objectivity. *************** UN inspects 11 Iraqi sites, asks about nuclear scientists Weapons inspectors probed 11 sites in and around Baghdad Monday, searching for prohibited weapons and collecting data on scientists involved in a previous nuclear program, a UN spokesman said. The inspections were carried out by the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Hiro Ueki said in a statement. "One IAEA team conducted a joint inspection with the UNMOVIC missile team of the Saad General Company (an engineering firm) that includes a number of personnel from the former nuclear weapons programme organisation Petrochemical Complex-3," Ueki said. He did not say if company staff had faced questioning. The spokesman told AFP around 80 military and industrial facilities have been checked by UN inspectors since they resumed work in Iraq in late November after a four-year absence. "Around 80 sites have been visited, so far so good," Ueki said. UNMOVIC is tasked with investigating Iraq's biological, chemical and ballistic activities while the IAEA checks its nuclear capability. A record number of 14 inspections were carried out Saturday according to Ueki, who updated a previous figure of 11 inspections with late visits undertaken the same day. The pace of inspections has accelerated in the past few days as the number of inspectors grew to 105 on Sunday, including 86 from UNMOVIC and 19 from the IAEA. Inspectors investigated facilities of an Iraqi university for the first time Monday, visiting the Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering on the Baghdad University campus. "The institute is engaged in training, teaching and research activities in biotechnology and genetic engineering," said Ueki's press release. Other teams inspected a chemical complex that contains an explosives plant, a testing range for small rockets, a fiberglass factory and a serum and vaccine institute. An Iraqi spokesman said earlier that UN inspectors have also begun asking Iraqi officials for the names of scientists involved in the country's former nuclear program. An IAEA team made the request Sunday during an inspection of the Glass and Ceramic Company in Ramadi, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad. It was the first time Baghdad or the UN have acknowledged experts are also collecting data on those involved in Iraq's former or suspected current arms programs since they resumed daily inspections on November 27. The United Nations announced last week it had given Iraq until the end of the month to provide a complete list of scientists involved in its banned weapons programmes. Iraq's top liaison officer to the UN inspectors, General Hossam Mohammed Amin, had previously said Baghdad was drawing up the list and waiting for a formal request from the United Nations. Under Resolution 1441 adopted by the UN Security Council in November, the inspectors have broad powers to whisk scientists and their families abroad so they may be interviewed without a risk of Iraqi intimidation. *************** Ambiguity shrouds 'material breach' U.N. council didn't define term for Iraq UNITED NATIONS - With U.N. weapons inspectors sniffing around Iraq and creating turbulence with Baghdad, what sort of incident, or pattern of behavior, might trigger war? The 'creative ambiguity' that enabled all 15 members of the U.N. Security Council to vote for Resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq to disarm or else, failed to define what exactly might constitute a 'further material breach' - a phrase in the resolution generally understood to sanction force - of Iraq's legal obligation to dismantle its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and weapons programs. Iraqi cooperation with inspectors may therefore be in the eye of the beholder, analysts said. 'Undoubtedly there will be varying interpretations; there always are,' said David Malone, a former Canadian ambassador to the U.N. and president of the International Peace Academy. 'Every party to a negotiation has to feel they are winning something. The U.S. consented to that ambiguity. And as the French say, they're adult and vaccinated - they know what they're doing, and they can't claim they weren't party to this ambiguity.' Nothing in the declaration specifies what may constitute a 'further material breach' of the resolution. Whether that could be a missing document, discovery of a key component for illicit weapons, or a short delay in access to a site is open to interpretation. 'They're always afraid to provide a specific list because it may not be comprehensive enough, and the one thing not on the list they hadn't thought of may in fact be the trigger,' said Malone. 'The council likes to leave itself a lot of leeway.' As a result, though, 'everything is open to interpretation,' he said. Most observers are taking a wait-and-see approach: Let's see what the inspectors come up with, if Saddam Hussein missteps, or if Washington or London produces a verifiable smoking gun. What seems certain is that the Bush administration risks appearing petty if, despite President Bush's vow of 'zero tolerance,' it does go after something relatively minor. Appearances will count. The White House should not seize upon a 'flimsy or hasty excuse to go to war,' U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said last month after meeting with President Bush. 