13 January 1998
UNSCOM CHAIRMAN DEFENDS WEAPONS INSPECTOR'S IMPARTIALITY
(Butler rejects Iraqi charges against Scott Ritter) (730) By Judy Aita USIA United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- Iraq's charges against the head of a U.N. weapons inspection team are `unfounded" and an "unrespectable campaign against a perfectly competent, loyal, and truthful individual," the head of the U.N. Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons (UNSCOM) said January 13. To a private session with the Security Council UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler said that Iraqi statements seeking to justify its refusal to cooperate with an inspection team lead by one of UNSCOM's chief inspectors, Scott Ritter, a U.S. national, "are without foundation." Speaking with journalists after the Council meeting, Butler said that "Scott Ritter is a professional arms control inspector. He's a man of great ability and dedication." "Be is not a spy, be is a U.N. official. The things that have been said about him are simply not true and are not respectable," Butler said. Before joining UNSCOM, he added, Ritter "had functions to do with the verification of the intermediate nuclear force treaty that was between the United States and the then-Soviet Union. At an earlier point in his career he was a U.S. Marine. Iraq has always got wrong -- whether by intention or not -- what his past rank was, who he worked for, and so on." Iraq's press releases about Ritter are "an unrespectable campaign against a perfectly competent, loyal, and truthful individual," the UNSCOM chairman said. Iraq refused to cooperate with Ritter's team which was to start inspection of several sites in Iraq January 13 claiming that Ritter was a spy. It also complained that there were too many Americans on the team. Butler stressed that the entire team, known as UNSCOM #227, is composed of 44 persons from 17 nations. "Quite different from what Iraq asserted, " he said. Ritter's group was made up of 31 members from 12 nations, Butler said. "That illustrates the point: the teams we put together for these inspections represent a multiplicity of nations and this morning's was an example....the 31 people were all inspectors; they were drawn from nuclear, missile, chemical, biological and export/import" areas of expertise, Butler said. The composition of UNSCOM teams is always formed on the basis of the information UNSCOM has, the nature of the sites the teams are going to, the technical disciplines needed, he explained. The Ritter team was made up of regular full-time UNSCOM staff based in Baghdad, other inspectors brought in earlier in the month, and additional experts who arrived with Ritter on January 11. It included experts in all disciplines: missiles, nuclear, biological, chemical and prohibited import/export, Butler said. The team did not conduct its assigned inspections January 13 because Iraq refused to send Iraqi counterpart staff to accompany the group. Butler said that he instructed Ritter not to go on with the inspection without the Iraqi officials "for reasons of safety and security." Butler is slated to begin talks with Iraqi officials in Baghdad January 19. In addition to other UNSCOM staff, he will be accompanied by three of UNSCOM's Commissioners from China, Canada, and Italy. "It is very clear that the issues we'll discuss in Baghdad will continue to be those of access -- presidential and sovereign sites, but now the question of Baghdad's insistence to remove from our teams certain inspectors on the basis of their nationality. That's not acceptable to us and I'm sure that's not acceptable to the (Security) Council, " Butler said. "I know the reasons they are giving are false, so there must be some other reason" why Iraq does not want UNSCOM to undertake certain weapons inspections, Butler said when asked about Iraq's motive for precipitating the latest crisis with the U.N. Other U.N. officials also commented on UNSCOM's right to use experts available for the sites under inspection, while taking into consideration representation of experts from countries other than the United States. Secretary General Kofi Annan also told journalists January 13 that although the Special Commission suggested at its meeting in December 1997 that there should be a balance of nationalities "the fact still remains that it is the U.N. and UNSCOM that decides who participates and who does not and how the teams are put together."
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