DATE=1/31/2000
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=DEALING WITH IRAQ'S WEAPONS AGAIN
NUMBER=6-11658
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: Ever since the Gulf War at the beginning of
this decade, the Western powers, as well as most of
the countries in and around the Persian Gulf, have
been worried about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction.
Credible evidence has been amassed that Iraq has been
developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons,
before, during and especially after its conflict with
an alliance of Western and Arab neighbors.
United Nations weapons inspectors have been absent
from Iraq for more than a year now, and a new plan for
a revised U-N weapons inspection agency is generating
controversy in the United States government and in the
U-S press. We get a sampling now from_____________ in
today's U-S Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: It has been more than a year since the United
States, accompanied by some of its allies, launched an
aerial bombing campaign against Iraq due to weapons-
control violations. That caused the formal end of
UNSCOM, the United Nations agency headed by Richard
Butler which had been inspecting, as best it could,
Iraq's weapons plants and storage facilities.
The United States has been pressing in the United
Nations Security Council for a new agency to resume
weapons inspection. After a deadlock in the U-N body,
when France, Russia and China opposed the initial
choice for leadership of the weapons team, a
compromise agreement has been reached. But the U-S
press is not happy, as we hear now, beginning with The
Chicago Tribune.
VOICE: The latest tragedy tormenting the Iraqi
people is a dispute at the United Nations over
who should lead a newly-constituted agency of
arms inspectors to assure that Iraq is free of
weapons of mass destruction. Like Nero fiddling
as Rome burned, the U-N Security Council has
fiddled away its time arguing over just how to
reconstitute an arms monitoring organization
that may never be allowed back into Iraq.
Meanwhile, nine years after the Persian Gulf
War, the only certainty in Iraq is the suffering
of its people under Saddam Hussein's jackboot.
By U-N estimates, more than one-million Iraqis
have died, directly or indirectly, because of
economic sanctions imposed by the international
community a decade ago -- and Saddam's cruel
indifference to their impact. ... After
acquiescing to the U-N's call for new
inspectors, France, Russia and China have joined
to effectively block the implementation of that
decision. They did so by rejecting Secretary
General Kofi Annan's choice of Swedish arms
control expert Rolf Ekeus to head the news arms
inspection commission. ... Since when should the
U-N, whose mission is to disarm Iraq, be giving
Saddam a veto over their policy? He's the
problem -- not the answer. ... One wise measure
would be to break the link between economic
sanctions and the military embargo, easing
pressure on Iraq's people while keeping tight
control of any arms going into Iraq.
TEXT: On New York's Long Island, Newsday feels the
U-N's ultimate choice is a disappointment, and calls
him "the wrong man":
VOICE: An unfortunate choice to oversee the new
weapons-inspections agency on Iraq has emerged
at the United Nations Security Council: Hans
Blix of Sweden, the retired former head of the
U-N nuclear agency. To choose Blix, 72, to
ferret out Iraq's nuclear secrets is like hiring
Inspector Clouseau [a fictional French police
inspector, a character in the "Pink Panther"
motion pictures, whose name has come to be a
synonym for inept police work] to do the job.
But unless the United States or Britain
intervenes, it appears that [Mr.] Blix will win
council approval as the consensus choice. If
that happens, President ... Clinton will have
wimped out [displayed unacceptable cowardice] on
Iraqi arms inspections.
TEXT: Another major daily that is unsettled with the
result is the Los Angeles Times.
VOICE: The U-N Security Council argued for more
than a month and rejected more than 25
candidates before agreeing this week [1/27] on
Hans Blix of Sweden, the former head of the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency,
to lead the commission charged with finding and
destroying Iraq's nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons. But Baghdad has already
denounced the new body as a tool of American
spying. If it holds to its defiance and refused
to cooperate with further arms inspections, the
Security Council's readiness to enforce its own
resolutions will again be tested. ... Only
unhindered on-the-ground inspections by experts
can assure that. Richard Butler of Australia
and Rolf Ekeus of Sweden, previous heads of the
inspection program, insisted on that access in
their time. Hans Blix must be similarly
resolute in the face of Iraqi obstructionism.
TEXT: "A disappointing choice on Iraq" is the
headline over an editorial in The New York Times,
indicating the degree of that paper's displeasure.
VOICE: The United Nations Security Council's
compromise choice of Hans Blix as the new chief
weapons inspector for Iraq is a disturbing sign
that the international community lacks the
determination to rebuild an effective arms
inspection system in Iraq. Mr. Blix is a man of
unquestioned integrity and tact. But he seems
unlikely to provide the forceful leadership
needed to keep Saddam Hussein from cheating on
his arms control obligations and building
fearsome unconventional weapons. ... The two men
who previously ran the Iraq inspection program,
Rolf Ekeus and Richard Butler, rightly insisted
that Baghdad would have to provide complete
answers to all significant questions about
missing weapons, ingredients and records before
it could be considered in compliance.
Washington should apply a similar standard
before approving any move in the Security
Council to end international sanctions on Iraq.
TEXT: The Boston Globe takes special aim at Russia,
saying Moscow's actions in the Security Council show
"an ominous contempt" for the United Nations and its
resolutions.
VOICE: No good can come of the effective veto
that Russia, France and China have given Saddam
Hussein over U-N Security Council decisions.
That is the meaning of their refusal to accept
Secretary General Kofi Annan's choice of the
highly-qualified Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus to
lead a reconstituted U-N commission mandated,
under U-N resolutions, to disclose and dismantle
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. ...
Explaining his country's position, Russia's
ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov,
said the Security Council would not only have to
choose a chief weapons inspector who was
acceptable to Saddam, but that the Iraqi
dictator would also have to approve all members
of the inspection team and even the disarmament
questions the commission could address. This
standoff represents a grave peril not only for
arms control and regional stability but also for
the credibility of the Security Council and the
U-N generally. Russia and France, in their
shameless efforts to obtain commercial favors
from Saddam's regime, have permitted the tyrant
who gassed to death thousands of Iraqi citizens
to determine who will search for his hidden
weapons of mass destruction.
TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of
comment on the latest United Nations effort to
reconstitute a U-N arms control agency to monitor
Iraq.
NEB/ANG/WTW
31-Jan-2000 17:54 PM EDT (31-Jan-2000 2254 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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