ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:95071104.POL
DATE:07/11/95
TITLE:IRAQI BIOLOGICAL ARMS PROGRAM SETS BACK LIFTING OF SANCTIONS
TEXT:
(Albright asserts Iraq has "credibility problem") (870)
By Judy Aita
USIA United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- Iraq's recent admission that it had an advanced
biological weapons program exacerbated Baghdad's problems with the
U.N. Security Council and apparently has caused the council to
postpone any possible consideration of lifting the five-year-old oil
embargo against Iraq.
The focus of the Security Council's 26th periodic sanctions review
July 11 was the recent Iraqi admission to Ambassador Rolf Ekeus,
chairman of the U.N. Special Commission overseeing the destruction of
Iraqi weapons (UNSCOM), that it had an offensive biological weapons
program. The council meanwhile rejected Iraq's request for a delay in
destroying outlawed ballistic weapons equipment.
After the session Honduran Ambassador Gerardo Martinez Blanco,
president of the council, called in Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon to
inform the envoy of the council's support for UNSCOM's position that
the equipment must be destroyed. The president also expressed the
council's hope that Iraq will cooperate fully with UNSCOM and make the
full, final, and complete disclosure on its biological weapons
program.
The Security Council also determined that Iraq has not fulfilled its
Gulf War cease-fire obligations sufficiently to justify any change in
the wide ranging economic sanctions the council imposed almost five
years ago, Martinez Blanco told journalists waiting outside the
council chambers.
During the closed council meeting, Albright, the chief U.S. delegate
to the U.N., told the council that "the Iraqi admission is the first
step in a long process of verification. Whether that process becomes
shorter depends entirely upon Iraq. It must change its traditional
approach to cooperation with UNSCOM."
According to the text of Albright's remarks to the council, which was
released to journalists, the U.S. ambassador rejected Iraq's assertion
that the biological weapons program was begun in 1985 and that it had
not begun to develop weapons to carry the agents.
"In short, Iraq has a credibility problem not just because of its
uninterrupted record of lying for four years," the ambassador said.
"Even with four years to think up a story, it has not yet told a story
that is internally consistent."
Before UNSCOM can verify that Iraq has provided a full disclosure of
its biological weapons program, Albright said, "Iraq must provide full
access to the sites, equipment, documents and personnel involved in
the program. Unless past Iraqi practice changes, this will be a long
and complex process with Iraq providing grudgingly only the
information it believes UNSCOM already knows."
"It is no wonder that Iraq fails to be credible," the ambassador said.
"The Iraqi delegation that is telling members of the council this week
that it is prepared to answer all questions on biological weapons is
the very same delegation that two months ago strenuously denied to
this council, to its own people, and in written and televised
interviews, that it ever had a biological weapons program," Albright
said.
In a letter to the council on July 2, Ekeus reported that in private
meetings that included Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and
other officials, Iraq "admitted for the first time the offensive
nature of its biological weapons program" including that the research
was begun in late 1985 at the Muthanna site, where it also produced
chemical weapons, and then transferred to Salman Pak in early 1986.
"Until this statement, Iraq had insisted that its military biological
program was limited in scope to defensive research and that no weapons
or agents had ever been produced," he said.
Iraq produced biological warfare agents at the al Hakam facility in
1989 and 1990 and stored them there in concentrated form until they
were destroyed in October 1990 "in view of the imminence of
hostilities," Ekeus said.
Iraq has promised to provide a complete disclosure of the program by
the end of 1995 with a first draft ready by mid-July; at that time,
Ekeus said, UNSCOM experts will visit Baghdad for talks.
Ekeus also reported that Iraq is refusing to destroy five items that
are related to ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150
kilometers, which must be destroyed according to the cease-fire
agreement.
"Iraq's refusal to destroy proscribed missile
capabilities...constitutes, in the commission's view, a failure by
Iraq to honor an obligation it has unconditionally accepted. That
failure means that an action required of Iraq under section of
resolution 687 (1991) remains unfulfilled," Ekeus said.
Albright said that the Iraqi refusal to destroy the ballistic missile
equipment "makes plain why UNSCOM must not close its files in other
areas."
"In the missile area, rather than evading their obligations, the
Iraqis have decided to flout them," she said.
British Ambassador David Hannay characterized Ekeus' report as a "very
important step" that has spotlighted a lot of unanswered questions the
special commission now must pursue.
For example, Hannay said, "What became of all the equipment that they
used for research, production, and so on? Why is there still a denial
of weaponization, which is a normal part of any program of this sort,
particularly since they produced very large amounts of the biological
weapons material?"
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