by Barbara Crossette
New York Times
April 17, 1998
A report by the United Nations chief arms inspector has concluded that Iraq is no closer to meeting the requirements for the lifting of sanctions than it was last fall, when Baghdad began to disrupt efforts to locate and destroy its remaining weapons of mass destruction. The evidence in the report of Iraq's failure to provide any new information on its weapons, coupled with a new outburst of defiance today from Baghdad, raises once again the prospect of confrontation between Iraq and the United States, which has twice threatened military action against Iraq for impeding weapons inspections.
The report, by Richard Butler, chairman of the United Nations Special Commission, was turned over to Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday and is likely to go to the Security Council by the weekend. It follows six months of crisis that cuIminated when Mr. Annan made an emergency mission to Baghdad in February to restrain President Saddam Hussein from gutting the arms inspection process. It apparently concludes that virtually no progress verifying disarmament has been made. The Council will use the report, which has not been made public, as a basis for deciding by the end of this month whether to ease the tough economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The sanctions are reviewed every six months.
Today in Baghdad, the Iraqis unexpectedly stepped up pressure to have sanctions lifted, a move many diplomats here did not expect in earnest until the next sanctions review in October. "The time has come for lifting the embargo completely and comprehensively," said a statement by both the Revolutionary Command Council, Mr. Hussein's inner cabinet, and the President's Baath Party. The statement, carried by the offiial Iraqi News Agency, warned of a crisis if the sanctions continued. It said that only "those of ill intenions" wanted the embargo to continue and would be held responsible for "the sin of the deaths of our people." "Only they, if they oppose the lift of the sanctions, will bear in addition to the burden of previous crises, the burden of a new crisis and what harm may hit our people," the statement said.
For nearly six months, an Iraqi threat to stop cooperating with the United Nations and end all inspections in May has hovered over the commission. Baghdad's new warning revives fears that Iraq will break the promise it gave to Mr. Annanin in February not to set any deadlines for a formal end to inspections. Asked about the Iraqi threat today, Mr. Annan said he had received no official information that Baghdad had changed its position on compliance in any way.
As many diplomats expected, however, Iraq indicated in the statement that it intended to use the inspections of eight presidential properties in recent weeks to prove that those who thought that weapons or their components would be found there have been proved wrong. United Nations inspectors have regarded those inspections as preliminary visits to make the point that no buildings will be considered off limits and to survey the sites for possible future inspections.
In Washington, James P. Rubin, the State Department spokesman, said in an interview that while it was important to have examined the previously off-limits presidential sites, they were not the core issue. The problem remained, he said, that Iraq has not adequately accounted for a range of weapons of mass destruction - biological, chemical and nuclear - and missile systems to deliver them. "We need to bear in mind that even if the inspections of the palaces went reasonably well, that is not the issue," Mr. Rubin said. "The issue is whether Iraq will ever come clean about what they imported and what they destroyed, so that the U.N. can clarify the huge gap between what they think is in Iraq and what Iraq says it can prove has been destroyed. "This issue is about positive cormpliance, about coming forward with information that will eliminate the ambiguities that involve huge amounts of material that could make huge amounts of biological and chemical weapons."
The Butler report follows technical surveys that left questions about Iraqi compliance in biological, chemical, nuclear and missile programs. Diplomats and inspectors of presidential sites in Iraq say they found buildings stripped of all equipment and even furniture. "It was clearly apparent that all sites had undergone extensive evacuation," a separate report by the leader of the arms inspectors who visited the eight sites said this week. "In all the sites outside of Baghdad, for example, there were no documents and no computers." That report, by Charles Duelfer, deputy executive chairman of the disarmament commission, also said that in Baghdad the Republican Palace, Mr. Hussein's official residence, had been evacuated. Inspectors and diplomats who visited the sites were almost literally boxed in by government "minders" who at times outnumbered inspectors by six or seven to one, a participant in the inspections said. The group moved in huge convoys from place to place, with plenty of notice to Iraqi officials.
Some inspectors and diplomats were stunned by the opulence of the presidential palaces, which one visitor described as "beyond ostentation." Imported materials like marble, Persian carpets and wide-screen television receivers defined some rooms that by one estimate must have cost millions of dollars to furnish. Mr. Hussein, who over 20 years has lavished billions of dollars on projects of self-glorification, according to a former Iraqi minister now in exile in Europe, had meanwhile limited or prohibited imports of essential civilian goods until last year. He had used the lack of food and medicines as propaganda against the United States and others who have voted to maintain tight sanctions. The Iraqi claims are beginning to gain resonance in the West, where relief groups are forming to aid Iraqis and oppose the sanctions, blaming the embargo rather than Iraqi policies for the deaths and malnutrition in Iraq linked to the restrictions.
Iraq is also making headway in its campaign to get United Nations approval to expand its oil-production capacity under the plan that allows the Government to export oil to buy goods to reduce civilian shortages. In a report to the Security Council on Wednesday, the Secretary General recommended that Iraq be allowed to import $300 million in equipment to upgrade its oil wells and pipelines. Mr. Annan based his recommendations on a survey made by a team of independent oil exports working for theDutch company Saybolt. The Security Council recently raised a limit on Iraqi oil exports to $5.2 billion over six months, more than double the $2 billion in oil that Iraq had been able to sell until this year. Even factoring in fluctuating oil prices, the Saybolt experts concluded Iraq would not be able to pump $5 billion worth of oil wit its dilapidated equipment.
