IRAQ: The US yesterday shut the door firmly on any return to Baghdad of UN weapons inspectors, despite testimony to the Security Council yesterday by chief UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix that he was ready to send inspectors back to Iraq in two weeks to complete their work.
Instead Washington challenged the UN to lift economic sanctions on Iraq by passing a new resolution that would eliminate the legal requirement under old resolutions for prior UN certification that Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction.
With the council facing deadlock, France proposed the immediate lifting of some UN sanctions that punished Iraqi citizens, though it insisted, like other members that opposed the US-led invasion, that inspectors finish their work before all sanctions are removed.
Dr Blix told the council that he had 85 inspectors in the UN Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC) ready to return in two weeks to conclude their job of verifying the destruction of Iraq's banned weapons programmes.
Washington's UN ambassador, Mr John Negroponte, said however, "The coalition has assumed the responsibility for disarming Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction" and in the "more permissive military atmosphere" its efforts would be substantially expanded.
The US has sent hundreds of US, British and Australian inspectors into Iraq in mobile exploration teams to examine 146 potential sites of banned weapons.
In Washington White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer saw no role for Dr Blix.
"We have a coalition that is working on the ground to dismantle Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, we think it will be effective, it will get the job done," he told a briefing. "The world would see that it was "one of integrity, one of reliability and one of accuracy". Mr Fleischer said that the UN had the ability to pass new resolutions that superseded old resolutions and to lift sanctions forthright.
"It's very hard to imagine the Security Council would want to inflict any more harm on the Iraqi people after what they have been through under the regime of Saddam Hussein," he said.
Dr Blix, who will retire on June 1st, seemed to accept the inevitable yesterday, telling the council that he had no reason to doubt the "objectivity and determination of the inspectors who are there for the coalition forces". At the same time he said he was convinced the council would "like to have the inspection and verification that would bear the imprint of some institution recognised by the international community". In the month since the US-led invasion of Iraq, coalition forces have yet to find weapons of mass destruction, the primary reason for its military action, and any US claims are likely to be greeted with scepticism by critics at the UN.
Dr Blix expressed frustration yesterday over the undermining of the inspection process which he felt could have prevented war if allowed to continue a number of months.
The US and UK had used "shaky" intelligence in an effort to prove Iraq had banned weapons, he told the BBC and it was "very, very disturbing" that US intelligence had failed to identify as fakes a set of documents suggesting Iraq tried to buy "yellow cake" uranium from the West African nation of Niger. The UN established quickly it was a "fake" when it was seen by the UN.
In his State of the Union address on January 28th President Bush referred to the document, declaring: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Dr Blix also said US officials tried to undermine his inspection team by telling the media that he withheld information about an Iraqi drone from the Security Council. "It was not the case. It was a bit unfair and hurt us." France's UN ambassador, Mr Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, told reporters he offered to support the lifting of sanctions, but added a final lifting of sanctions would depend on a report by weapons inspectors. "We could suspend the sanctions and adjust the oil for food programme with an idea of phasing it out," he said, referring to the UN sale of Iraqi oil to provide food for 60 per cent of Iraq's 24 million population, the only legal international trade with Iraq since sanctions were imposed in 1990.
Russian ambassador Mr Sergei Lavrov said that sanctions could be lifted as soon as inspectors reported back to the council. Mr Fleischer said however they were created "to target the Iraqi regime. The regime is now history, the sanctions should become history too." Most council members say that any weapons of mass destruction found by the US need to be verified by UNMOVIC, but Dr Blix ruled out returning just to certify a find produced by US investigators. The World Bank and International Monetary Find also need UN approval to free up large sums for rebuilding Iraq.