'We need to be patient and give the inspectors time and space to do their work. We should not be seen as rushing the process and impatiently moving on to the next phase,' he said. The implications could be dramatic. If the council were to fracture - observers have long blamed disunity for having hamstrung efforts to force Iraq's disarmament, which Baghdad agreed to as a condition of its Gulf War surrender in 1991 - the Bush administration might be forced to cobble together a 'coalition of the willing' to attack Iraq. And without the U.N. mandate, the U.S. might once again be painted as unilateralist. The U.N. resolution states that 'false statements (or) omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq a and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the council for assessment.' And this time around, Bush has pledged a zero tolerance policy toward obstruction or deception by Hussein. But if France and Russia dispute whether Iraq is cooperating with weapons inspectors, or has lied in the 12,000-page declaration Iraq submitted roughly a week ago spelling out its claim that it owns no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons - council unity may once again rupture. Noted one Bush administration official close to the process: 'That doesn't mean the council will decide what to do next, or that we'll wait for a decision. The council will only assess. But it does not tie the hands of any council member that wishes to act.' The official, though, indicates he still holds out hope that future Iraqi missteps will appear cut and dried to council members and the rest of the world. 'I think it will be clear to everybody when Iraq is trying to impede the process,' said the official, who is close to the process. 'But what that is, it's hard to say.' But the official declined to speculate if the situation were not crystal clear. Indeed, some analysts question whether France or Russia would ever sign off on force. They are Baghdad's biggest backers on the council, have substantial trade and energy interests with Iraq, and traditionally resist any effort to 'get tough' with Hussein. 'We had that during the '90s and you'll have that again - division on the council over what cooperation means,' said Terence Taylor, a U.N. weapons inspector from 1993-97 and an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. 'Some council members have an aversion to the use of force and a predisposition to take a more optimistic view of what the Iraqis are trying to deliver, without force being applied.' For now, Hussein, seems to be on his best behavior. But Iraq watchers predict that once the spotlight dims, he'll resume his past bob-and-weave tactics with inspectors. Some analysts said France and Russia would only approve force if inspectors were to uncover something sensational, such as production of chemical and biological weapons - along with concrete plans to use them. French and Russian diplomats decline to speculate on what might constitute a serious breach. But they said any decision to go to war must pass through the council - the only world body entrusted to 'maintain international peace and security.' 'Inspectors will inspect and determine any violations, then they'll report to the council, and the council will decide what to do next,' said one Russian U.N. diplomat, who asked not to be identified in offering his country's interpretation of the resolution. 'From the Bush administration, a lot of words were said, but in the end they preferred to act through the Security Council. And I think that's the right way in international affairs. Only the Security Council has the legitimate right to use force, if necessary, according to international law.' If the U.S. presses for a military response, but senses Paris or Moscow will veto, the Bush administration has vowed to piece together a coalition from outside the U.N. If, however, the French and Russians resist but do not brandish the veto, Washington may be legally justified to lead a coalition from within the council. Lost in all this is the heat on inspectors of the U.N. Monitoring, Observation and Inspection Commission. UNMOVIC may be the one thing standing between Washington and war with Baghdad. Which may lead the inspectors to be more cautious than the Bush administration might hope for, said Tim McCarthy, who participated in 15 missile inspections of Iraq from 1994-98. UNMOVIC's first report is due at the end of January. "There's no doubt they'll be a) under a tremendous amount of pressure and scrutiny, and b) well aware of this," said McCarthy, an analyst with the Monterey Institute of International Studies' Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "If that door isn't open, and it's taken 20 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, where is the line where you report it as noncompliance, or do you just decide it's some sort of screw-up? Those will be tough decisions." *************** UN inspectors step up search for weapons in Iraq: A dozen sites visited. No sign of tampering on doors, windows of centre where they were kept out Friday Reinforced with newly arrived staff, United Nations weapons inspectors stepped up their search yesterday, visiting a dozen sites in Iraq - including rooms at an infectious-disease centre where they were denied access a day earlier. "Today was probably the single largest" group of sites inspected since the teams returned to Iraq on Nov. 27 after a four-year hiatus, said Hiro Ueki, a UN spokesman in Baghdad. He said inspectors had visited a total of 70 sites. After their first known snag, inspectors revisited the Communicable Disease Control Centre in Baghdad yesterday, entering rooms that had been locked on Friday. Inspectors said in a statement that there was no sign of tampering with seals they applied to doors and windows at the centre when they were denied access. They said yesterday's inspection lasted about an hour. Iraqi officials said the rooms had been locked because Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, is a day off for doctors and other workers who had keys. With the arrival of 15 additional inspectors yesterday, the total now stands at 113. Iraq received chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix's demand yesterday for a list of all personnel currently and formerly associated with the country's chemical, biological and ballistic missile programs, a UN official said. The UN Security Council resolution that ordered the resumed inspections authorizes teams to interview any Iraqi inside the country and without Iraqi officials