THE UN: The first to arrive at the UN building after dawn were a few dozen protesters with banners saying "No to War". Their breath vaporised in the bitter cold as they shouted slogans across police barriers at First Avenue as the arbiters of war and peace began to arrive at the UN, reports Conor O'Clery at the United Nations
One of the first was an unsmiling Kofi Annan, in black coat and red scarf. If the inspectors needed more time they should be given the time to do their work, said the UN Secretary General as he entered the glass doors.
One of his aides carried the New York Times folded over at a two-page advertisement from "Not In Our Name", which declared the opposition of anti-war personalities - from Malacca Macrotia to Oliver Stone - to a war of choice rather than necessity. The always cheerful Hans Blix then trotted into UN buildings, joking under his flat cap about the Nordic weather. The chief weapons inspector joined his colleague Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to brief Kofi Annan in his office before proceeding to the Security Council chamber to present their reports.
They told the Secretary General of considerable progress made in the 60 days since the inspectors returned to Iraq under Resolution 1441. They had started on November 27th with 17 inspectors and built this up to 100 looking for chemical and biological weapons and another 12 seeking evidence of a nuclear programme. A further 60 inspectors were being trained in Vienna and the roster would eventually grow to 350. The inspectors had visited 230 sites and carried out 350 inspections and many sites declared by Iraq as arms-related had yet to be visited. Eight UN helicopters were now being fully utilised.
Clearly the inspectors were only now getting up to full speed.
Just after 10.30 a.m. Dr Blix began delivering his report. The UN Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission "is not presuming there are proscribed items in Iraq," the 74-year-old Swedish diplomat said, "nor is it assuming the opposite that no such items exist in Iraq." On the process of inspections, "Iraq has on the whole co-operated well." Access had been promptly provided with one exception. But there were problems. Iraq had refused to guarantee the safety of U2 inspection flights. There had been some recent and disturbing incidents and harassment, including demonstrations at their Baghdad office. A respectful sight-seeing excursion by inspectors to a mosque was followed by an "unwarranted outburst" by officials.
There were protests about unannounced inspections. "Demonstrations of this kind are unlikely to occur without the initiative of the authorities," he said. And it was not enough for the Iraqis just to open doors. Resolution 1441 required all co-operation to be active. "Inspections is not a game of catch-as-catch-can". The possibility of the existence of weapons of mass destruction deserved to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than brushed aside.
For example, Iraq had declared that before 1991 it had made a few tons of the "most toxic" chemical weapon VX but that it was of poor quality, was never weaponised and was destroyed. The UN, however, had information that conflicted with this account. The Iraqis had made more than they declared, the purity of the agent was higher and there were indications it was weaponised.
An air force document found in 1998 and snatched back by an Iraqi minder then - but returned since - had shown expenditure on 30,000 chemical bombs for use in the Iran-Iraq war. There were 6,500 of these unaccounted for. UN inspectors had also discovered several .122 rockets. This could be "the tip of a submerged iceberg" of 2,000 rockets. Iraq declared it produced 8,500 litres of anthrax which it unilaterally destroyed in 1991. But there was no evidence it had been destroyed and it might still exist.
Then there was the case of 650 kilos of bacterial growth media, originally declared but omitted from the December 7th Iraqi declaration of weapons. This could produce 5,000 litres of anthrax. Iraq was forbidden from producing missiles with a range of more than 150 kms but the UN had found it had tested missiles with a range of 183 and 161kms and Iraq had since been asked to cease flight tests of both missiles. A number of banned items had been imported by Iraq up to recently, including 300 rocket and chemicals "that may well be for proscribed purposes". Iraqi officials "were fond of saying they had no proscribed items, they should be presumed innocent, given benefit of the doubt," said Dr Blix, but "assumptions do not solve the problem". Iraq said it had no more documents but in its archives it should have budgetary documents, letters of credit and bills of lading.
This month inspectors had found 3,000 documents on the enrichment of uranium from Iraq's pre-1991 programme.
The case might not be isolated, and documents may have been distributed to the homes of private individuals.
The inspectors had asked for a list of scientists and technicans.
They had been given 480 names but there were 3,500 personel involved. They had been unable to interview privately any of 11 scientists requested. Iraq promised co-operation in this but the pattern had not changed.
"Iraq appears not to have come to genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it," the chief UN weapons inspector said.
Three questions remained unanswered. How much illicit weapons material might remain undeclared and intact from before the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and possibly thereafter? What, if anything, was illegally procured or produced? How could the world prevent any weapons of mass destruction from being produced or procured in the future? Dr Mohamed ElBaradei also complained that the first scientist they approached declined to be interviewed without a minder. A third request two days ago was again turned down.
However, there was no evidence of prohibited nuclear activities in Iraq. Aluminium tubes imported by Iraq had raised questions about their possible use for nuclear fission.
The Iraqis said these were to "reverse-engineer" conventional rockets and the UN inspectors had concluded this indeed was the case. There were allegations (by the US) of efforts to import uranium after 1991. Iraq had denied this. The inspectors would appreciate more information, Dr ElBaradei said. It was "urgent and essential" that Iraq on its own initiative provided additional information. "The international community will not be satisfied when questions remain open.," he said. "The world is impatient to receive such information."
"We have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme. Our work is steadily progressing and should be allowed to run its natural course."
Even in South Africa, which co-operated with a disarmament programme, it took two years.
"We should be able to provide credible assurance in next few months Iraq has no nuclear weapons," he concluded. "These few months could help us avoid a war."
As the session broke up Ambassador Negroponte of the US made straight for the door to beat the Iraqi special representative, Mohammed Aldouri, to the bank of microphones outside. The report showed Iraq had not come forth with a full declaration nor had it co-operated unconditionally," he said, reading from a statement he wrote beforehand. "Iraq is back to business as usual," said Mr Negroponte. "The danger is the council will return to business as usual. In the days ahead the council and its member governments must face its responsibilities. It benefits no one to let Saddam feel he can wear us down."
The British ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, followed him to say that the German president of the council had asked for a further report on February 14th and "the UK would welcome that". He noted the "catalogue of unresolved questions," he said. They wanted "Grade A" co-operation from Iraq. If it was not forthcoming, it would be "clear to all members of the Security Council that this is not gong to be resolved peacefully."
"It's not a matter of time, it's a matter of attitude; the attitude is not sufficient for the eradication of the programmes we are talking about."
At last the Iraqi envoy got his turn at the microphones. No country had disarmed as much as Iraq, he said. Iraq had provided new information and had expressed sincere willingness to clarify any questions. Perhaps the international community was in material breach of resolutions, as sanctions had caused the deaths of two million Iraqis. Iraq was willing to co-operate "to finish mass killings in Iraq" caused by the sanctions regime.
A journalist asked Mr Aldouri about mass killings by Saddam Hussein. At that the Iraqi diplomat replied, "That is a very foolish question, thank you," and turned on his heel and walked away, barely disguising his fury.