13 November 1997
UNSCOM IS PULLING ALL INSPECTORS OUT OF IRAQ IN PROTEST
(US backs UN decision not to segregate inspectors) (760) By Judy Aita USIA United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- Responding to Iraq's expulsion of American weapons inspectors, the United Nations Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons (UNSCOM) is withdrawing all its staff from Iraq. UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler said November 13 that he has "decided to continue to resist this segregation of UNSCOM's staff according to nationality....Therefore I will withdraw all UNSCOM staff tomorrow and leave a skeleton staff at the Baghdad Center to sustain our facility pending resolution of the present crisis." "Our goal is to keep open the possibility to restart our work as soon as possible when the conditions are acceptable," Butler said during a press conference announcing his decision. UNSCOM's announcement came just hours after Iraq notified UNSCOM that the seven American weapons inspectors must leave Iraq by the end of the day November 13 by road to Jordan, giving the Americans six and a half hours to pack up and leave. Butler said that he has asked Iraq to allow the seven Americans to leave on November 14 on board the UNSCOM plane that will take the 71 other UNSCOM staff to Bahrain. "Agreement to this request would make virtually no difference in terms of the time at which the Americans would be out of Iraq," Butler said. The U.N. announced later in the day that Baghdad turned down Butler's request, forcing the Americans to leave overland. Butler said that nine employees will remain behind to watch over the Baghdad center and about six members of the Chilean helicopter crew will remain with the UNSCOM helicopters. The UNSCOM head also said that the U-2 surveillance flights will continue. He refused to disclose the date of the next flight but said that Iraq has been notified of the days during which the flight could take place, as has been the practice in the past. U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson called Iraq's actions "outrageous and irresponsible." "They are showing open defiance of the Security Council resolution passed yesterday," Richardson said. "The United States strongly supports Ambassador Butler's decision to pull out a strong majority of the UNSCOM personnel," the ambassador said. "We agree with Ambassador Butler's decision not to divide the UNSCOM personnel by nationality." "We think it is critically important that the Iraqis guarantee the safety of those remaining behind," he added. Richardson said that the United States has asked for a Security Council meeting and was also "going to discuss this issue with our allies" as a first step. "We think Iraq has violated the United Nations Charter by taking this action alongside the United Nations resolution that was passed yesterday. I think there are going to be some serious consequences," Richardson said. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told journalists that he was surprised by how quickly after the Security Council vote late November 12, Iraq had moved to expel the inspectors. During his meeting with Tariq Aziz the Secretary General said that "the situation could have been resolved through diplomatic efforts which is why he sent his team to Baghdad and worked with the Security Council to find a solution," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "It is regrettable, he said, that these strenuous efforts had not been successful." "The matter is now in the hands of the Security Council," Eckhard said. Butler said that withdrawing the staff casts doubt on the progress made in destroying Iraqi chemical, biological and ballistic weapons and "every day that passes the situation deteriorates." While the skeleton staff will be maintaining UNSCOM monitoring equipment, Butler said, "I would be misleading you if I thought that gave us any confidence." "The fact is that every day that has passed since the 29 October announcement by Iraq has harmed our monitoring effort and certainly the absence of inspections has been a matter of most serious concern," he said. "Every day lost makes the circumstances worse and, of course, when we leave tomorrow, that problem will simply grow," Butler said. Butler used as an example of what could happen when UNSCOM is not in Iraq, the removal of two fermenters from U.N. monitoring. It would take only a matter of hours to adapt the fermenters to produce seed stocks of biological warfare agents, he said. "I don't know what they're doing because we can't see any more," Butler said. "And given what happens tomorrow our ability to see -- at least for a while -- will be further reduced."
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