27 January 2003
U.S. Says January 27 Reports Show Iraq Not Complying with U.N.
(Powell, Fleischer analyse inspectors' reports to Security Council) (1100) By Wendy S. Ross Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- The January 27 reports on Iraq delivered to the United Nations Security Council by chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei show clearly that Iraq is not complying with United Nations demands that it disarm, the Bush administration says. Secretary of State Colin Powell, at a briefing at the State Department January 27, said the reports show that after 60 days of U.N. weapons inspection activity in Iraq, Iraq "has not provided the active, immediate and unconditional cooperation that the council demanded in U.N. Resolution 1441" that was approved unanimously by the Security Council on November 8. "As Dr. Blix said, quote, 'Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it,' unquote. Let me repeat, because this is the essence of the problem. Dr. Blix said, 'Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it.' Fourteen-forty-one is all about the disarmament demanded of Iraq," Powell said. "The list of unanswered questions and the many ways Iraq is frustrating the work of the inspectors goes on and on," Powell said. "Iraq's refusal to disarm, in compliance with Resolution 1441, still threatens international peace and security. And Iraq's defiance continues to challenge the relevance and credibility of the Security Council." Iraq, Powell said, continues to conceal vast quantities of highly lethal material and the weapons to deliver it, which could kill thousands upon thousands of men, women and children, if Saddam Hussein decides to use them or to provide them to others who might use them. "Iraq must not be allowed to keep weapons of mass terror and the capacity to produce more. The world community must send a clear message to Iraq that the will of the international community must be obeyed," Powell said. The issue, he added, "is not how much more time the inspectors need to search in the dark. It is how much more time Iraq should be given to turn on the lights and to come clean. And the answer is: not much more time. Iraq's time for choosing peaceful disarmament is fast coming to an end." At the White House midday briefing, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said the report to the Security Council released in New York "shows clearly Iraq is not compliant." "[I]t's clear from today's important reporting date that Iraq has failed to comply, that Iraq continues to have weapons of mass destruction that they have not accounted for and that Iraq's failure to comply has led to a situation where the inspectors are getting the runaround. That's what today's important reporting date has shown," Fleischer said. The report, he said, "is a frightening reminder of the fact that UNSCOM [the United Nations Special Commission] found chemical and biological weapons [in Iraq] in the late 1990s, and according to the United Nations this morning, no one knows where they are. And the fear is, as Hans Blix said, that this is a submerged tip of the iceberg in terms of the little that has been found already," Fleischer said. He reminded reporters that the United Nations weapons inspectors reported at the end of the 1990s that Iraq possessed 30,000 chemical warheads. In the eight weeks the inspectors have been back in Iraq, they have found only 16 chemical warheads, Fleischer said. "At the pace that Iraq is cooperating with the inspectors, it will take the inspectors another almost 300 years to find the remaining weapons that the United Nations says Saddam Hussein possesses. ... [T]he inspectors are doing their best job, but the more time they get, the more they're getting the runaround from Saddam Hussein," he said. President Bush believes that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction remain "a very grave threat" to the world because the United Nations has shown the world that there are many good reasons to worry about Iraq being in possession of weapons that are deadly for millions, the press secretary said. Both Powell and Fleischer made clear that President Bush will continue to consult with world leaders on the situation, and that he still hopes that this can be resolved peacefully. But they also made clear that "time is running out." "The president hasn't put a timetable on it, so I'm not going to put a timetable on it. The inspections are continuing," Fleischer said. "The inspectors were at work yesterday, the inspectors are at work today and they will be at work tomorrow. But the president has made it clear, and he is trying to rally the world, that time is running out. And the president will continue to rally the world. And one day, one way, sooner or later, Saddam Hussein will either disarm so peace can be preserved, or a coalition will be assembled to do the job and to protect the peace." "It still remains an issue for the United Nations to prove that the resolution they passed was not just one more in a string of resolutions to be followed by additional resolutions, none of which have value, none of which have meaning, none of which are enforced. And that still remains an open test of the United Nations," Fleischer said. Both Powell and Fleischer said the United States is receiving information on a connection between the Saddam Hussein regime and al Qaeda from detainees in the war against terrorism. "This is an ongoing situation, and I think that there may be more to be said at the appropriate time," Fleischer told reporters. He noted that Bush called Spain's President Jose Maria Aznar January 27 and congratulated him on arrests of al Qaeda members in Barcelona recently; the two leaders also consulted on the situation in Iraq, as well as on current discussions at the United Nations, he said. Fleischer said that President Bush's January 28 State of the Union Address to the U.S. Congress will not include a deadline nor a declaration of war but will include "principled, very lofty" statements in defense of freedom "that point out the risks that the United States and our friends around the world face from a leader who has been on a relentless pursuit of weapons that will inflict millions ... of casualties, in addition to inflicting terror throughout civilized society, if he is able to have his way." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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