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Posted on 01/19/2003 5:17:23 AM PST by ex-Texan
Inspectors in Baghdad to Press Saddam
Top U.N. Arms Officials Arrive in Baghdad to Demand Better Cooperation From Saddam to Avoid War
BAGHDAD, Iraq Jan. 19 — The chief U.N. arms inspectors arrived in Baghdad on Sunday for urgent talks with Iraqi officials bearing a long list of questions about Iraq's weapons programs and a demand for better cooperation from Saddam Hussein's government.
Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei left a U.N. base in Cyprus for what ElBaradei described as a last-ditch effort to persuade Iraq to "give us what we need" before their Jan. 27 report to the Security Council on Iraq's claim that it has no banned chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
"We do not think that war is inevitable," Blix told reporters in Baghdad. "We think that the inspection process that we are conducting is the peaceful alternative. It requires comprehensive inspections and it requires a very active Iraqi cooperation."
"It's in Iraq's benefit to submit all the evidence it has, so that we can submit positive reports to the Security Council," ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear agency, said.
Earlier Sunday, before leaving Cyprus, he said the possibility of war "very much depends on progress we make in the next few weeks."
Blix and ElBaradei landed at midday at Saddam International Airport and were met by key presidential adviser Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi.
"We are not here to humiliate or to insult," Blix said. "We are here to inspect in the best, correct manner."
The two officials were scheduled to meet with Iraqi officials led by al-Saadi for three hours Sunday afternoon, and again for two hours on Monday morning before departing.
"We need to show progress because the international community is getting very much impatient," ElBaradei said. "We need to bring closure to the Iraqi file on weapons of mass destruction."
The United States and Britain, which do not believe Iraq's assertion that it has no banned weapons, are moving ships, planes and tens of thousands of troops to the Persian Gulf to reinforce warnings to Iraq to comply with U.N. requirements.
America's other European allies have urged the Bush administration to give the inspectors more time to complete their work and avoid war.
Protesters rallied by the tens of thousands Saturday in Washington and in smaller numbers in other cities around the world to demand that the United States back down from the threat of war.
The U.N.'s inspection teams returned to Iraq in November after a four-year hiatus to determine if Saddam still holds weapons of mass destruction, which were banned at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
With Washington increasing pressure on Iraq, U.N. teams visited at least six locations Saturday, including Trade Ministry food warehouses in central Baghdad. The team examined at least two refrigerator trucks and a trailer, which the site manager, Nawal Nafa'a Fotohi, said were mobile food-testing laboratories.
Such labs are of particular interest because U.S. intelligence officials believe Iraq could use them to develop mobile "fermentation units" to manufacture biological weapons. U.N. officials had said inspectors would be looking for biological weapons laboratories on trucks.
Fotohi insisted the labs were used to ensure the safety of government food rations. Inspectors would not say if they found anything suspicious.
Another team revisited a site south of Baghdad where inspectors on Thursday found 12 empty chemical weapon warheads. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry, in a statement accounting for the inspectors' daily activities, said the purpose of the return visit was to tag the warheads.
One inspection was scrubbed for safety reasons after Iraqi officials insisted on using helicopters to follow a U.N. team by helicopter into the northern "no-fly" zone from which Iraqi aircraft are banned, the United Nations said.
U.S. and British jets patrol no-fly zones in the north and south of the country to protect Iraqi Kurds and Shiite Muslims. A U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the Iraqi attempt as "indirect interference" in the inspections.
Other teams visited Baghdad University's science college and the University of Kufa, 125 miles south of the Iraqi capital, according to witnesses and Information Ministry officials.
Inspectors also visited the Al-Tuwaitha complex, nine miles south of Baghdad, which was at the heart of Iraq's former nuclear program, and the chemical and explosives QaQa Co., 16 miles south of Baghdad.
U.N. inspectors have complained that Iraq failed to disclose required details of its weapons programs in a 12,000-page declaration submitted in December. U.S. officials maintain that Iraq's failure to submit a complete report is evidence that Saddam has no intention of complying with orders to disarm.
U.N. officials have said inspectors have found no conclusive evidence Iraq is holding illegal weapons. However, suspicions were raised by Thursday's discovery of the empty warheads and numerous documents found at the home of Iraqi physicist Faleh Hassan.
My recommendation is that they use a large industrial ironing machine to get the job done, and btw don't forget to sprinkle some dry cleaning chemicals on that skanky mustache. Saddam has been taking them to the cleaners for long enough. Now it's their turn.
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