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Blix report upbeat { March 8 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59446-2003Mar7.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59446-2003Mar7.html
Blix's Iraq Report Deepens U.N. Rift
Team's Assessment Cautiously Upbeat
By Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 8, 2003; Page A01
UNITED NATIONS, March 7 -- The chief U.N. weapons inspector today provided a cautiously upbeat assessment of Iraqi disarmament, deepening a split within the U.N. Security Council over the U.S. drive to win international support for a military strike.
Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, said Iraq had been slow to cooperate but that in the past month, it had taken numerous promising steps. "It would not take years, nor weeks, but months" to complete the inspections, he said, adding he would present a work plan for more inspections at the end of a month.
Blix's report, coupled with a report by the chief nuclear watchdog that there is no evidence Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programs, bolstered the determination of France, Russia and China -- permanent members with veto power -- to block a U.S.-British resolution authorizing force.
"The military agenda must not dictate the calendar of inspections," said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. "We cannot accept an ultimatum as long as the inspectors are reporting cooperation."
Seeking to break the impasse, the United States, along with Britain and Spain, today modified their proposed resolution authorizing force so that it set a March 17 deadline for Iraq's compliance. A senior administration official told reporters in Washington that the United States would be "closing the diplomatic window" on that date.
During the public and sometimes emotional clash of Security Council members today, a number of smaller, undecided nations that the administration had wooed made it clear they were uncomfortable with the U.S. approach and pleaded for the council to unite around a broad plan that would set a series of deadlines. On the 15-member council, only Bulgaria signaled support for a new resolution, while eight nations, including Pakistan, Angola and Chile, appeared to be against it.
President Bush insisted Thursday that the United States would call for a vote, and U.S. officials yesterday pressed for it as early as Tuesday. Nine votes -- and no vetoes -- are necessary for passage. It is highly unusual for members to seek a vote for a Security Council resolution that appears doomed to fail, and it was clear the looming showdown concerned many of the foreign ministers attending today's session. Several suggested the rift could irrevocably damage the international body.
"What is at stake now is the unity of the international community," said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. "The Security Council -- in fact, we all -- face an important decision, probably a historic turning point."
France has not vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution since 1956, during the Suez Canal crisis, and no U.S.-sponsored resolution has been defeated since the end of the Cold War.
Administration officials had a lot at stake in the reports by Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the International Atomic Energy Agency's director general. But the reports fell far short of the clear demonstration of Iraqi noncompliance sought by the administration. In his news conference Thursday night, Bush said Blix's task was to "answer a single question: Has the Iraqi regime fully and unconditionally disarmed, as required by Resolution 1441, or has it not?"
Blix declined to give a clear answer, allowing both sides in the debate to draw their own conclusions, but his overall message was that the inspections regime was beginning to yield results. When Iraq began last Saturday to destroy missiles that had been found to exceed U.N. restrictions, he said, it was not "the breaking of toothpicks. Lethal weapons are being destroyed."
Blix took five sentences at one point to address the "yes or no" question Bush had raised, essentially saying that Iraq has become "proactive" in some areas, and that he held out hope this trend would continue.
ElBaradei's report was even more damning to the administration's position. In recent months, the administration and Britain have alleged Iraq illegally sought high-strength aluminum tubes for a centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program and had sought uranium from Niger. He said experts had concluded the tubes were for a rocket engine program, as Iraq had said, and that the documents used to allege the connection between Iraq and Niger were fabricated. Overall, he concluded, there is no evidence that Iraq has revived a nuclear weapons program.
While other foreign ministers hailed the reports as proving inspections could work, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he was not persuaded. "I still find what I heard this morning a catalogue of non-cooperation," Powell said. The Iraqi actions cited by Blix were offered only grudgingly and under the threat of force, Powell said, and stopped far short of what was demanded by the Security Council. "Iraq is still refusing to do what is called for by Resolution 1441 -- immediate, active and unconditional cooperation."
