16 January 1998
UNSCOM ADDING MORE WEAPONS EXPERTS TO STAFF, DEPUTY CHAIRMAN SAYS
(The main problem for UNSCOM remains Iraqi cooperation) (930) By Judy Aita USIA United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- While the U.N. Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons (UNSCOM) has received numerous new offers of personnel and equipment, its difficulties with inspections will only be solved with more access and cooperation from Iraq, a senior UNSCOM official said January 16. UNSCOM Deputy Chairman Charles Duelfer said that "our problem is not driven by a lack of manpower. Our problem is driven by a lack of information and lack of access and those are resources which only can be provided by the government of Iraq. "Just adding manpower at certain stages doesn't automatically increase efficiency or increase ability to do the job," Duelfer said at a press conference at U.N. headquarters. "Having more experts will help us, but having access will help us a lot more." UNSCOM's agenda "has been set for us by the (U.N.) Security Council," Duelfer pointed out. "The Council has identified what issues are the major problems -- which are those that have to do with access." UNSCOM is in the midst of its second standoff with Iraq over weapons inspections in three months. Iraq has complained that inspections teams have been composed of too many Americans and on January 12 refused to cooperate with a team headed by one of UNSCOM's chief inspectors, Scott Ritter, an American whom Iraq accuses of being a spy. In November Iraq expelled all American employees of UNSCOM and threatened to shoot down U-2 reconnaissance flights carried out by the United States for UNSCOM. A special emergency session of the twenty UNSCOM commissioners produced a report emphasizing that Iraq's cooperation will be the determining factor in when UNSCOM completes its work and suggesting that additional equipment and personnel would be helpful. The commission, which is made up of weapons experts from 20 nations, reviewed the work of its inspectors in Iraq and recommended ways that UNSCOM can improve its work. It called for more flights, including night surveillance flights; documentation of Iraqi efforts to frustrate UNSCOM's work; additional monitoring equipment; more training for weapons inspectors; and training on sanctions reporting for governments trading with Iraq. Since then the Chinese Government has offered three weapons experts and Russia has submitted a list of 60 experts for UNSCOM and offered additional reconnaissance aircraft. "The commissioners...had a number of suggestions to make the Special Commission more effective in its operations in Iraq," Duelfer said. There have been a lot of specific proposals for making the commission more effective, including additional experts from a number of countries, but emphasizing that they must be experts in relative matters. The additional surveillance capabilities were open to any suggestions for ways of making our work more effective and more credible." "The Russian government has offered us additional manpower and that is helpful, but the problem fundamentally originates in Iraq," he said. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard also announced January 16 that three Chinese experts will be participating in monitoring activities at the UNSCOM monitoring and verification center in Baghdad. They will begin work in February. UNSCOM is studying the Russian list and will be reviewing the qualifications of the 60 experts, Duelfer said. "We obviously have to know their individual specialties; we have to know if they are for short-term inspections in Iraq or long-term staffing of monitoring center." "Russia is one of the strongest supporting governments in terms of expertise. We have a team of mostly Russians investigating missiles right now....This is natural: A lot of missile issues are fundamentally about Russian missiles," the UNSCOM deputy said. "The Russians are talking about provision of aircraft but...have not yet provided us with details. We plan on investigating that with them to thoroughly understand what the proposal is," he said. Nevertheless, the Russian aircraft would not replace the U-2 flights, Duelfer said. "We're not talking about a substitute for the U-2 aircraft. We have to understand what aircraft the Russians are, in fact, proposing; what type of sensors would be put on it. We don't fully yet understand what this is. But in any case it would be in addition to the (U-2) capability," he explained. Scott Ritter left Baghdad January 16 and will be meeting with UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler in Bahrain before returning to New York. Duelfer said that although Ritter and his team were unable to undertake their investigations "we fully intend to continue these types of investigations" which involve methods used to conceal information and programs from the U.N. "And we fully intend to continue using Scott Ritter," he said. "He's a very expert individual who has a lot of talent and has more knowledge than almost anyone else in this type of area." "Historically we have had this problem before with other chief inspectors. This is not a new phenomenon; it has happened before. We continue to use inspectors who have been mischaracterized by the Government of Iraq and have continued to do their work," Duelfer said. Butler will be in Baghdad January 19-21 for meetings with top Iraqi officials. The U.N. also announced after a meeting between Butler and the French Foreign Minister that Butler has agreed to take a senior French political counselor, who is an expert in the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, on his senior staff at U.N. headquarters.
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