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Inspections get b Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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AP World Politics
Saddam to get `B' report card from nuclear agency; Washington mulling extended inspections
Fri Jan 24, 2:37 PM ET
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) will get a "B" on his report card from nuclear inspectors who update the U.N. Security Council next week, and the United States is weighing the option of extended inspections to appease anxious European allies, officials said Friday.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will tell the Security Council on Monday that his inspectors have gotten generally good cooperation from the Iraqis in their hunt for weapons of mass destruction, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
"Their report card will be a `B' — quite satisfactory," he told The Associated Press.
But ElBaradei, who will brief the council along with chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, will repeat his contention that the inspectors need at least several more months to do their work, and that the Iraqis "need to help themselves" by pointing the experts in the right direction, Gwozdecky said.
Monday's report by ElBaradei, whose Vienna-based agency is in charge of the hunt for nuclear weaponry, and Blix, who is leading the search for chemical and biological agents, could play a pivotal role in Washington's justification for swift military action.
As the pair finalized their reports to the council, a senior official in Washington told AP that the Bush administration was considering extending the inspections in an effort to ward off mounting criticism at home and abroad that it is rushing toward war.
A decision will be based on whether the inspections are productive and whether Blix and ElBaradei offer new evidence to the council on Monday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Although U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) has accused Saddam of toying with the inspectors and the international community, France, Germany and Russia all have been urging the inspectors be given more time and have been arguing that any attack on Iraq be deferred.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany said Friday there was "growing support" in Europe for Germany's opposition to war in Iraq. "I will not give up this basic position," Schroeder said after conferring with Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) and agreeing the inspectors should have more time.
In other developments Friday:
_ Germany started deploying the first of 2,600 soldiers at U.S. military installations to step up security ahead of possible war — a move meant to offset Berlin's opposition to any military action. About 300 soldiers were in the first wave being sent out to U.S. bases and other complexes, strung across southern and western Germany, the Defense Ministry said.
_ NATO (news - web sites) Secretary-General Lord Robertson told a conference in London that the United Nations (news - web sites) will lose all credibility if it does not act to disarm Saddam.
"If Saddam does not change course completely, the international community must act if it — and especially the U.N. — is not to lose all credibility in the face of dictators and outlaw regimes throughout the world," Robertson said.
_ In Washington, two key lawmakers continued to urge Bush to resolve the situation diplomatically. Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), a top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, warned Friday against a "rush to war in the absence of a strong multilateral coalition."
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said "we have yet to see any evidence that Saddam still has weapons of mass destruction."
_ In Vienna, the IAEA said analyses of samples taken by nuclear inspectors in Iraq have so far not revealed any evidence of prohibited nuclear activity. But "this is not the end. The inspectors take these samples continuously," agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
Although Baghdad steadfastly denies it has weapons of mass destruction and has recently taken a harsher tone toward the inspectors' work, "access and cooperation are good," said Gwozdecky, the head IAEA spokesman.
"We've been getting where and when we want to get, and we've been generally successful in getting what we need," he said.
Gwozdecky said ElBaradei will make a case for additional pressure on Baghdad to encourage Iraqi scientists to consent to private interviews with the U.N. inspectors. So far, the scientists have refused.
At the White House, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said Bush considers failure of Iraq to make its scientists fully available to U.N. inspectors "unacceptable."
Fleischer said Saddam's conduct will make "the end of the line come even closer. His refusal is further evidence that Iraq has something to hide."
ElBaradei's main message to the council will be that the inspectors need more time, Gwozdecky said.
"He'll say we need several more months to come to conclusions," he said. "He'll say our team is not yet at capacity, and that some tools are not yet on the ground," such as high-tech equipment capable of detecting airborne gamma radiation.
Even so, "the inspections have worked well. We've learned a tremendous amount since we've been there," he said.
After a four-year break, U.N. experts returned to Iraq in November to search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction under a Security Council resolution that created a tough new inspections regime.
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On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org/worldatom
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