Iraqi Leadership Responds to UNSC
Iraq News, 31 July 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 .
RCC/BA'TH PARTY RESPOND TO UNSC
Baghdad INA in Arabic 1355 GMT 30 July 1998
[FBIS Translated Text] President Saddam Husayn chaired a joint meeting
of the Revolution Command Council and the Iraq Command of the Arab
Socialist Ba'th Party. The conferees discussed the relationship between
the UN Special Commission [UNSCOM], the IAEA, and the Security Council
in light of the message issued by the joint meeting on 1 May and the
speech by the president in July. The leadership meeting came as a
follow-up of the meeting held on 21 July. The conferees discussed in
particular the current deliberations at the Security Council
regarding the nuclear file and the arbitrary and aggressive US stand, as
well as the Security Council's failure to adopt a fair and just
resolution.
The joint meeting then issued the following statement:
In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. The manner of
dealing with the nuclear file and the US rejection of the ideas which
are being deliberated at the Security Council with regard to issuing an
official resolution to move this file from the stage of dismantling
weapons to that of monitoring gives a very clear example of the
arbitrary approach toward the Iraqi question. All the reports of the
IAEA, regardless of some details, have been showing for years that its
tasks according to Section C of Resolution 687 have been accomplished
and that it actually does not practice anything beyond monitoring and
verification. Nevertheless, influenced by the United States, the
Security Council is not prepared to issue an official resolution
confirming these facts and moving this file to the stage of monitoring
On the other side, UNSCOM is serving US schemes by deliberately
prolonging its mission and thus maintaining the embargo. UNSCOM knows
full well that all the requirements for dismantling weapons as provided
for in Section C of Resolution 687 regarding missiles and chemical and
biological files were fully met several years ago. The weapons were
destroyed. Also destroyed were hundreds of factories, devices, and
equipment which were allegedly linked to the production of weapons. The
destruction was carried out in a vengeful manner. It included even
ordinary equipment and devices in these factories, like cooling devices,
lights, furniture, and other objects that had nothing to do with weapons
or production of weapons. This was done at a time when Iraq had been
suffering from a comprehensive and unjust embargo and a time when it
needed all of its national property.
In 1994 a comprehensive, tight monitoring system was established. It
covered and interfered in the work of hundreds of plants, enterprises,
universities, schools, and many other places. On a daily basis, many
teams searched and monitored all these sites very tightly and they
interfered in every one of their affairs such as the budget of the
location, the number of its employees, the number of those holding
higher degrees, and so on and so forth. Their interventions were, in
fact, nothing but intelligence activity whose results went to US
intelligence circles and to the Zionist entity in particular.
In addition to the huge losses inflicted on Iraq, which amount to
hundreds of millions of dollars due to the damage of hundreds of plants,
machinery, and equipment, most of which could have been used for
civilian purposes and many of which had already started to function for
civilian purposes, the activity of the IAEA and that of UNSCOM has been
costing Iraq huge amounts of money and tremendous effort since 1991.
Senior Iraqi officials at the leadership, hundreds of engineers,
technicians, professors, specialists, and hundreds of individuals who
are supporting the IAEA and UNSCOM activity have been working full time
on this kind of activity, and it was all at the expense of their normal
daily work.
Iraq is supposed to comply with all the daily inspection and
monitoring demands of the IAEA and UNSCOM. It must serve UNSCOM planes,
provide them with oil, accompany inspection and monitoring teams, and
provide them with protection. Moreover, work in all the plants,
enterprises, universities, and research centers, and even civilian
locations such as baby milk factories, mills, hospitals, agricultural
places, veterinarian clinics, food manufacturing companies, and water
purification projects, was all hindered in order to respond to the
demands of the IAEA and UNSCOM.
This situation has continued for over seven years. Iraq agreed to
perform all these heavy and burdensome commitments to achieve a basic
goal: namely, lifting the unfair embargo imposed on it.
For seven years, the United States, along with Britain, and other
stooges of the United States, refused to take any step whatsoever to
ease or lift the embargo.
The legitimate question that must be posed to the UN Security Council
and the international community is the following: Why should Iraq
sustain all these losses and all these burdens and exorbitant costs?
Why should Iraq allow all its factories, installations, universities,
etcetera to remain under inspection and monitoring, especially since
this entails obvious espionage conducted by elements of the UN Special
Commission to particularly serve the United States and its hostile
imperialist purposes against Iraq? Why should Iraq bear all this,
particularly since the embargo remains in place regardless of the extent
of Iraqi compliance with UN Security Council resolutions?
For seven years, Iraq has been promised by this or that party that its
patience, endurance, and cooperation with the IAEA and the UN Special
Commission would result in lifting the embargo. To remove and mitigate
the suffering and pains of our people, the leadership has endured a lot
of the behavior of the UN Special Commission, its endless demands, and
its insolent espionage methods.
We hoped that the UN Security Council members would feel pangs of
conscience and that they would address this issue from a balanced angle
and thus demonstrate fairness. However, the years passed by, and we
have found neither fairness nor balance, except from a few members of
the UN Security Council, whose position was confined to criticizing this
state of affairs and to voicing dissatisfaction with it. This has not
produced an effective action that could have prompted the UN Security
Council to pass the resolution anticipated for seven years to lift the
embargo clamped on Iraq, which should begin by implementing paragraph 22
of Resolution 687, and end up with a complete and blanket revocation of
the other embargoes clamped on Iraq, which are unprecedented in world
history.
