By Judith Miller
February 5, 1999
Richard Butler, the embattled chairman of the commission charged with disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, said Thursday that he did not expect to seek another term as chairman but that he would strongly resist any effort to oust him. In an interview Thursday, Butler coupled his intention to leave when his contract expires in June with strong criticism of Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.
Sergey Lavrov, Russia's representative, has led a fierce campaign against Butler and his commission, calling almost daily for his resignation or dismissal on grounds that he is unprofessional, untrustworthy, biased and impolite. When asked about Russia's attacks on his integrity, Butler grew combative. Moscow, he said, was trying to divert attention from Iraq's violations of its disarmament commitments and repeated efforts to conceal information and material from weapons inspectors. "Senior diplomats are asking: What is going on here?" Butler said. "Are the Russians really asking us to believe that if Richard Butler went under the guillotine tomorrow, that everything would be hunky-dory in Baghdad and Iraq? Are the Russians really asking serious women and men to believe that?" Butler stressed that the true issue was whether Iraq would comply with U.N. resolutions and the pledges it made as a condition of the Gulf War cease-fire in 1991. He is primarily concerned, he said, that UNSCOM, as the United Nations commission is known, return to Iraq to judge whether Iraq is developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Tension within the Security Council over both Butler's and UNSCOM's fate has been building since Butler filed a report in December concluding that Iraq was violating its pledge to Secretary General Kofi Annan to permit unrestricted inspections. The report triggered U.S. and British air strikes and inspections were suspended. At the same time, Russia, France and China, all permanent Security Council members, have been lobbying to remove economic sanctions on Iraq. The United States has become increasingly isolated both in its support for Butler and in its main priority, the insistence that sanctions be maintained until the special commission certifies that Iraq has disarmed.
The Security Council agreed Saturday to set up three panels to evaluate its relationship with Iraq. The United States, Britain and Butler have insisted that UNSCOM's experts be part of the panel on disarmament. But Russia and Iraq have refused to work with Butler, or to accept special commission documents as long as he is chairman.
U.S. officials Thursday seemed intent on countering a growing impression among diplomats here that U.S. support for Butler and the commission is weakening. James Foley, the State Department's deputy spokesman, said that Washington" supports Butler fully and thinks he's done a splendid job as chairman." The decision about his future, Foley added, "is his, and his alone to make." Foley stressed that Washington would continue its air strikes against Iraq rather than permit Butler's many critics to dilute the commission's authority and create what he called a "Potemkin UNSCOM." Peter Burleigh, the U.S. representative, called Butler and his commission "heroes," adding that Washington is "very glad that UNSCOM will be actively participating in the disarmament panel."
Butler said it would be tragic if any future disarmament system failed to use the expertise of the special commission's inspectors on Iraq's nuclear, germ and chemical weapons. The commission, established by the Security Council in 1991, has a core group of experts who have been studying Baghdad's weapons programs for the past eight years.
Celso Amorim, the Brazilian representative on the Council who will head all three panels, has not yet selected the members. But diplomats here said they understand that while neither Butler nor the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. agency monitoring Iraqi compliance on nuclear weapons, would be panel members, the group would include experts and commissioners from the special commission.
Butler said that he had informed Annan Thursday at a meeting at his request that "my present intention is not to ask for an extension." But he also rejected the criticism of his performance and Russian calls for his resignation or dismissal, saying that his removal would imply that he or the special commission had "done something wrong, which is absolute nonsense."
"If there were some move to arbitrarily dismiss me, I would be very resistant to this," he declared.
At the same time, Butler, an Australian, said that after 30 years in arms control, his main concern was the disarming of Iraq, and that if new management would help accomplish this when his term ends, he would leave with pride in what he and the commission have accomplished. "No one is indispensable," he said.
