Baghdad steps up co-operation
2003-02-07 21:32
Baghdad - Iraq braced on Friday for a crucial visit by the top UN weapons inspectors, hoping a fresh display of flexibility will ensure a favourable report on its disarmament efforts and head off a threatened US invasion.
The government announced the first encounter between weapons inspectors and an Iraqi scientist unaccompanied by an official monitor and put a positive spin on its stand on UN inspection flights by U2 spy planes.
The gestures came just ahead of a weekend visit here by Hans Blix, who heads the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic), and International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei.
Blix on Friday appeared to welcome the latest Iraqi moves, telling reporters in Vienna: "It seems they are making an effort."
He said he hoped to "see a lot more this weekend."
Blix and ElBaradei are to tell the UN Security Council about Iraq's compliance with UN disarmament demands on February 14.
A negative report could serve to trigger the invasion the United States has threatened to unleash on the grounds that Iraq continues to produce and conceal weapons of mass destruction.
US President George W Bush warned again on Thursday that time had all but run out for Baghdad to avoid war, adding that Washington would "welcome and support" a new Security Council resolution sanctioning military action.
Trying
"Saddam Hussein will be stopped" either through UN action or a US-led campaign, he warned.
"Bush clearly sought to thwart Hans Blix's mission by putting pressure on the chief inspector ... and trying to turn his commission from a professional body into a tool serving US objectives," said Iraqi political analyst Qais Mohammad Nouri.
As Bush turned up the heat, Iraqi officials appeared to be trying to create a positive atmosphere for the Blix-ElBaradei mission by announcing that a private interview between an Iraqi scientist and the inspectors had been arranged.
Biologist Sinan Abdel Hassan Mohi was interviewed for three and a half hours on Thursday without official government monitors, said Hiro Ueki, spokesperson for the inspectors.
The meeting fulfilled a long-standing request by inspectors who have been anxious to question scientists having knowledge of Iraq's weapons programme.
"We welcome this. But this is only the first interview, which came at the 23rd attempt (by inspectors to conduct a private interview), and we are yet to see whether we could conduct a further private interview," Ueki told AFP.
He said the UN had not made a request for a fresh interview on Friday, declining to say if one was planned at a later date.
Ueki said inspectors had to "wait and see" what the Iraqi side would offer during their chiefs' visit.
"We don't have indications (on the U2 flights issue) other than what Amer al-Saadi said yesterday," he said.
At a news conference held on Thursday to refute US Secretary of State Colin Powell's charges against Iraq before the Security Council the previous day, Saadi, a presidential adviser who handles contacts with the inspectors, emphasised that Iraq had not rejected U2 flights.
Unable to guarantee safety
But he argued that Baghdad would be unable to guarantee the safety of the flights when they entered "no-fly" zones patrolled by US and British war planes in the north and south of the country.
Saadi said Baghdad had made clear it would "not object" if the UN were prepared to operate the flights "on their own risk and the risk of the United States and Britain."
What Iraq fears, he explained, is that its military could be blamed by Washington if a U2 were shot down by US aircraft.
The newspaper Ath-Thawra, the organ of the ruling Baath Party, expressed the country's goodwill to the inspectors Friday, in contrast to previous acerbic comments.
"Iraq is today reaffirming its complete willingness to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1441 because this text represents an opportunity to establish real peace," the paper said, referring to the November 8 resolution that authorised the sweeping new inspections.
In another bid to show they have nothing to hide, Iraqi officials took reporters on a tour on Friday of two sites cited by Powell as harbouring banned weapons.
"Transparency actually serves Iraqi purposes," Nouri told AFP, noting that the presence of scores of foreign journalists in Baghdad meant nothing was being kept under wraps.
The outstanding issues to be discussed with Blix and ElBaradei are "simple" and can be resolved through dialogue if the United States takes its hands off the inspection teams, he said. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA