10 March 2003
Diplomatic Process Continues on Iraq Resolution, White House Says
(But "it must lead to immediate disarmament of Saddam Hussein") (680) By Wendy S. Ross Washington File White House Correspondent Washington -- The exact content of the resolution on Iraq to be voted on soon at the United Nations Security Council in New York "remains a matter of consultation and discussion among various nations," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters March 10. "Ambassadors at the United Nations and others are in the final stages of diplomacy in New York, in anticipation of a vote that will take place this week," he said. "Some nations have suggested such things as benchmarks. There are ideas that are being explored and looked at. And so it is too soon to say what the final document that will be voted on will include. It's too soon to say what the exact date will be," he said. "(C)onsultation is important, listening to the ideas of various nations is important" in the current "important phase of diplomacy," Fleischer said. "That's under way," he said, but he had no indication "whether anything is final in the language that has been offered in the amended version of the resolution." Fleischer said the ongoing diplomatic efforts are "marked by some level of flexibility within the diplomacy. But the bottom line remains the same; it must lead to the immediate disarmament of Saddam Hussein." Fleischer said the White House is aware of the discovery of Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by UNMOVIC -- the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. The U.S. is also aware of UNMOVIC's discovery of Iraqi production of munitions capable of dispensing both chemical and biological weapons, he said. The United States hopes to learn, at a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council March 10, why the discovery of the undeclared weapons delivery systems was not addressed in weapons inspector Hans Blix's March 7 oral presentation to the council, he said. Some of the information, he said, was added "very late" as an appendix to the long report detailing the 29 clusters of unresolved disarmament issues that the U.N. weapons inspectors presented to the U.N. along with their presentations. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said March 10 that "further disclosures" are now coming to light "that are even beyond the scope of the report." He said there's a chemical munition that Iraq has developed, based on South African cluster bomb technology but "modified in order to spray chemical weapons instead of operating as a cluster bomb. The inspectors have, I think, come across that in some of their inspections, and now we find there may be hundreds of these -- over a hundred of them, at least. "So there are items being found by the inspectors that deserve the focus of the international community and should probably be discussed more and more with them up in New York. We think it is necessary for people to look at the totality of what the inspectors are presenting and what the inspectors are finding, and to look at it in some detail like this, in order to understand what's really going on." Fleischer said given the fact that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction that are prohibited to him, "what's at stake" in the current debate at the United Nations is "what is the lesson for the next country that has weapons of mass destruction or nuclear weapons, such as Iran or North Korea, where we fear they are developing their programs to have weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons? How then does the world enforce anti-proliferation arrangements if the methods set up by the international community are not effective? And that is being tested now with the United Nations Security Council. There are issues that need to be thought through, from an international point of view." If the United Nations does not act, he said, "there are other proliferators down the line who will celebrate the United Nations Security Council's failure to back up its own resolutions." (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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