[Nasional-e] Another step down the road to war

[Ambon]

Another step down the road to war
Julian Borger  in New York, Michael White  and Ewen MacAskill

The United States and Britain were declaring victory for their hawkish stand
on Iraq on Monday, after the chief United Nations weapons inspector accused
Baghdad of lying about its stockpiles of VX gas, anthrax and plans to
develop long-range missiles.At the end of a crucial day at the UN, the
inspectors appeared to have earned themselves more time to search Iraq, but
only a limited reprieve of less than three weeks. Washington and London
agreed to hear another assessment of Iraqi compliance on February 14.
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, a key figure behind the Bush
administration's decision to prosecute its case against Iraq through the UN,
was in no doubt about the implications of the report from the chief
inspector, Hans Blix. If Iraq were serious about avoiding war by revealing
the whereabouts of its weapons of mass destruction, it would "drive them up
and park them in front of [the inspectors' headquarters]", he said.
"Time is running out. We made it very clear that we could not allow the
process of inspection to string us on forever," Mr Powell said.
Mr Blix, who is responsible for chemical, biological weapons and missiles,
stunned the security council with an outspoken condemnation of Iraqi
behaviour, saying Baghdad had yet to accept the need for genuine
disarmament. "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not
even today - of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs
to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."
Mr Blix gave a litany of unaccounted-for Iraqi weapons, including 6,500
chemical bombs, material sufficient to create 5,000 litres of anthrax and an
unknown quantity in weapon form of the lethal chemical VX. He also pointed
to programmes to build possible long-range missiles.
By contrast, Mohamed El Baradei, in charge of nuclear inspections, presented
a generally positive picture of Iraqi cooperation and appealed for a "few
more months" to carry on his work "to avoid a war".
Washington and London inevitably put more emphasis on the Blix report.
Downing Street breathed a sigh of relief that it had vindicated Tony Blair's
controversially tough stance and shifted the burden of proof to President
Saddam Hussein to prove he does not have weapons stockpiles.
According to diplomats at a closed-door session of the security council on
Monday, there was general agreement that Iraq was not living up to its
obligation to be entirely forthcoming about its weapons programmes. Russia
and Syria were the only member states to argue that Baghdad was complying
fully.
President Bush's state of the union address on Tuesday was expected to press
the case against Iraq but fall short of setting a fixed ultimatum.
In his report, Mr Blix, the head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission (Unmovic), accused the Iraqi regime of failing to hand
over documents and witnesses, or to explain discrepancies in its account of
its weapons programmes.
The report given by Mr El Baradei, the director general of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, could not have been more different in tone. He said
his inspectors had made "good progress" and that "no prohibited nuclear
activities have been identified during these inspections".
Responding to the two reports, Washington's envoy to the UN, John
Negroponte, said "nothing we have heard today gives us hope that Iraq
intends to fully comply" with the UN resolution on disarmament.
Mohammed al-Douri, Iraq's envoy at the UN, repeated Baghdad's claim that the
country was clear of any weapons of mass destruction. "We open all doors to
Mr Blix and his team. If there is something, he will find it. We have no
hidden reports," he said.
Monday's events followed a familiar pattern in which Britain, Washington's
closest ally, has sought to nudge back President Bush's decision to go to
war.
Last week Mr Blair fended off an American plan to lay out its intelligence
against Saddam and renounce inspections this week, before his Camp David
summit with the US president on Friday.

The Guardian Weekly 20-3-0130, page 1