ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:95101901.POL
DATE:10/19/95
TITLE:19-10-95 TOUGH STAND GETTING RESULTS IN STOPPING IRAQI WEAPONS
TEXT:
(Foreign Policy Series: Sanctions on Iraq) (1130)
By Judy Aita
USIA United Nations Correspondent
(Following is another in a series on U.S. initiatives on major
international issues.)
United Nations -- The last six months have gone a long way to
vindicate the stand taken by the United States and other countries on
the U.N. Security Council not to ease sanctions, especially the oil
embargo, on Baghdad until the Iraqi regime fully discloses its
chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic weapons programs.
The U.S. has been adamant on that since the Gulf War ended. U.S.
Ambassador Madeleine Albright framed the position succinctly in March
1955:
"As the leader of the coalition that restored Kuwait's independence,
and with American men and women standing guard in the Gulf today, the
United States is not prepared to see Iraq regain the ability to export
oil until it has established its peaceful intentions by meeting the
obligations the Security Council has established....Our objective is
no more and no less than to see Iraq do what the U.N. has said it must
do in relevant Security Council resolutions."
Now, a new report of its work in the past six months by the U.N.
Special Commission (UNSCOM), which has overseen the destruction of
Iraq's weapons since the cease-fire agreements, reveals a deliberate
policy by the Iraqi government to hold onto the weapons it agreed to
give up at the end of the war.
Caught by the August defection of General Hussein Kamel Hassan, who
headed its weapons programs, Iraq for the first time has disclosed a
much more extensive program than it had in its earlier so-called
"complete disclosures." It has admitted weaponization of biological
agents immediately prior to the outbreak of the Gulf War, including
the insertion of deadly Botulinin and anthrax agents -- never before
used in war -- into 166 bombs and 25 Al-Hussein missile warheads.
It had a crash program to build a nuclear weapon in 1990-91. Iraq also
had begun producing SCUD-type missile engines from both imported and
locally produced parts, according to the new information. Both missile
and biological programs were much larger than previously thought.
Much of the new information contradicts Iraq's earlier declarations.
Iraq had omitted information "on major militarily significant chemical
weapons capabilities, such as additional types of warfare agents,
advanced agent and precursor production, stabilization and storage
technologies, new types and numbers of munitions, field trials, and
additional sites involved in the program," the report said.
The new records indicate that at least 100 million dollars of supplies
remains unaccounted for, UNSCOM said. In addition, during June and
July two pieces of chemical weapons equipment at two monitored sites
were moved and used until UNSCOM ordered Iraq to return them to their
original sites.
UNSCOM has learned that only 83 missiles were destroyed by Iraq in
1991 without UNSCOM supervision. "The figure was inflated by Iraq to
89 in order to conceal its indigenous production of engines for
SCUD-type missiles," UNSCOM Chairman Rolf Ekeus says.
And UNSCOM doubts that the million pages of material in 150 crates and
eight shipping containers turned over in August is everything. "Much
more documentation must still exist, particularly in certain
significant areas such as production records, Iraq's procurement
networks, and sources of supply," Ekeus says.
Under Security Council resolutions 687, 707, and 715 of 1991 Iraq is
obliged to provide full information on all aspects of its weapons
programs -- all associated items, levels of technology attained by
Iraq, procurement methods and routes, and full accounting of the
materials, items and equipment. Destruction of the items are to be
done under UNSCOM supervision. Iraq is also to allow long-term
monitoring to ensure that the banned weapons are not produced again.
"For the most part, Iraq has provided new data only when there were
clear indications that the commission possessed information from other
sources," Ekeus reports.
The chemical weapons are still presenting an "extremely complex and
difficult problem" for UNSCOM, Ekeus says. "We know Iraq acquired huge
amounts of precursors that can be transformed into the nerve agent
VX...a very, very potent agent....We know instructions were given on
how the precursors were to be kept so they could be available for
immediate military use.
"We have concerns about the delivery of bombs filled with such agents.
Iraq has aircraft to deliver such bombs. We know if there are missile
warheads left in Iraq, Iraq has been seriously misleading us."
One U.S. official noted that "the report shows essentially how far
away Iraq is from cooperating with the United Nations. Essentially
what we learned we learned through a defection which was not,
obviously, expected, so it casts even greater doubt about what we now
know...and suggests that we need to tighten the monitoring system once
we clarify what we learned."
"The U.N. -- UNSCOM -- is not in a position to close the files on any
category of weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, nuclear,
biological, and missiles," the U.S. official said. "Some were trying
to get the U.N. to do that. Some in the council were working with Iraq
to pressure UNSCOM to declare a baseline for these categories. We
resisted that, and it proved to have been wise."
In Albright's words, "All indications show that Iraq has cheated and
lied in terms of its dealings with the United Nations and the
international community. Given this record of double dealing...I would
be very surprised if they had given up their desire to have weapons of
mass destruction or their habit of lying and cheating to the
international community.
"If they wish to be respected ever again by the international
community it behooves them to cooperate."
Ekeus, who has been to Baghdad many times and has dealt with the top
Iraqi officials as well as met with Kamel Hassan in Jordan, says he
feels that the sanctions, intense scrutiny by the U.N. and the
political solidarity of the Security Council have had an effect in
Iraq and helped bring Baghdad's continuing weapons program to light.
One of the reasons for Kamel Hussein's defection and the subsequent
release of the weapons documents "was the sense that Iraq has nowhere
to go because of the (U.N.) controls system," Ekeus says. "There were
probably other political and psychological reasons, but definitely one
of the main elements was that our consistency brought the Iraqi
government into an untenable situation, at least as Hussein Kamel
explained it. One of the fundamental reasons for his departure was
that he saw the impossibility of pursuing a policy in the face of the
activities of the special commission."
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