Global Policy Forum

By Barbara Crossette

UN - The blueprint for a new, tightly structured arms inspection agency for Iraq was sent to the Security Council today, moving the chief inspector, Hans Blix, closer to the moment of truth with President Saddam Hussein.

Once the plan has been approved by the council, possibly next week, the next step will be a visit to Iraq to re-establish an inspection center in Baghdad. The new team will begin drawing up a list of questions Iraq must answer before sanctions that have been in place for nearly a decade can be suspended and finally lifted.

So far Iraq has sent the United Nations mixed, though largely negative, signals about its intentions toward the new panel, called the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

The plan circulated today takes account of the uncertainty, saying that "it may be neither practical nor prudent to move to immediate full recruitment." A two-step hiring timetable was suggested, with only a core of staff members to be appointed initially.

In his blueprint for the commission, Dr. Blix, a former Swedish foreign minister and director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, appears to have assuaged some of the concerns of arms control experts. Many had expected the panel, known by its acronym, Unmovic, to be substantially weaker than its predecessor, the United Nations Special Commission, known as Unscom.

Dr. Blix left the door open to former inspectors who want to reapply -- although except in certain circumstances they will have to work for the United Nations, not their national governments as in the past.

"Previous work will have given them valuable experience and knowledge that could usefully be passed on to new Unmovic staff who come on board," Dr. Blix wrote in his plan. "A combination of renewal and continuity would minimize the loss of momentum and knowledge which has inevitably occurred through the long absence of inspection and monitoring."

There have been no arms inspections in Iraq since December 1998, when inspectors were withdrawn just ahead of American and British bombing.

Since then the Iraqis have permitted only a routine visit from the International Atomic Energy Agency for monitoring equipment under the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, an issue not related to the inspections imposed on Iraq in 1991 after the Persian Gulf war.

Until Iraq meets the requirements to destroy all prohibited nuclear, biological and chemical arms as well as long-range missiles, sanctions imposed after its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 will not be lifted.

In his organizational plan, Dr. Blix made clear that he would deal directly with the Security Council, and would also preside over the international "college of commissioners" to be set up to advise him. There had been fears among disarmament experts that governments would use the college to exert pressure on the inspection system, and they may still try. But the blueprint does not give them much latitude.

Nor does it give the United Nations Secretariat a prominent role.

The commission, Dr. Blix emphasized, retains all of Unscom's powers to designate inspection sites, conduct interviews, take samples and photographs, and use aerial surveillance.

Dr. Blix proposed four operational divisions that at least on paper appear well insulated from political pressures -- planning and operations, analysis and assessment, information (archiving) and technical support and training.

Planning and operations will oversee the monitoring center in Baghdad, which will be responsible for operating both a long-term monitoring program and organizing short-term inspection visits. In the past, some visiting inspectors were viewed as unsupervised loose cannons, increasing tensions with Iraq.

All inspectors and monitors will now get "cultural" training, according to the plan, which says, "The cultural programs will stress the importance of understanding national sensitivities and the proper handling of adversarial situations."