Iraq inspectors give mixed verdict, US adamant

10.00am

UNITED BAGHDAD/REUTERS - UN arms experts today gave a mixed interim verdict on Iraqi weapons, which is likely to provide ammunition both to those backing US preparations for a possible conflict and for the anti-war camp.

Chief inspector Hans Blix said his teams had so far found no "smoking gun" in Iraq but added Baghdad had failed to answer "many questions" about its weapons programmes. Iraq said it would answer them.

Washington appeared unimpressed with Blix's double-edged comments.

"The problem with guns that are hidden is you can't see their smoke," a White House spokesman told reporters. "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

Blix's remarks, made to reporters as he prepared to brief members of the UN Security Council, were interpreted by the markets as making war more likely, and oil prices quickly rose.

In the nearly seven weeks since inspections resumed in Iraq, he said, "we have been covering the country in ever-wider sweeps, and we haven't found any smoking guns".

However, Blix, in charge of chemical, biological and ballistic weapons inspections, said inspectors were dissatisfied with the 12,000-page document Iraq submitted in December after the UN Security Council demanded it supply a full account of its arms programmes.

"We think that the declaration failed to answer a great many questions," Blix said."

In the text of his speech to the Council, obtained by Reuters, he said inspections were not infallible. "Prompt access is by no means sufficient to give confidence that nothing is hidden in a large country with an earlier record of avoiding disclosures," he said. "In this respect we have not so far made progress."

Within hours, a senior Iraqi official said Iraq was ready to respond to questions over its declaration and insisted UN inspections had vindicated its claim to have no banned arms.

"We are ready to respond to the questions which will be directed to us and we think that the majority or all of the questions could be resolved during the monitoring phase, during the technical discussions that could be taken between both sides," Hussam Mohammed Amin told a news conference in Baghdad.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog which is separately responsible for investigating nuclear-related activity in Iraq, was also reporting to the UN Security Council today.

"To date, no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities has been detected, although not all of the laboratory results of sample analysis are yet available," Mohamed ElBaradei said.

He said aluminium tubes suspected of being part of an Iraqi nuclear arms programme were in fact unsuitable for that use.

According to his speaking notes, obtained by Reuters, UN inspectors had concluded that the tubes "appear to be consistent with reverse engineering of rockets", as Baghdad has claimed, rather than for enriching uranium for nuclear arms.

The arms inspections in Iraq are based on a November UN resolution which threatened the oil-rich state with "serious consequences" if it failed to co-operate with the UN teams.

Washington and Britain, its staunchest ally, are anxious to stress that the verdicts of inspectors are not necessarily a make-or-break "trigger" for war.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair told his cabinet that a January 27 formal progress report on inspections in Iraq should not be regarded as a deadline for a decision on military action.

He added that Britain had confidence in Blix and that the UN inspection process was "not a facade".

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also tried to deflect attention from January 27.

"At that point, we will have to make some judgments as to what to do next...But it is not necessarily a D-day for decision-making," Powell told the Washington Post.

Joschka Fischer, foreign minister of Security Council member Germany, took Blix's comments as support for his government's strongly anti-war stance.

"We see many unanswered questions too... But that means that the work of the inspectors should go on. It all points to the need for a continuation of inspections," Fischer said, adding that Germany would do all in its power to avert a war.

France called on the United States, Britain and others to give the UN inspectors intelligence on where to find the weapons that Washington insists Iraq is hiding.

Powell said Washington was sharing intelligence with UN arms experts but had withheld some of its most sensitive information, waiting to see if inspectors "are able to handle it and exploit it".

Iraq's al-Thawra newspaper, the organ of President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, said the intelligence did not exist, and accused Washington and London of forming an "axis of deception".

Blix told Reuters his teams would begin interviewing Iraqi experts about prohibited weapons within a week. He did not say whether the Iraqis would be taken out of the country for that purpose, as the United States has insisted.

In Baghdad, Amin reiterated Iraq's position that it was not necessary to question scientists outside the country. "I think nobody is ready to go outside to make an interview," he said.

UN inspections continued in Iraq today. Inspectors drove to at least seven sites in central Iraq, Iraqi officials said. Witnesses said helicopters carrying inspectors had to turn back to Baghdad because of bad weather in the northwest.

The United States and Britain continued to build up forces in the Gulf. In a surge of US deployments, defence officials said the Air Force had begun sending dozens of B-1B bombers and fighter aircraft to the region.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Iraq