Our expectations that the [weapons] files would be closed before
October l998 and that the Security Council would start implementing
paragraph 22 of Resolution 687 vanished after we saw how UNSCOM dealt
with the nuclear file--as we have mentioned--and the maneuvers it is
taking to stir up marginal issues that do not change the basic fact that
Iraq has met all the basic and practical requirements for disarmament
according to the text and logic of Resolution 687. What remains is a
continuation of the status quo, a continuation of the siege until an
unknown and unspecified date, and a continuation of UNSCOM's actions
that destroy and waste state property and keep the state from serving
the people.
While declaring these facts, we ask the UN Security Council, the
secretary general, and the entire international community a strong and
firm question: Why should Iraq put up with all of this, if the siege
continues and has no foreseeable end?
The incident with the presidential sites was a blatant and
embarrassing example--for those who can still feel shame--of an unjust
situation. UNSCOM, with the United States behind it, asked to tour
presidential sites, which are the state's supreme sites, highly valued
by the Iraqi people as symbols of sovereignty and dignity, as well as
their critical value to the security of the leadership and the state.
The Americans, along with the British, spread lies about huge amounts of
weapons and equipment being stockpiled at these sites.
Despite the impudence and injustice of such a request, unprecedented
in UN dealings with states, we responded to the secretary general's
initiative. We signed an agreement with him and allowed the team to be
formed to visit all of these sites. The Security Council and the entire
world, especially the secretary general, know what went on and know how
the lies spread by Washington and London regarding these sites were
exposed.
We have dealt with this issue in a wise and balanced manner for two
main objectives: the first of these is to awaken the conscience of the
Security Council and international community to the truth. The second,
and equally important, objective is in the hope of this flexibility
leading to a lifting of the siege in a short time and to which the
secretary general promised to draw attention in the Security Council.
However, the truth of the matter is that all of this--as has been
said--has not come out with any tangible result toward securing the
lifting of the unjust siege that has been imposed on our country and
people for eight years.
We are declaring all of these facts to our people, the Security
Council, and the entire world and call for holding a comprehensive
national discussion of this situation soon. The discussion should also
cover the stand and measures that should be taken to protect the higher
interests of the people and the security and sovereignty of the country.
The next meeting between the representatives of Iraq and UNSCOM will
be significant in terms of what the situation will be like. Will UNSCOM
admit that the requirements for Section C of Resolution 687 have been
accomplished and will it present the required report to the Security
Council so that it will embark on implementing Paragraph 22 shortly? Or
will it continue with its known methods of maneuvering and misleading,
as well as raising marginal issues to prolong its work endlessly to
serve the criminal US scheme aimed at destroying Iraq and its people?
We urge our great people to assume their role, as we have always
known them, and to rally around their leadership in the stand that will
emerge from the coming circumstances and discussions. We also appeal to
our lofty Arab nation to adopt a responsible stand toward tampering,
intransigence, and aggressiveness. And soon will the unjust assailants
know what vicissitudes their affairs will take. [Koranic verse]
God is great. Let the lowly be accursed.
The meeting was attended by the speaker of the National Assembly, the
chief of the presidential office, and the minister of culture and
information.
In a related development, a responsible source revealed a number of
flagrant facts about a number of inspection teams which worked in Iraq
between 1991 and 30 July 1998, as well as the number of monitoring
operations which have been taking place since 1993. Following are the
related facts:
1. The number of the inspection teams which have visited Iraq since
1991 has reached 260. These teams comprised 3,517 inspectors who carry
out various tasks, including inspection of sites; verification;
discussions; meetings; affixing stickers; installing cameras and
sensors; preparing protocols; destroying sites, equipment, and material;
and taking samples of air, soil, water, and plants. These teams carried
out 2,522 inspection tours of sites, which are subject to monitoring, as
well as sites that are not subject to monitoring, throughout the
country.
2. A total of 161 monitoring groups for various activities worked at the
Baghdad Monitoring center. Since the start of the implementation of the
monitoring regime in November 1993 and up to now, these groups conducted
6,818 visits and reconnaissance sorties for sites which were either
subject or not subject to monitoring throughout the country.
3. Ever since Iraq started implementing the mechanism for monitoring the
exports and imports stipulated in Resolution 1,051 issued on 27 May
1996, all border exits were included in this measure. The number of
these exits is 70, including border exits, ports, international
airports, and customs departments.
4. Since 12 August 1991 and up to 20 July 1998, US U-2 spy planes
conducted 415 sorties with a total of 1725.05 flight hours.
Since 17 June 1998 and up to 25 July 1998, French Mirage planes
conducted 12 sorties with a total of 15.44 flight hours.
5. Helicopters belonging to the 28 air reconnaissance teams conducted a
total of 938 sorties of 2,715 flight hours from June 1992 up to 28 July
1998. The sites which were the target of reconnaissance sorties totaled
1,800. The total number of the sorties conducted by the reconnaissance
and transport helicopters amounted to 3,758 with a total of 6,612 f1ight
hours.
6. The number of sites subject to the monitoring regime amounted to 415
sites across the country. UNSCOM has 121 permanent monitoring cameras
in 29 sites, in addition to 27 sensors in 11 sites.
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