December 7, 2001
Hans Blix, the Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), said UN inspectors would have cleared Iraq's name from all suspicions had it allowed them to go back in. "If Iraq had had effective inspections and cooperated with UNMOVIC since 1999, then it might not have been subject to the suspicions based in the media which it is being subjected to now," Blis told Kuna in an interview late on Thursday.
Iraq's name has come up as a state that could have facilitated the terrorist attacks of September 11th or from which anthrax could have come, he said. "No one has seen such evidence but I don't think the suspicion would have been there if they had cooperated with UNMOVIC," He argued. "It demonstrates, in a way, that Iraq could have a need for UNMOVIC," He said. Blix briefed the Security Council earlier in the day about his most recent report and answered a few questions from the members which supported his work even though UN inspectors have not been able to return to Iraq following Operation Desert Fox in 1998.
Asked to comment on the latest Council resolution extending the oil-for-food program for Iraq while committing the Council to review the sanctions in six months, Blix said there is a "significant element of the new resolution that is related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In that resolution Russia agreed to adopt a "goods review list" of dual use items not permitted for Baghdad and the US agreed to clarify Resolution 1284 of December 1999, which created UNMOVIC, to suspend sanctions then lift them if Iraq allows inspectors back in. It envisages the adoption of smart sanctions by the end of May, he said. It also restored unanimity in the Council and the demand that Iraq eradicate all WMD.
"This new agreement is prompted by the feeling of strong urgency to tackle WMD. That feeling emerged from the events of September 11th, although on that occasion planes were transformed into long range missiles and not WMD in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, the members asked themselves what would happen if one state actor actually made use of WMD," he said. There is a new urgency to tackle the WMD but also a concern that Iraq may still have "some such weapons and may have continued development of such weapons" so long as inspectors are not there, he said.
"I have not seen any evidence of Iraqi complicity in the terror attacks of September 11th nor have I seen any evidence to the fact that anthrax cases here actually were linked," Blix said. Any discovery of that effect would have a major impact, he added.
He said "as I read the US position, they are very concerned about the possibility that Iraq might still have some WMD and this is a sufficient ground fro them to be very serious about the Iraqi situation, without clearly having any decision about what they want to do."
Asked what might happen, Blix said there are UN resolutions from 1991 until 1999, which demand that Iraq shall be rid of all WMD and there is a great concern about this. He expressed hope that Iraq will be convinced to implement the resolutions sooner than later. On the satellite pictures that a commercial company provides for UNMOVIC, Blix said they were taken before 1998 and there have been some changes since that period. " There have been some reconstruction, of course, and we are still in the early phase of getting new images. We have not seen so many but the new images will show us to what extent Iraq has rebuilt or expanded existing buildings," he explained. It will be an important thing to have for inspectors in the future when they go in, he hoped.
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