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Iraq I: France Presents Inspections Proposal to U.N. Security Council France, with Russian and German support, offered the U.N. Security Council a detailed plan yesterday outlining new measures to expand and strengthen the weapons inspection regime in Iraq, according to the New York Times (see GSN, Feb. 11). The French plan calls for tripling the number of inspectors now operating in Iraq and increasing aerial surveillance flights as well. The plan does not, however, include any mention of inspectors being supported by U.N. peacekeepers, a measure that had been discussed earlier. “The idea is to make sure that the present system submits the Iraqi authorities to continued pressure,” the French document says. “Our approach is based on the need to compel Iraq to cooperate by taking the peaceful approach of intrusive inspections,” it adds. France has proposed to strengthen the security units that work with inspectors, so that they can place troops at suspect Iraqi sites and prevent them from being tampered with before inspectors arrive, the Times reported (Preston/Weisman, New York Times, Feb. 12). The numbers of technical support personnel and translators fluent in Arabic should also be increased, according to the French plan. It also envisions the creation of mobile customs teams to monitor the flow of goods into and out of Iraq, as well as an office in western Iraq to act as a base for such teams, according to Time (Frank Pellegrini, Time, Feb. 12). The French proposal calls for the heads of the inspections teams, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, to appoint a permanent inspections chief to be based in Baghdad and to create a full list of remaining disarmament tasks, according to the New York Times. “It is important to push the Iraqis up against a wall and not leave them any way out regarding questions which they must answer,” the French plan says. U.S. Officials Meet With Blix U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and John Wolf, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, met with Blix yesterday and urged him to strongly criticize Iraq in his Friday report to the Security Council. During the meeting, Rice told Blix that time was running out for inspections, according to Bush administration officials. Rice refused to set a deadline for the end of inspections, but said, “At some point it will become obvious that it’s time for them to go,” an administration official said. U-2 Flights Meanwhile, a translation of a letter delivered by Iraqi officials to Blix and ElBaradei Monday appears to say that Iraq has put a number of preconditions on any reconnaissance flights by U-2 high-altitude aircraft, according to the New York Times (see GSN, Feb. 10). Iraq’s U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri had said that Iraq had given permission for the flights to begin without conditions. The letter, however, says that Iraq has demanded “timely notification of each flight, including time and point of entry, speed and call signal that ensures communication with the pilot if necessary” (Preston/Weisman, New York Times). “This is not a serious concession,” a U.S. official said. “It’s conditioned,” the official added. While Blix has not responded to the Iraqi letter, he did agree during a meeting last month in Baghdad to notify Iraqi officials of each reconnaissance flight, according to U.N. officials. They noted that the Security Council had endorsed the inspectors’ decision to follow previous guidelines, which included notification of U-2 flights. Missile Panel Blix has also convened an international panel of ballistic missile experts to help determine whether two Iraqi missile programs —the al-Samoud 2 and the al-Fatah — violate U.N. regulations. Blix is expected to receive a report on the panel’s finding before his briefing to the Security Council at the end of this week, the Washington Post reported. With those findings, Blix will then tell the council whether Iraq is required to dismantle those programs and destroy its missile components capable of advancing missile ranges beyond U.N. limits (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Feb. 12). Security Council Views China has indicated its support for the French-German-Russian position that inspections should be strengthened and expanded, rather than ended for military action, Agence France-Presse reported today. “The inspection in Iraq is effective and should be continued and strengthened so as to implement Resolution 1441,” the official Chinese Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese President Jiang Zemin as telling French President Jacques Chirac. “Warfare is good for no one and it is our responsibility to take various measures to avoid war,” Jiang added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, Feb. 12). Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated yesterday that his country might veto any Security Council action leading to the “unreasonable use of force.” Currently, Russia has no need to use its veto, Putin said. When asked if Russia would support a French veto of a Security Council action, he replied, “If today a proposition was made that we felt would lead to an unreasonable use of force, we would act with France or alone.” Putin warned against any attempts to launch military action against Iraq outside of the Security Council. “I am convinced that it would be a grave error to be drawn into unilateral action, outside of international law,” he said (John Leicester, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Feb. 11). Exile Jordanian officials have said they are urging the United States to offer Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and as many as 50 senior Iraqi officials exile if they voluntarily step down from power, according to the New York Times. Senior Jordanian officials said the exile proposal was not being offered because they think Hussein will accept, but rather because they believe he will not (see GSN, Feb. 7). By rejecting the offer, Hussein will isolate himself from other senior Iraqi officials, thereby increasing the chance that he would be overthrown in an internal coup, they said. Hussein is likely to commit suicide rather than be captured, akin to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in the waning days of World War II, said a Jordanian official. Other senior Iraqi officials, including Hussein’s sons Qusay and Uday, however, would be more likely to save their own skins rather than risk disaster, Jordanian officials said. “Uday might be the first to shoot his father if he refused an amnesty,” a senior Jordanian official said (John Burns, New York Times, Feb. 12). NATO NATO ambassadors met again today in Brussels to try to resolve the continuing internal dispute over providing defensive planning to Turkey in case there is war in Iraq. The talks were suspended about 90 minutes after they began and are expected to resume later in the day, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “We have a sound basis to continue consultations further,” NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur said after the meeting. “[The] allies are all working very hard to find a solution to what is a serious issue. The work will, therefore, continue toward achieving a solution throughout the day as we believe that we now have elements which could help us to bring the discussion forward,” Brodeur added. In addition to requesting that defense planning for Turkey begin, the United States had also requested increased protection for U.S. bases in Europe and permission to move troops from the Balkans closer to Iraq, NATO diplomats said. The United States appears to have dropped those additional requests (Ahto Lobjakas, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Feb. 12). The Netherlands has decided to provide Turkey with three Patriot missile interceptor batteries to help augment its defenses, according to Channel NewsAsia. The batteries, along with the 350 Dutch troops, will be deployed at Turkish airbases in the southeastern part of the country. The Netherlands said it does not need NATO approval to provide the interceptors to Turkey because of a bilateral agreement (Channel NewsAsia, Feb. 12). United States Bombs Iraqi Missile System U.S. aircraft today attacked an Iraqi mobile Ababil-100 ballistic missile launcher, along with its command and supply vehicles, U.S. Defense Department officials said. Eight U.S. fighter jets unleashed 16 bombs on the missile launcher, which was located near the southern city of Basra, officials said. Iraq had moved the missile launcher into the southern no-fly zone, said a statement from the U.S. Central Command. “Saddam Hussein put these systems in range of our troops and the people of Kuwait, and under U.N. authority, we struck them,” said Central Command spokesman Jim Wilkinson (Associated Press/Jerusalem Post). This is the first time U.S. aircraft have attacked a ground-to-ground missile system in a no-fly zone, according to military officials. Previous U.S. airstrikes targeted systems in the Iraqi air defense network, such as anti-aircraft artillery and radar sites (Robert Schlesinger, Boston Globe, Feb. 12). Inspections U.N. inspectors today traveled to al-Muthanna, about 90 miles north of Baghdad, to begin destroying four containers of mustard gas and 10 155 mm artillery shells located at the site, according to Reuters. The process is expected to last up to five days, a U.N. spokesman said. The shells and containers had been set to be destroying during inspections in 1998 (Reuters/MSNBC.com, Feb. 12). Yesterday, inspectors visited three suspect Iraqi sites, according to an IAEA press release. Chemical experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission traveled to al-Muthanna to begin preparing the shells and containers for destruction. IAEA inspectors traveled to the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center and conducted a radiation survey of two military bases south of Baghdad (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Feb. 11). For further information, see:
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