Powell spoke forcefully, but he seemed tired and stoic during the session. "There are some people who simply, in my judgment, don't want to see the facts clearly," he told reporters afterward.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose government desperately needs a second resolution to shore up support at home, delivered the most impassioned address. "Let us be blunt about this," he told the other ministers: Iraq was beginning to cooperate because of "the presence of over 200,000 United States and United Kingdom young men and young women willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of this body, the United Nations."
At one point, Straw leaned forward over the horseshoe-shaped table and addressed "my good friend," Villepin, whose pronouncements against war have annoyed British and U.S. officials.
"Dominique said the choice before us was disarmament by peace or disarmament by war. Dominique, that's a false choice," Straw said, in a rare use of a first name in Security Council debate. "I wish that it were that easy, because we wouldn't be having to have this discussion. We could all put up our hands for disarmament by peace and go home."
Straw argued that "the paradox we face is that the only way we are going to achieve disarmament by peace . . . is by backing our diplomacy with the credible threat of force."
But Villepin was unmoved, telling reporters later, "You don't go to war because of a timetable."
In his address to the council, Villepin not only denounced the prospect of war, but also heaped scorn on the various rationales offered by the administration to attack Iraq. He said "regime change" through force "will encourage dangerous instability," that a war would not inhibit international terrorism but only increase it and that a war would not recast the Middle East but "run the risk of exacerbating tensions."
"In a few days, we must solemnly fulfill our responsibility through a vote. We will be facing an essential choice: disarming Iraq through war or through peace," Villepin said. "And this crucial choice implies others; it implies the international community's ability to resolve current or future crises; it implies a vision of the world, a concept of the role of the United Nations."
Speaking to reporters, Villepin archly said: "If we are going to believe that because of Iraq or through Iraq, we are going to solve, like magic, all the problems of the world, I believe there should be very soon a lot of disappointment."
The official purpose of the meeting was to hear an oral summary by Blix of the 167-page report on the inspection process that was completed last week, including outstanding areas and how to address them. The report included sobering information on outstanding questions -- such as the fate of anthrax -- but the tone did not differ much from his oral presentation.
The report, which focused on 29 unresolved disarmament matters, challenged Iraq's claim that it destroyed its entire stock of biological agents at the Al Hakam biological weapons facility in the summer of 1991. "Based on all evidence, the strong presumption is that about 10,000 liters of anthrax was not destroyed and may still exist," according to a confidential draft of the report. The report also indicated that Iraq maintains the expertise to reconstitute anthrax, botulinum toxin and other deadly biological agents in short order. "Iraq currently possesses the technology and materials, including fermenters, bacterial growth media and seed stock, to enable it to produce anthrax," the report stated.
"There does not seem to be any choke points, which would prevent Iraq from producing anthrax on at least the scale of its pre-1991 level," the report said.
Still, the report said, in the chemical and biological area, "no proscribed activities, or the result of such activities from the period of 1998-2002 [when inspections were halted], have, so far, been detected through inspections."
Blix suggested to the council that U.S. intelligence leads have failed to yield hard proof that Iraq is transporting banned arms and mobile biological weapons labs around the country to evade detection by U.N. inspectors. "No evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found," he said.
In a last-ditch effort to avoid a war, Pakistan distributed a proposal to Security Council members that would extend full amnesty to Iraqi officials who participated in Iraq's disarmament. The proposal, which was initiated by Saudi Arabia, is designed to encourage Iraqi officials to turn against their leadership, said Arab diplomats familiar with the plan. "It's intended to promote a revolt," said an Arab diplomat.
The paper, which was set out in the form of a Security Council resolution, "declares a full amnesty for all Iraqi officials who extend their full and unequivocal cooperation" to the U.N. in disarming Iraq. It also provides assurances to Iraqi officials who cooperate with the United Nations that they and their families would be protected.
Diplomats involved in the preparation of the paper conceded that the proposal had little hope of council approval. They noted that Pakistan has made it clear it will not formally introduce the proposal unless Saudi Arabia and other Arab initiative supporters could persuade the United States and other major Security Council powers to embrace it.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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