28 August 1998
EX-UNSCOM INSPECTOR WARNS ABOUT IRAQ'S HIDDEN WEAPONS
(Ritter calls Security Council stand too lax) (1150) By Judy Aita USIA United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- Scott Ritter, the UN weapons inspector who quit his post after almost seven years on the job, said August 28 that he resigned to sound a "wake-up" call that nations must continue to press for Iraq's disarmament. In an interview with Reuters News Service, Ritter said "somebody had to put the word out that ... Iraq is not being disarmed, the Security Council is not living up to its obligation to enforce its resolutions, and the Secretary General is not behaving in a manner which pursues the law as set forth by the Security Council resolutions." The former weapons inspector said that "unequivocally, Iraq has stored, developed, and hidden weapons capabilities in foreign countries." He declined to name them but said that by March 1998 UNSCOM had "positively identified key elements of the concealment mechanism -- who they were, where they were, how they worked." Ritter caused a major disruption August 27 with his resignation from the UN Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons (UNSCOM). His letter of resignation, which was published, drew scathing criticism from the Security Council and Secretary General Kofi Annan. His resignation came three weeks after Iraq once again refused to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors and began pressing for UNSCOM to be restructured to lessen US participation. Ritter, a 37-year-old former US Marine Corps major, said in his resignation letter that "the Special Commission of today, hobbled as it is by unfettered Iraqi obstruction and non-existent Security Council enforcement of its own resolutions, is not the organization I joined almost seven years ago. ... The refusal and/or inability on the part of the Security Council to exercise responsibility concerning the disarmament obligations of Iraq makes a mockery of the mission." "The recent decision by the Security Council to downplay the significance of the recent Iraqi decision to cease cooperation with commission inspectors clearly indicates that the organization which created the Special Commission in its resolution 687 is no longer willing and/or capable of the implementation of its own law," he wrote. "The current decision by the Security Council and the Secretary General, backed at least implicitly by the United States, to seek a 'diplomatic' alternative to inspections-driven confrontation with Iraq," Ritter wrote, "constitutes a surrender to the Iraqi leadership that has succeeded in thwarting the stated will of the United Nations." Ritter said "the sad truth is that Iraq today is not disarmed anywhere near the level required by Security Council resolution. ... UNSCOM has good reason to believe that there are significant numbers of proscribed weapons and related components and the means to manufacture such weapons unaccounted for in Iraq today." Noting that UNSCOM has uncovered "indisputable proof of a systematic concealment mechanism, run by the presidency of Iraq and protected by the presidential security forces," he said the Commission is at "the door step of Iraq's hidden retained capability," but it is being frustrated by Iraq's refusal to cooperate. "The illusion of arms control is more dangerous than no arms control at all," Ritter said. "What is being propagated by the Security Council today in relation to the work of the Special Commission is such an illusion, one which in all good faith I cannot, and will not, be a party to." A spokesman for the Secretary General August 27 refuted Ritter's charges, saying Kofi Annan is "a consensus builder by nature and he doesn't act at the behest of any individual member state." "It is equally untrue and unfair to characterize the Secretary General's proposal for a comprehensive review of the disarmament efforts in Iraq as equivalent to investigating the investigators," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "The Secretary General offered that proposal not to distract from the Council's disarmament objectives but to strengthen the consensus of them." Eckhard also said that listening to the complaints of UN member states is "one of his primary functions ... part of his job description." Ambassador Richard Butler, executive chairman of UNSCOM, said at a press conference August 27 that Ritter's departure will "take away from us skills, knowledge, and dedication that we needed and had been very valuable." He characterized the resignation as "classic in the sense it gives expression to the strongly held view of a man of integrity." Asked if he shared Ritter's assessment of the Iraqi disarmament situation, Butler replied that his view "is something I will not go into here." "Scott and I agree that there is still work of disarmament to be done, contrary to what Iraq has asserted recently to the effect that that work is over. It is not," Butler continued. "I intend to continue to seek to do the work in order to try to make it possible at the earliest moment ... to be able to tell the Security Council with surety, with evidence, that Iraq is disarmed," he said. Butler said he will be looking for a replacement for Ritter because once UNSCOM inspectors resolve questions surrounding Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs, the inspectors will need to clear up the issues of how Iraq concealed those programs. Ritter, often the target of Iraqi charges that he was a US intelligence officer, was in charge of UNSCOM's so-called concealment inspection team that investigated suspected secret Iraqi sites in search of hidden documents and banned weapons. UNSCOM is "nowhere near an empty shell," Butler asserted. "The Security Council has made abundantly clear that it is determined Iraq should comply with resolution (687)." Butler also rejected charges by Iraq that he has given in to pressures from the United States or other delegations in running UNSCOM. "I have received representations from representatives of the United States ... with their concerns over implementation of Security Council policy decisions. I have never felt that the representation of those views would be described as undue pressure or persuasion," Butler said. "But, above all, I have never found that they crossed the line between their legitimate interest in policy and my unique responsibility for operational decisions. Never," he said. "The United States was not alone," the UNSCOM chairman added. "The sorts of representations, opinions and views, etc., that I received from the United States representatives have also been conveyed to me by representatives of other interested governments -- quite a number of them. I consider that to be absolutely normal, in fact, desirable." "The higher the degree of such communication, the better we're able to stay together and pursue our common task," he said. All the governments involved "have never sought to improperly cross the line between policy advice, policy opinion, and leaving to me the responsibility that I have for operational decisions," Butler said. (For more information on this subject, contact our special Iraq website at: http://www.usia.gov/iraq)
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