• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Iraq Accuses UN Arms Inspectors of Returning to Square One

BUTLER SAYS BAGHDAD'S SUGGESTIONS ARE UNACCEPTALE

Tehran Times 02 August 1998

Iraq accused UN arms inspectors on Saturday of going backwards in their work and ignoring Baghdad's achievements in disarmament, warning that it was being left with little incentive to cooperate. The attack on the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in charge of Iraq's disarmament came on the eve of a mission by UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler. The suspect intentions of this commission are to torpedo everything achieved since its creation in 1991 in the destruction of Iraqi arms, and it wants to return to square one, said the official daily Al-Jumhuriya.

Why should Iraq continue to make sacrifices by dealing with a commission that is headed by a suspect team and made up of U.S. and British spies? asked the newspaper. What new promise will Butler bring us this time? It asked, charging that he does not stick to his commitments and changes his stand under U.S. pressure. UNSCOM receives its orders from outside the United Nations, gathers its information from the U.S. intelligence services, London and Tel Aviv. That's why it respects neither its commitments nor its promises, charged Al-Jumhuriya. For more than seven years, this commission has done wrong to Iraq, destroyed its military, industrial and economic installations, and harmed its people, it said, accusing UNSCOM of deliberately prolonging sanctions.

According to another report, Butler on Friday said that new tests by European laboratories won't alter the impact of U.S. lab results that found traces of deadly VX nerve gas on Iraqi missile fragments. Baghdad's suggestions that the U.S. lab's findings were biased are unacceptable, Butler said. The lab was objective and properly certified to perform the analysis, he said during a brief visit to Beijing. The findings frustrated Iraqi efforts to convince the UN Security Council that it was revealing all about its programs for weapons of mass destruction. The council's agreement would have permitted it to end UN weapons inspections and lift sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which touched off the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Iraq disputed the U.S. lab findings and Butler agreed to new tests by French and Swiss labs to verify the U.S. claims. Iraq has said it was never able to move beyond experimenting with VX to producing it in large quantities for weapons. Results of the new analyses won't be known for weeks, but the U.S. lab's findings will stand regardless of how they turn out, Butler said.

Butler met with Chinese officials here on a two-day visit, his first to Beijing as executive chairman of the UN Special Commission.