January 10, 2003
UN inspectors stepped up the search for banned Iraqi weaponry after their chiefs told the Security Council they had yet to find a "smoking gun", but Washington warned it might not wait for one to launch a war.
The spotlight fell on Iraqi weapons scientists after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Mohamed ElBaradei told council members that Baghdad's failure to make them available for interview in private was not the "proactive cooperation we expect".
US Secretary of State Colin Powell piled on the pressure, saying such non-cooperation alone would be grounds for military action.
But despite press reports that UN inspectors were preparing to whisk scientists to their rear-base in Cyprus for questioning, Iraq stuck to its position that it was down to the individual scientist to decide, and they would not want to go.
"We haven't found any smoking guns," UN disarment chief Hans Blix acknowledged before going into the closed-door Security Council briefing with ElBaradei.
But in a statement released after the meeting, he stressed there was still "no guarantee that prohibited stocks or activities could not exist at other sites."
The United States was quick to react, insisting Iraq still possessed banned weapons and warning that time was running out to avoid war. "The problem with guns that are hidden is you can't see their smoke. We know for a fact that there are weapons there," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
Later, in an interview with NBC News, Powell also said: "The lack of a smoking gun does not mean that there's not one there."
And even if one were not found, he said, "If the international community sees that Saddam Hussein is not cooperating in a way that would not allow you to determine the truth of the matter, then he is in violation of the UN Resolution (1441) ... You don't really have to have a smoking gun."
Powell would not rule out the possibility that Washington might allow the UN inspections to run on into the summer.
Asked why inspections could not be extended by up to five months, Powell said: "I'm not saying that isn't going to happen."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile, insisted the UN inspectors "must be given the time and space to do their work".
But both Washington and its allies pressed on with their war preparations.
The United States was poised to sign a deal with Iraq's northern neighbour Turkey paving the way for the deployment of some 150 US military specialists to carry out inspections of military facilities in readiness for any conflict.
"I think it's a done deal," an embassy spokesman said.
And Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that Canberra could have forces in the Middle East within weeks, after giving the green light for a contingent led by special forces troops to head to the region.
In its December 8 declaration, made under threat of "serious consequences" if it lied or failed to cooperate, Iraq denied having any nuclear, biological or chemical weapons or long-range missiles to deliver them.
But Blix questioned the Iraq inventory, saying it had "failed to answer a great many questions" asked by the previous inspectors who left Iraq four years ago, and was "practically devoid of new evidence."
Iraq swiftly announced it was willing to address any additional queries the UN had, but demanded that they be relevant amid charges by Baghdad that some inspectors are exceeding their mission and engaging in "spying."
"If these questions are relevant, they can be dealt with very positively," Iraq's chief liaison with the UN teams, General Hossam Mohammad Amin, told a Baghdad press conference.
But Amin was less forthcoming about the UN's other key criticism of Iraq's cooperation so far -- its failure to require its weapons scientists to dispense with official witnesses in interviews. "I told the council that we were not able, for example, to have interviews in Iraq in private," ElBaradei told reporters after the briefing in New York. "That does not indicate the proactive cooperation we expect."
Just two formal interviews of Iraqi scientists have been announced by the United Nations so far. In both cases the scientists demanded the presence of an Iraqi witness and declined to be interviewed at the UN's Baghdad headquarters. Washington has been piling pressure on the UN mission to use new powers to whisk scientists and their families abroad for questioning to prevent any possibility of intimidation by Iraq.
Cyprus, which is home to the inspectors' rear base in the southern resort of Larnaca, said it expected a first batch of scientists to be brought to the Mediterranean island for interview soon. "It seems they will be coming," Cypriot Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides told London's Guardian daily.
Amin acknowledged that one UN inspector had made an "oral" request to conduct an interview abroad, although he said it had not been followed up by any formal application. But he insisted Iraq would leave it to individual scientists to respond and did not expect them to agree.
"I think nobody is ready to go outside to make an interview with the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (headed by Blix) or the IAEA," the Iraqi liaison said.
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