Nightline Tonight; Wash Post, Tariq Aziz, On Iraq's VX Program
Iraq News, JUNE 23, 1998
By Laurie MylroieThe central focus of Iraq News is the tension between the considerable, proscribed WMD capabilities that Iraq is holding on to and its increasing stridency that it has complied with UNSCR 687 and it is time to lift sanctions. If you wish to receive Iraq News by email, a service which includes full-text of news reports not archived here, send your request to Laurie Mylroie .
I. IRAQ WEAPONIZED VX IN SCUD WARHEADS, WASH POST, JUN 23 II. IRAQ DENIES WEAPONIZING VX, TARIQ AZIZ TO UNSC, JUN 20 Tonight ABC's Nightline will report on the Iraqi opposition members detained by the USG in Los Angeles and threatened with deportation to Iraq, one aspect of the enormous malfeasance that constitutes the Clinton administration's Iraq policy, another aspect of which was reported in today's Wash Post. Today's Wash Post reported that UNSCOM has determined that Iraq weaponized VX, the most lethal chemical agent known in the West--1/100th of a gram is lethal--and placed it in SCUD warheads. The weaponization of VX has been consistently denied by Iraq, most recently in a Jun 20 letter from Tariq Aziz to the UNSC. And as the Wash Post reported, "The new indications of Iraqi deception also are likely to reverberate in US politics, where conservative Republicans are increasingly critical of what they see as a failure by the Clinton administration to support strongly either aggressive UNSCOM inspections for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or efforts to overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Word of the new findings on VX gas began to circulate on Capitol Hill late last week, leading to the drafting over the weekend of a pointed letter to President Clinton from Congressional leaders demanding to know if Clinton would back up Butler in a confrontation with Baghdad. . . Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (Miss), one of the four GOP signatories of the letter, said that he was 'deeply disturbed' by reports that the administration has not acted on the VX information. 'The latest example of a failed policy toward Iraq will not be swept under the rug. The issue of whether UNSCOM has received all the support it need and deserves from the US will figure heavily in the nomination hearings of Richard Holbrooke' to be US ambassador to the United Nations and of the current ambassador, Bill Richardson, to be energy secretary, Lott said." Yesterday, Iraq's UN ambassador delivered Tariq Aziz' letter to the UNSC. As the Wash Post noted, it included the claim that Iraq had proved, without doubt, that it had not produced VX "in a sufficiently stable manner to be utilized within the framework of the armament programme." One question this information raises concerns Iraq's deployment of SCUD missiles with unconventional warheads during the Gulf war. Following the defection of Hussein Kamil in Aug 95, Iraq acknowledged moving such missiles to airfields, where they were positioned to target Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iraq claimed that some of those SCUDs carried the biological agent, aflatoxin, which, over the long term, causes liver cancer. That claim was always a great puzzle. Possibly, it was VX, rather than aflatoxin, in the warheads. Aziz' letter also reflected Baghdad's heavy-handed posture toward UNSCOM. It began, "Iraq has fulfilled all its obligations with regard to disarmament in accordance with section C, paragraphs 8, 9, and 10, of Security Council resolution 687 (1991)"-the disarmament provisions regarding IraqXs proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missile systems. And, referring to Amb. Butler's most recent visit to Baghdad, Aziz wrote, "The completion of the work indicated in the schedule of work will make it possible to resolve the outstanding issues raised by the Special Commission and will definitely lead to the submission by UNSCOM of its final report to the Security Council in accordance with paragraph 22 of resolution 687 (1991)."
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