Issue No. 613
Front page
Previous issue
Site map
|
|
21 - 27 November 2002 Issue No. 613 Front page |
Current issue Previous issue Site map | |
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | |||
|
Inspections begin
Four years on and UN inspectors have returned to Baghdad. What are the prospects, asks Salah Hemeid
Chief UN inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed El- Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), arrived in Baghdad on Monday accompanied by a small contingent of weapons experts to resume the task of uncovering and dismantling Iraqi weapons. Shortly after their arrival the two officials met for two hours with President Saddam Hussein's weapons adviser Amir Al-Saadi and General Hossam Mohamed Amin, to finalise arrangements for the search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The next day Blix and El-Baradei met with Foreign Minister Naji Sabri for what the Iraqi News Agency (INA) described as "a courtesy meeting".
Blix and El-Baradei said Iraqi officials had promised full cooperation in the inspectors' hunt for Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Other UN officials said the talks centred on the inspection timetable, including Baghdad's submission of the detailed report on its weapons programmes due next month. Mark Gwozdecky, IAEA spokesman, said the Iraqis had expressed concern about meeting their 8 December deadline because of the "volume of material and information that they have to provide". However, Gwozdecky said the talks were "going well" and predicted that "within a year we will have a very good feel for what we have here". Preliminary inspections, Blix says, could begin as early as 27 November, before Baghdad files the detailed report of its banned weapons programmes.
Iraqi officials, though pledging cooperation, have made clear their hostility towards UN Security Council resolution 1441, under which the inspectors have returned. INA quoted Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan as saying Iraq accepted the resolution "despite its injustice" to prove it is free of weapons of mass destruction. "This resolution is an evil American scheme for an aggression against Iraq," he was quoted as saying during a meeting on Monday with an Austrian delegation. Saddam's deputy, Izzat Ibrahim, told INA that Iraq will work with inspectors to protect its people from America, but will fight "if war is imposed on us".
The government newspaper Al-Iraq, insisting that Iraq possesses no weapons of mass destruction, accused Washington of manipulating the inspections as an excuse to attack Iraq. Indeed, the return of the inspectors is widely seen as Saddam's last chance to avoid a devastating war with the US. Yet even if he co-operates in the search America will remain deeply suspicious. And President George W Bush has warned Saddam that failure to cooperate with the inspectors will bring about an American attack.
The inspectors must verify that Iraq is free of proscribed weapons before the Security Council will lift economic sanctions imposed after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. US officials have made clear that Washington will not tolerate any violations during the inspection efforts.
Hours after the UN inspectors arrived in Baghdad, Iraq announced that US and British warplanes monitoring the two "no fly-zones" in northern and southern Iraq had bombed Iraqi air defence systems in the northern no-fly zone after being fired at during routine patrols. Iraq considers such patrols a violation of its sovereignty and frequently shoots at them. The Bush administration insists that firing on US and British planes over the "no-fly" zone violates UN resolutions.
"We do believe it is a violation that would constitute a material breach", of the UN resolution, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in Washington. The US, if it chooses, could refer the matter back to the Security Council for discussion, he said. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld joined in denouncing Iraq's "no-fly-zone" firing as unacceptable.
"It's up to the president and the UN Security Council [to finalise their] view of Iraq's behaviour over a period of time, and those discussions have just begun," he said.
None of the other 14 members of the UN Security Council, including Britain, believe the "no-fly zone" is included in the provisions of UN Security Council resolution 1441, much less that it could be a possible cause for any violations. It is a position shared by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who has said he does not think Iraq's firing at US and British planes enforcing "no-fly" zones violates the latest Security Council resolution. "Let me say that I don't think the Security Council will say that this is in contravention of the resolution that was recently passed," he said.
The zones have long been a point of contention because the Security Council has never explicitly authorised or endorsed them. The US and Britain established the northern zone under the auspices of Operation Provide Comfort, to protect ethnic Kurds. The southern zone was set up later to protect Iraqi Shi'ites against Saddam's onslaughts.
While insisting on the most intrusive inspections, the US is meanwhile building up its troops in the Gulf in preparation for a military strike should the new inspection regime collapse. Bush is reportedly planning to review the Iraq issue with his allies at the two-day NATO summit in the Czech capital, which begins Thursday. Although it is unclear if Washington is seeking military help, Bush intends to send Saddam a clear message that he will keep the international alliance that helped get the Security Council resolution passed intact.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||
