The Chief UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix this afternoon welcomed Iraq's accelerated co-operation in the past month, but said a sober judgment had to be made to assess its value.
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Dr Hans Blix
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Dr Blix told the UN Security Council that the "acceleration of activities" by Baghdad since the end of January was a positive development, although it would have to be measured against unresolved disarmament questions.
"After a period of somewhat reluctant co-ooperation there has been an acceleration of initiatives from the Iraqi side since the end of January," he said.
"This is welcome, but the value of these measures must be soberly judged by how many question marks they actually succeed in straightening out," Dr Blix said. "This is not yet clear."
Dr Hans Blix said Iraq's destruction of Al Samoud 2 missiles was a "substantial measure ofdisarmament and said he found "no evidence" of proscribed Iraqi mobile activities.
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He also said he was to seek scientist interviews outside Iraq for first time.
Dr Blix said Iraq had attempted to impose conditions on the inspections process but had not persisted in doing so.
He told the council that his teams had not found evidence to support US claims that Iraq was hiding banned arms in mobile laboratories.
"Intelligence authorities have claimed that weapons of massdestruction are moved around Iraq by trucks, in particular that there are mobile production units for biological weapons," Dr Blix said.
"Several inspections have taken place ... in relation to mobile producution facilities," he said. "No evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found."
He said his inspectors had looked into several mobile facilities as well as "large containers with seed processing equipment."
"While co-operation can and is to be immediate, disarmament and ... verification of it cannot be instant. Even with a proactive Iraqi attitude induced by continued outside pressure, it will still take some time to verify sites and items, analyse documents, interview relevant persons and draw conclusions. It will not take years, nor weeks, but months," he said.
"Neither governments nor inspectors would want disarmamentinspection to go on forever," Dr Blix contunued. But in accordance with resolutions "a sustained inspection and monitoring system is to remain in place after verified disarmament to give confidence and to strike an alarm ifsigns were seen of the revival of any proscribed weapons programmes".
The UN Security Council is debating a resolution on whether and when to use military force to strip Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.
The resolution, sponsored by the United States, Britain and Spain, has been the object of heavy lobbying and arm-twisting by Washington.
Eleven foreign ministers and one deputy minister are in New York to stand in for their countries' ambassadors at the meeting. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is attending the meeting but is not expected to speak.
The 12 representatives will take the floor in the public session, followed by ambassadors representing the three other council members.
Protocol dictates that German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and his Syrian counterpart, Mr Faruq al-Shara, speak first, as they are also deputy heads of government.
Council members drew lots yesterday, determining that US Secretary of State Colin Powell will speak fourth, after his Mexican counterpart, Mr Luis Derbez.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov will speak fifth, followed in order by Mr Dominique de Villepin of France, Tang Jiaxuan of China, Ms Ana Palacio of Spain and Britain's Mr Jack Straw.
The meeting will be the third on Iraq at the foreign-minister level since the UN resumed arms inspections in that country on November 27th.
It will be the first since the United States, Britain and Spain submitted the draft resolution on February 24th seeking UN authority to disarm Iraq by force.
Agencies