present, or to take the person out of Iraq with his or her family. One site visited yesterday was the main Iraqi nuclear centre where nearly two tonnes of low-grade enriched uranium are stored. Inspection teams also went to a Scud-missile facility that had been used to make bomb casings for chemical weapons before the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Also yesterday, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, opening the Al-Merbad Poetry Festival in Baghdad, lashed out at the United States and Israel, saying they were bent on the destruction of Muslims. "Imperialism as represented by the centre of evil, America and its Zionist ally, are waging an oppressive aggression that targets the existence of the Islamic community and its future," said Aziz, who was wearing a military uniform. "The imminent goal is Iraq and Palestine, the ultimate goal is the whole Islamic community." U.S. jets, meanwhile, used "precision guided weapons" against three air-defence installations yesterday morning south and east of Baghdad after Iraqi military jets violated the southern no-fly zone, the U.S. Central Command said. "They (the Iraqi warplanes) went south. I cannot begin to ascertain what their motivation was in doing so other than plainly violating the zone," Central Command spokesman Maj. Pete Mitchell told the Associated Press in Washington. U.S. and coalition aircraft have patrolled the southern and northern no-fly zones since the Gulf War ended. The zones were established to prevent Saddam Hussein's government from attacking the Kurdish minority in the north of the country and the Shi'ites in the south. They have not been approved by the UN. The inspection of the Scud complex, the government-owned al-Nasr company, 50 kilometres north of Baghdad, was a re-examination of the facility that also houses sophisticated machine tools that can, for example, help manufacture gas centrifuges. Such centrifuges are used to "enrich" uranium to bomb-grade level - a method favoured by the Iraqis in their bomb program of the late 1980s. The al-Tuwaitha nuclear facility 50 kilometres southeast of Baghdad contains 1.8 tonnes of low-grade enriched uranium and several tonnes of natural and depleted uranium. UN nuclear agency inspectors who visited the site yesterday have said the materials are of such low radioactivity that they could not easily be turned into weapons. The uranium has been in storage since the end of the Gulf War. Iraqi officials said the nuclear facility had been destroyed twice - by the Israelis in 1981 during the Iran-Iraq war and by the U.S.-led coalition during the Gulf War a decade later. *************** UN probes Iraq defence factories, reinforces inspection mission UN weapons experts probed factories linked to missile and warhead production Sunday, as they prepared to step up the pace of disarmament checks in Iraq with new reinforcements of personnel and equipment. At least four inspection teams went out into the field, an AFP correspondent reported. An International Atomic Energy Agency team swooped on a plant run by the Um al-Maarik (Mother of All Battles) General Company, in Yusufiya, 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of Baghdad. Nuclear inspectors had previously visited another plant run by the same firm south of Baghdad on November 30, but had told the company managers they were coming, denying the element of surprise deemed crucial to inspections of suspect sites. According to UN reports, some facilities of the company, named after Baghdad's term for the 1991 Gulf War, were previously linked to Iraq's production of missile warheads. A team from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) meanwhile entered the Nasr State Establishment, which lies some 18 kilometers (11 miles) north of Baghdad in the huge al-Taji compound. According to UN reports, before 1991 the Nasr factories manufactured R400 bombs that were later filled with deadly biological agents in a germ warfare trial carried out at another facility. A second UNMOVIC team inspected the Al-Mutasim Company, 60 kilometers (36 miles) south of the capital. The missile plant occupies the site of the former Al-Atheer nuclear facility. According to a British government report released in September and based on intelligence sources, Iraq has worked to extend the range of the locally-made Al-Samud missile to at least 200 kilometers (120 miles), beyond the 150-kilometer (90-mile) limit set by UN Security Council Resolution 687. Under the resolution, which set out the terms of the Gulf War ceasefire, Iraq has the obligation to declare and place under UN supervision any equipment that could be of dual civilian and military use, in addition to dismantling its non-conventional weapons and long-range missiles. Iraq formally denied possessing any banned weapons in a 12,000-page inventory delivered to the United Nations on December 8 and has challenged the United States to prove its contention that the document contains gaping holes. UN arms inspectors carried out a record 11 site visits Saturday, and their pace was set to further "accelerate" with the arrival of 20 more inspectors Sunday, UN spokesman Hiro Ueki said. This will bring the total to 113, "quite a large number," said Ueki. Ueki said the UN mission was also waiting for equipment, communications gear, vehicles and helicopters which would allow the inspections to reach "cruising speed". The inspectors have "one Bell 212 helicopter ready for operations and others will arrive later this month," he said. The United Nations has also given Iraq until the end of the month to provide a complete list of scientists involved in its banned arms programmes. "What we expect from the list is from the top to the level of scientists and engineers. We are not talking about the sweepers," Ueki said when asked on Saturday how far down the chain of involvement the UN request went. UN inspectors have come under mounting US pressure to make greater use