Inspectors differ in stance on Iraq
Howard Witt
Chicago Tribune (KRT)
NEW YORK — United Nations
weapons inspectors delivered a mixed
verdict Monday on whether Iraq was
disarming, handing President Bush
more evidence to make a swift ease
for war but also bolstering European
calls to give the inspectors more time.
The two chief weapons inspectors,
Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei,
offered the U.N. Security Council
sharply differing assessments after
60 days on the ground in Iraq. Blix
recited an ominous list of unan
swered questions about Iraq’s chem
ical and biological weapons capabili
ties, while ElBaradei expressed more
confidence that Baghdad’s nuclear
program had been contained.
“Iraq appears not to have come to
a genuine acceptance, not even to
day, of the disarmament that was de
manded of it,” Blix said.
But ElBaradei countered: “We
have to date found no evidence that
Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons
program since the elimination of the
program in the 1990s.”
The chief inspectors’ reports
prompted instant calls from France,
China and Russia — the three veto
bearing Security Council members
outspokenly opposed to war — to
extend the inspectors’ mission and
postpone any decision on the use of
force. Diplomats particularly cited
the failure of the nuclear inspectors
to find any Iraqi nuclear bombs, be
cause Washington had often called
that the most dire threat.
“We share the view of many that
this process has not been complet
ed and more time is needed,” said
China’s deputy U.N. ambassador,
Zhang Yishan.
But Bush administration officials
argued the opposite conclusion, in
sisting that the inspectors’ report
meant the Security Council now
would have to confront Iraq Presi
dent Saddam Hussein about his pro
hibited weapons programs or prove
itself irrelevant.
White House spokesman Ari Fleis
cher called the inspectors’ report a
“frightening reminder” of the dan
gers posed by Hussein’s weapons of
mass destruction.
“To this day, the Iraq regime
continues to defy the will of the
United Nations,” Secretary of State
Colin Powell told reporters. “It has
not given the inspectors and the in
ternational community any con
crete information in answer to a
host of key questions.”
White House officials refused to
specify what next steps Bush
planned to take, and Fleischer said
listeners to the president’s State of
the Union speech Tuesday “won’t
hear a deadline, they won’t hear a
declaration of war.”
Officials said no decision was
likely until after Bush meets Friday
with British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, whose government is dis
patching 26,000 troops to the Per
sian Gulf to join an American force
that will soon number more than
150,000 soldiers.
The Security Council will begin a
closed-door debate Wednesday on
the inspectors’ report, and the Bush
administration will need to decide
soon whether to press for a new res
olution authorizing the use of force
against Iraq, thus risking an open
split with key European allies such
as France and Germany, or else al
low the inspections to continue for
some weeks or months.
© 2003, Chicago Tribune. Distributed
by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services.
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