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Iraq I: Technical Talks End as Security Council Continues Deliberations By Jim Wurst According to Hans Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, “There is a readiness [on the part of Iraq] to accept the inspections that did not exist before.” “On the question of access, it was clarified that all sites are subject to immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access,” he said. “However, the Memorandum of Understanding of 1998 establishes special procedures for access to eight presidential sites.” That memorandum, negotiated by the United Nations and Iraq, requires UNMOVIC to provide advance notice of its intention to inspect any of eight specific sites. The Iraqi delegation also turned over to Blix four CD-ROMs containing the backlog of monitoring declarations for sites and items that have dual-use capabilities — both civilian and military applications — covering June 1998 to July 2002. Blix said the CDs “will be very important in the months to come for our analytical staff to see what has changed in various sites and items and they will be also important for deciding where we will go and what we will inspect.” Blix will brief the Security Council tomorrow on the talks. “We are happy to reach this agreement and we expect the advance party to arrive in Baghdad in about two weeks and we expect no difficulty regarding that,” said General Amir al-Sadi, head of the Iraqi delegation. The Financial Times and other media today published the draft Security Council resolution that the United States and United Kingdom have presented to Russia, France and China, the other three permanent members of the council. The draft text lays down new rules for inspections, including negating the 1998 memorandum of understanding, granting inspectors the right to declare no-fly and no-drive zones in areas where they are working and giving inspectors the right to bring Iraqi citizens out of the country for interviews. Military action would be automatically authorized if Iraq is found to make “false statements or omissions” in the reports of its weapons of mass destruction. Despite the publication of the text, the 10 elected members of the council have not been given the draft and a U.S. official said there were no immediate plans for formally releasing it. This morning, Mexican Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser said, “We will be very open to discuss a new resolution if the United States presents a text we can discuss. But meanwhile, we do not have another resolution.” “Mexico would like to see inspections,” as soon as possible, he said. “If there is another set of rules for inspections because it is agreed in the council, we are open to that, too. But meanwhile, we want these inspections to take place.” Norwegian Ambassador Ole Peter Kolby said this morning, “I believe Blix will not send the inspectors back in before the Security Council has said OK to that. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a resolution, but the inspectors need now to have the backing of the council.” He said he was not concerned that the 10 have not received the draft. “I think it’s most important that the Americans and the British try to work things out with the other permanent members,” Kolby said. U.S. Reaction A few hours after the Vienna meeting concluded yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington will continue to push for a new Security Council resolution. The inspectors “are deserving of the strongest possible authority and the ability to do their job and to do it right. That will only come from a new resolution that keeps the pressure up on Iraq,” he said. Powell said the United States opposes the return of inspectors without a new resolution. “UNMOVIC cannot simply go back in under the former terms of reference,” he said. “There are still issues in debate. So we don’t want to get into a negotiating situation with the Iraqis under the old terms. That’s why we need a new resolution with clear terms, tough terms, high standards.” He added, “There’s no magic calendar on when they should go in.” Last month, Blix gave the Security Council a schedule based on the requirements in Resolution 1284. According to this plan, an UNMOVIC advance team should be in Iraq by Oct. 15. The resolution also calls on UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy Agency “not later than 60 days after they have both started work in Iraq” to submit to the council “a work program for the discharge of their mandates.” Powell said Blix’s talks in Vienna “cleared out quite a bit of the underbrush that existed with the old resolutions and might give us something to work with on a new resolution,” but he added, “Not one inspector has set foot in Iraq and not one thing has changed since 1998,” when inspectors left Iraq. Concerning the negotiations with China, France and Russia, Powell said, “We have made some progress .… Everyone understands this is not something we can turn away from.” Details of the U.S. Draft The draft resolution recalls that earlier resolutions “authorized member states to use all necessary means to uphold and implement” council decisions. The text would have the council deplore “the fact that Iraq has never provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure … of all aspects of its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles” and deplores “further that Iraq repeatedly refused to allow access to sites designated by” weapons inspectors. The draft would declare that “Iraq is still, and has been for a number of years, in material breach of its obligations under relevant [council] resolutions,” and as a first step in fulfilling its obligations, “Iraq shall provide to the Security Council prior to the beginning of inspections and no later than 30 days from the date of this resolution an acceptance of its programs to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles … as well as all other chemical, biological and nuclear weapons production or material.” Citing “the prolonged interruption by Iraq of the presence of UNMOVIC and IAEA,” the draft would impose new conditions on Iraq including the “unrestricted rights of entry into and out of Iraq, the right to free, unrestricted and immediate movement to and from inspection sites, and the right to inspect any sites and buildings, including unrestricted access to presidential sites notwithstanding the provisions of resolution 1154,” the resolution that endorsed the memorandum of understanding. The draft also says inspectors “shall have the right to the names of all personnel associated with Iraq’s chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the associated research, development and production facilities” and “immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted, and private access to all officials and other persons whom UNMOVIC or IAEA wish to interview [and] may at their discretion conduct interview inside or outside Iraq.” The inspectors also “shall have the right to declare for the purposes of this resolution no-fly/no-drive zones, exclusion zones, and/or ground and air transit corridors.” In addition, “Any permanent member of the Security Council may request to be represented on any inspection team with the same rights and protections accorded other members of the team.” The triggering mechanism for military action is the paragraph that “decides the false statements or omissions in the declaration submitted by Iraq to the [Security] Council and failure by Iraq at any time to comply and cooperate fully in accordance with the provisions laid out in this resolution, shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq’s obligations, and that such breach authorizes member states to use all necessary means to restore international peace and security in the area.” Asked about access to presidential palaces, al-Sadi said, “Quite honestly, I don’t understand why it is so critical. Anyway, it was not a subject on the agenda.” He added, “It is regulated by a memorandum of understanding and it is also referred to in the Security Council resolutions and that remains valid.”
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