| http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....storyID=2886088
United States Shrugs Off Appeals for Return of UN Inspectors
Thu June 5, 2003 04:34 PM ET
By Evelyn Leopold and Irwin Arieff
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday shrugged off appeals from Security Council members to let U.N. arms experts back into Iraq as the chief U.N. inspector warned against jumping to conclusions that Iraq had stockpiles of unconventional weapons.
In his last address to the 15-nation body before resigning at the end of June, Hans Blix said Saddam Hussein's government might have destroyed weapons or might have concealed them and now the truth could come out.
"There remain long lists of items unaccounted for but it is not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it is unaccounted for," Blix said.
But he, as well as most council members including close ally Britain, said anything U.S.-led teams found in Iraq should be verified by international experts.
The failure of the United States and Britain to find unconventional weapons after 11 weeks of searching has developed into a political issue in both countries with the Bush administration defending intelligence used to justify the war. Prime Minister Tony Blair has had to do the same as parliamentarians press for an inquiry.
At issue is a credibility problem, with accusations that the United States fabricated evidence, unless some neutral body verifies any discovery of weapons.
"I believe we all have to do everything possible and we have to do it together," Blix said after his open speech to the council and private consultations afterward.
"However I think that anybody that functions under an occupation by a few foreign states cannot have the same credibility internationally as inspectors," he said.
"But I am not thereby casting doubt upon their integrity," Blix said. "I don't exclude that they will find something."
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said there were no plans to let the inspectors in.
"What we've said all along is that since March 17 or 18, the coalition has taken on responsibility for inspections and the search for the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," he said. "But for the time being, we have undertaken this mission of searching for WMD and I would expect that situation to continue for the foreseeable future."
French U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere reminded council members that if weapons still existed in Iraq they "are completely unguarded as no one knows where they are."
He asked why the United States wanted to wait before allowing any U.N. inspections teams, except for a small group of nuclear arms experts, back into the country.
"There is no reason to deprive ourselves any longer of the experience and skills acquired over the past 12 years," he told council members, according to his speaking notes.
Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, retires to his native Sweden "to pick my mushrooms."
His arms teams returned to Iraq Nov. 27, 2002, and left on March 18 on the eve of the U.S.-led war that ousted Saddam.
Blix said he sympathized with the searches undertaken by U.S.-led teams, saying U.N. inspectors had found few new weapons in Iraq since 1994. But he wondered why, if Iraq really had no dangerous arms, Saddam Hussein put his country through "the misery of sanctions" for so many years.
British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock appealed for patience and said he believed the U.N. commission would be a great help in "completing the overall business of accounting for Iraq's weapons."
Asked why everyone in the council except Washington wanted to discuss the future of U.N. inspections, Greenstock said, "Even the closest ally cannot answer for the United States." | |
