ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:96021402.NNE
DATE:02/14/96
TITLE:14-02-96 UNSCOM DIRECTOR EKEUS CARNEGIE CONFERENCE REMARKS
TEXT:
(Outlines Latest Findings on Iraqi Weapons Programs) (350)
By Rick Marshall
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- New evidence of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's many
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs continues to come to light
five years after the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq for the
invasion of neighboring Kuwait, Rolf Ekeus says.
Ekeus heads UNSCOM, the special United Nations commission
investigating Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons
programs.
The importance of Saddam's WMD programs can be seen in the fact that
he has foregone more than $70,000 million in oil sales, rather than
abide by the UN resolutions and divulge the full extent to which Iraq
was working on them, Ekeus told a conference February 13 on
non-proliferation issues hosted by the Carnegie Endowment.
In the last six months, for example, UNSCOM has found that prior to
the Gulf War, Iraq was developing a missile with a range of two to
three thousand kilometers which was apparently designed to carry
chemical and biological weapons, Ekeus said. It is also clear now that
Iraq had biological weapons deployed at the time the war began, he
noted.
Nor is it clear that Iraq has put an end to its goal of developing a
long-range missile system. Despite the obvious hardships the Iraqi
people are enduring, Saddam spent "a considerable amount of money"
this year to purchase gyroscopes for use in a missile guidance system,
Ekeus said.
In November a shipment of these gyroscopes was intercepted in Jordan,
bound for Iraq. The following month, UNSCOM found a "large number" of
them in the Tigris River, where an earlier shipment had apparently
been dumped to avoid detection. "It now appears that it (the missile
program) was a large program indeed," Ekeus commented.
While reports have suggested the gyroscopes came from Russia, Ekeus
said only that they appear to have come from systems which were
dismantled under a recent arms control treaty.
On the other hand, Ekeus did note that just over a month ago, Saddam
instructed his people to cooperate with UNSCOM inspectors, apparently
the first time he has done so. "There is a certain momentum now," he
observed.
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