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27 February 2003

State Officials Say Iraq Has Failed to Comply with U.N. Resolution

(Iraq offers deception and lies to weapons inspectors, they say) (440)
Washington -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has failed to avail
himself of a final opportunity to disarm his country of weapons of
mass destruction as called for in the four-month-old U.N. Security
Council (UNSC) Resolution 1441, says Kim Holmes, assistant secretary
of state for international organization affairs.
The resolution, unanimously adopted November 8 by the 15-member UNSC,
required Iraq to provide immediate and unconditional cooperation to
weapons inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and
Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), Holmes said February 27 at a Washington Foreign Press
Center briefing.
The resolution required Iraq to provide the U.N. weapons inspectors
with a complete and accurate declaration of all aspects of its
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, and ballistic
missile systems, as well as information on other chemical, biological,
and nuclear programs which were supposed to be for civilian purposes,
he said.
Because Iraq has failed to comply with 1441, Holmes said the United
States introduced a draft UNSC resolution February 24 that states
"Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it." The
draft resolution was introduced by the United States, Britain and
Spain. France, Germany and Russia have circulated an alternative
proposal to intensify U.N. arms inspections for at least four more
months.
The U.N. Security Council held a closed meeting February 27 to discuss
the U.S.-British-Spanish draft resolution and the alternative offered
by France, but no vote is expected on a new resolution before a report
is made to the Security Council by Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans
Blix March 7. Holmes said the United States expects a "positive vote"
shortly after the Blix report.
Holmes said this is not about inspections, but about disarmament, and
the United States sees itself "as enforcing U.N. Security Council
resolution 1441."
John Wolf, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, who also
spoke at the Foreign Press Center briefing, added that the United
States began this process through the United Nations to achieve the
peaceful disarmament of Iraq. Wolf said that Iraq has instead offered
lies, cheating and deception, and the degree of cooperation offered to
the weapons inspectors has been without substance.
Wolf also said the al-Samoud 2 ballistic missiles found by inspectors
in Iraq, which exceed a 150-kilometer limit imposed by the U.N.,
should never have been there if Iraq were genuinely attempting to
reach disarmament requirements set forth by the U.N.
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)