'We could have averted a war'

2003-03-18 16:36

Michele Kambas and Dina Kyriakidou

Larnaca, Cyprus - They filed off their plane from Baghdad silently, their thoughts still back in Iraq.

There was no elation at swapping the hardship of living and searching in the sands of Iraq for lying on a beach on the Mediterranean tourist island of Cyprus.

There was just frustration, even some anger, that their professionalism had been challenged, that they had been forced to walk away from a job not yet done.

Many of the dozens of UN weapons inspectors evacuated to Cyprus on Tuesday from Baghdad as a US-led war loomed, just wearily waved away reporters who approached them as they sat at seaside cafes seemingly lost in their thoughts.

"We have to protect the integrity of the mission and whatever we say may be used politically therefore we have a very restrictive media policy," said Hiro Ueki, spokesperson for the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) in explaining the reluctance of many inspectors to comment on their departure.

Even those willing to talk seemed still to be sorting through their emotions.

"Everyone is down. It will take a few weeks to recover," said one inspector from a European nation who like many did not want to give his name.

"I don't think this was the right time for our mission to end," he said. "I don't think any moment is the right time to walk away from a war."

'Bad things are going to happen'

"The Iraqis we left back there are very sad. They know bad things are going to happen to them," an inspector from an Asian nation said as he looked out to sea.

"We could have averted a war."

It was not like this when the inspectors went into Baghdad nearly four months ago, again through Cyprus which was their main logistics base outside Iraq.

They went then, if not as conquering heroes, then as a group of highly trained scientists and technicians, the best in their complex field of weapons detection, from about a dozen nations.

Their mission was to hunt down any of Iraq's nuclear chemical and biological weapons and the United Nations had assured them they would have the time to do it.

"I feel personally that if we had had one more month it would have been enough," German inspector Bernd Birkicht said.

"Our goal was to find something or to prove there was nothing. Our mission was not ended," said the 38-year-old computer scientist who worked in Iraq almost from the first moment last November 27 that the inspectors returned.

"We pulled out and the people in Iraq have to suffer. I want to go back. I said to the people in the hotel in Baghdad: Reserve my room, I will come back."

Birkicht said by the time the inspectors departed Iraq was co-operating and had been co-operating for three months.

"In the end they showed pro-active cooperation," he said. "I've seen these people and other times they've done some tricky things but that changed."

A job well done

Five years ago when weapons inspectors had last been in Iraq, they were pulled out after rows with Iraqis about their access to suspect sites.

Baghdad had accused the team, led by Australian Richard Butler, in 1998 of spying for the United States and Israel.

This time, it was not from the Iraqis that the inspectors came under most fire but from Washington and its allies who believed that despite the group's best efforts Baghdad was leading them round by the nose.

Even Japan's Ueki, the group's always polite and diplomatic spokesperson, bristled when asked if the evacuation was a no-confidence vote by President George W Bush in their work.

"I'm not here to make political statements," he said. "I think they have done their job objectively and professionally."

The group left Iraq the day after a report by their leader, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, listed 12 disarmament tasks Iraq had still to do.

Blix's "to do list" asked for explanations from Iraq that included Scud missiles as well as biological and chemical warheads.

He also wanted information on the deadly chemical VX gas, mustard gas, sarin, and any remaining stocks of anthrax and undeclared biological agents, including smallpox.

- Reuters