of tough new disarmament powers, including the authority to whisk scientists and their families abroad to ensure they are being interviewed without any possibility of intimidation. But Hollywood star Sean Penn, who has been feted by the official media here during a three-day visit to Baghdad, Sunday broke with his previous media silence to speak out strongly against Washington's hard line. In a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz Saturday, the US actor and director had already spoken to the Iraqi media of his opposition to US threats of military action. *************** U.N. inspectors welcomed 15 newly arrived team members, visited 12 sites in Iraq U.N. inspectors picked up the pace Saturday, visiting a dozen sites in Iraq, welcoming 15 newly arrived team members and successfully gaining access to rooms at an infectious disease center they were locked out of a day earlier. "Today was probably the single largest" group of sites inspected since the teams returned to Iraq, said Hiro Ueki, a spokesman for the U.N. program in Baghdad. "A dozen sites were inspected today," bring the total to about 70 sites since the U.N. workers returned Nov. 27 after a four year hiatus. The first known snag for the inspectors, the locked rooms they were unable to get into Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, were unsealed and inspected first thing Saturday. "The inspection was completed in about one hour," the inspectors said in a statement issued late Saturday. They said there were no signs of tampering with the seals applied to doors and windows Friday. The Iraqis explained that the inspection attempt occurred on the Muslim day off for doctors and other workers at the Communicable Disease Control Center and no one else had keys to the rooms. With the arrival of 15 additional inspectors Saturday, the total now stands at 113. Also on Saturday, Iraq received chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix demand for a list of all personnel currently and formerly associated with the country's chemical, biological and ballistic missile programs, a U.N. official said. Under the U.N. Security Council resolution that returned the inspectors, the teams are authorized to interview any Iraqi inside the country and without Iraqi officials present or to take the person out of Iraq with his or her family. One of the sites visited Saturday was the main Iraqi nuclear center where nearly two tons of low-grade enriched uranium are in storage. Inspection teams also went to a Scud missile facility that had been used to make bomb casings for chemical weapons in the days before the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Also, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, opening the Al-Merbad Poetry Festival Saturday in Baghdad, lashed out at the United States and Israel, saying they were bent on the destruction of Muslims. "Imperialism as represented by the center of evil, America and its Zionist ally are waging an oppressive aggression that targets the existence of the Islamic community and its future," said Aziz, who was dressed in a military uniform. "The imminent goal is Iraq and Palestine, the ultimate goal is the whole Islamic community." U.S. jets, meanwhile, used "precision guided weapons" against three air-defense installations Saturday morning south and east of Baghdad after Iraqi military jets violated the southern no-fly zone, the U.S. Central Command said. "They (the Iraqi warplanes) went south. I cannot begin to ascertain what their motivation was in doing so other than plainly violating the zone," Central Command spokesman Maj. Pete Mitchell told The Associated Press in Washington. The official Iraqi news agency reported the attacks as well, saying "enemy warplanes bombed civil and service installations" in three provinces in the no-fly zone. U.S. and coalition aircraft have patrolled the southern and northern no-fly zones since the Gulf War ended. The zones were established to prevent Saddam Hussein from attacking the Kurdish minority in the north of the country and the Shiites in the south. The inspection of the Scud complex, the government-owned al-Nasr company, 30 miles north of Baghdad, was a re-examination of the facility that also houses sophisticated machine tools that can, for example, help manufacture gas centrifuges. Such centrifuges are used to "enrich" uranium to bomb-grade level - a method favored by the Iraqis in their bomb program of the late 1980s. The al-Tuwaitha nuclear facility 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, contains 1.8 tons of low-grade enriched uranium and several tons of natural and depleted uranium. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors were at the site Saturday, have said the materials are of such low radioactivity that they could not easily be turned into weapons. The uranium has been in storage at the facility since the end of the Gulf War. Iraqi officials said the site at al-Tuwaitha was destroyed twice, first by the Israelis in 1981 during the Iran-Iraq war and a second time by the U.S.-led coalition that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait during the Gulf War. Recent satellite photos show four new buildings at the site that the west claims could house new nuclear projects. The Iraqis deny the allegations and say the buildings are for environmental, medical and agricultural research. In the first round of inspections in the 1990s, after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, the United Nations destroyed tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Recently published British and U.S. intelligence reports said new construction at old weapons sites and other activities suggest the Iraqis may have resumed making weapons of mass destruction. The inspections are being conducted in conjunction with economic sanctions imposed on Iraq when it invaded Kuwait in 1990. The Iraqis have said they hope the inspectors would be finished and sancti |