23 January 1998
UNSCOM HEAD BUTLER CALLS IRAQI TALKS "DISTURBING"
(Richardson calls Iraqi defiance unacceptable) (1090) By Judy Aita USIA United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- The head of the U.N. Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (UNSCOM) told the U.N. Security Council January 23 that his meetings in Baghdad were "disturbing" and did not ease Iraq's confrontation with the U.N. over continuing weapons inspections. UNSCOM Chairman Ambassador Richard Butler said that Iraq's attitude was "disturbing and disappointing" and a marked contrast to his previous "correct and business-like" meetings with senior Iraqi officials. Iraq, he said, has refused to comply with Security Council demands that U.N. inspectors have access to all sites in Iraq that they wish to inspect, including so-called "presidential and sovereign" sites. Instead, Butler reported that Iraq has tried to halt certain UNSCOM inspections until April, to misuse upcoming technical meetings and to demand that UNSCOM "close the files" on banned chemical, biological, ballistic and nuclear weapons programs, so that sanctions against Iraq might be lifted within the next three months. U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson called Iraq's actions "deeply negative and unacceptable." Speaking after Butler presented his report to a private meeting of the Council, Richardson said "Iraq's response can be described in one word: defiance -- defiance of all Security Council resolutions, defiance of the U.N. inspection team, and defiance of the international community. That we find unacceptable." The United States, Richardson said, "feels very strongly that there should be full, unfettered access to all sites....In the next few days we will be consulting with our allies inside and outside the U.N. Security Council on the next steps" the Council should take. "We want to resolve this issue diplomatically but we are not ruling any option out," Richardson said. Council President Alain Dejammet of France said that while delegations still had to discuss the report with their capitals, there was general agreement that access to sites was necessary and a moratorium on UNSCOM inspections "is unacceptable." British Ambassador Sir John Weston said he did "not see how the Security Council can acquiesce in such a situation while wishing to retain any credibility. "In effect what he (Butler) has been told is that Iraq has no further intention of providing the information and access that the Special Commission needs," Weston said. In his written report to the Council Butler said that Iraq's position flies "directly in the face of the Security Council's requirements." The UNSCOM chairman said that there have also been "grave instances of attempts to mislead" UNSCOM and the Security Council. Iraq's stand "strongly suggests that Iraq is determined to withhold any further or new information ... and seek to prevent us from finding it ourselves," Butler said. "If Iraq successfully avoids answering the questions we have had before it for some time on outstanding disarmament issues and/or in other ways prevents us from finding those answers, it is gravely to be doubted that we would be able to verify Iraq's claims that it has met its disarmament obligations.... This in turn, would have a serious negative impact on UNSCOM's ongoing monitoring and verification work," Butler said. Butler said that Iraq is also misrepresenting the upcoming technical experts meetings to try to use them as a way to adjudicate issues between Iraq and the Security Council. He said the meetings were intended to be a verification tool for UNSCOM. Butler said that Iraq is trying to "dismiss" the events since mid-1995 when the late General Hussein Kamal defected from Iraq and eventually led UNSCOM to an extensive cache of documents on the banned weapons programs. Iraq sees the events as having robbed Baghdad of an early end to the disarmament effort, he said. "Between 1991 and 1995 Iraq robustly denied that it had any offensive biological weapons program. This was utterly false," Butler said. "Until 1995 Iraq denied any production of VX (nerve gas). After inquiries from UNSCOM Iraq elicited a declaration that it had produced only 260 liters of VX. Today we know that Iraq has produced at least 3.9 tons of VX," Butler said. "Sadly, Iraq has been unprepared to allow UNSCOM to verify its claims by: adequately documenting them; by cooperation with UNSCOM enquiries; by full access, including for inspections, in terms laid down by the Council," he said. Outstanding issues regarding Iraq's missile arsenal include the country's production capability, missile propellant accounting, and missile testing activities. Thus accounting for all the missile warheads would not mean that the missile file will be closed, Butler said. A complete accounting of the nerve agent VX would also not result in the closing of the chemical weapons files, either, Butler said. Iraq's documentation on the biological weapons was incomplete and not credible. For the technical talks to be successful Iraq has to be more "forthcoming." Butler said that Tariq Aziz told him to tell the Council that if there was no prospect of getting the sanctions lifted "Iraq had no intention of continuing to work with the Commission" and was "ready to face the consequences, including war." Tariq Aziz accused UNSCOM of expanding its mandate to include the presidential and sensitive sites without Security Council permission in order "to do whatever it wanted to do in Iraq." Butler said that the three days of talks "were characterized from the beginning by extended statements by the Iraqi side to which no remotely equal reply was invited, accepted or apparently wanted; moments of abuse and denigration of UNSCOM and its professional officers; an attempt to apportion literally all blame to UNSCOM, past and present, for the fact that the disarmament task has not been completed and sanctions on Iraq remained in force." Butler and other senior UNSCOM officials held three meetings with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz January 19-20. In addition, Butler and Tariq Aziz had a final private meeting just before the UNSCOM chief's departure from Baghdad on January 21. Butler complained about Iraqi officials questioning UNSCOM inspectors regarding the purpose of their inspections and the nationality of the inspectors and Iraqi personnel preceding inspectors possibly to "cleanse" the sites. "Finally, I regret that I need to register with the Council my rejection of claims Iraq has seen fit to make, in public, to the effect that officers of UNSCOM have sought to prolong our coming to conclusion on disarmament issues so that they can keep their jobs and incomes. These claims are utterly untrue and distasteful," Butler told the council.
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