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Friday, February 21, 2003
U.S. and British diplomats have settled on their diplomatic strategy in the U.N. Security Council: win nine votes for a new resolution on Iraq, the bare minimum needed for passage, and then challenge China, France and Russia to veto the measure, Bush administration officials said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 20).
Previously, the two countries had hoped for a 15-0 council vote on a new resolution that would authorize military action against Iraq, according to the New York Times. Some officials involved in the discussions over the new approach had argued that a resolution approved by a divided council would be seen as weak. Over the last few weeks, however, White House officials have decided that even a resolution passed by a slim majority would still have authority, the Times reported.
U.S. and British officials worked yesterday on resolving their differences on the language of the draft resolution, according to the Times. It is likely to be introduced in the Security Council next week, possibly Monday, Bush administration officials said.
U.S. and British officials also discussed how to persuade five of the council’s six uncommitted, nonpermanent members — Angola, Guinea, Cameroon, Mexico, Chile and Pakistan — to support the new resolution, diplomats said. Currently, only Bulgaria and Spain have openly supported the U.S.-British position, the Times reported. The United States and the United Kingdom, which support an attack on Iraq, and France and Germany, which oppose such action, have said they are not using economic pressure to sway the remaining nonpermanent members. The foreign aid programs provided to these countries, however, are an important factor in the discussions, diplomats said.
The six countries “are really feeling the heat, and they’re going to be feeling even more heat in coming days,” said a Bush administration official. “On the other side, the French and Germans are turning up the pressure, too,” the official added (Weisman/Barringer, New York Times, Feb. 21).
Blix Prepares Questions
Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix plans Monday to give his advisory board a list of about 30 unresolved questions related to Iraq’s disarmament, according to Reuters. The list is part of preparations for a written report Blix is expected to submit to the Security Council on either Feb. 28 or March 3. A briefing, scheduled for March 7, will then follow that report, diplomats said.
The entire list of remaining questions, almost 300 pages, has been compiled by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission over the past several years, Reuters reported. The UNMOVIC advisory group is expected to receive a condensed version “in clusters” during meetings Monday and Tuesday (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters/MSNBC.com, Feb. 21).
Iraq’s Illegal Missiles
Meanwhile, Blix is expected to send a letter to Iraq today demanding that it destroy all of its al-Samoud 2 ballistic missiles, which an expert panel has recently determined violate U.N. mandates because of their range, diplomats and U.N. officials said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 20; Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Feb. 21).
U.N. inspectors last night were preparing the order, which would cover 100 al-Samoud 2s, 50 of which have already been sent to the Iraqi army; and 380 illegally imported SA-2 engines that were meant for use in al-Samoud 2 production, the National Post reported. Iraq is also expected to be ordered to destroy casting chambers that could be used to produce engines for missiles capable of traveling farther than the U.N.-allowed range of 150 kilometers (Steven Edwards, National Post, Feb. 20).
Blix is still deciding whether to set a formal deadline for Iraq’s destruction of the missiles, knowing that if Iraq refuses to do so, it could set off war, according to U.N. and U.S. officials.
“The discussions today were on setting an artificial timeline of when destruction should begin and end,” a U.N. official said yesterday. During those discussions, Blix and other officials recognized that Iraq’s refusal to carry out the missile destruction order “would constitute the most direct and visible defiance of the United Nations since inspections resumed,” the U.N. official added.
During the previous inspections regimes from 1991 to 1998, inspectors operated under different practices for the destruction of prohibited weapons and the equipment used to produce them, according to the Washington Post.
“In the beginning, destruction was immediate or very rapid,” said former U.N. inspector Timothy McCarthy. “There were negotiations about disposition of equipment, but ultimately we destroyed whatever we wanted. At no time was there an item that we wished to destroy that we didn’t destroy,” he added (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Feb. 21).
Iraq has claimed that the missiles flight-tested beyond U.N.-allowed ranges because they were not equipped at the time with warheads and guidance systems, which would have made them heavier. Baghdad wants U.N. technical experts to travel to Iraq to “to see that these missiles cannot exceed in any way 150 kilometers, and not to limit themselves to a written paper, a theoretical report,” Iraq’s U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri said (Lederer, Associated Press).
U.S. Troops Ready to Invade
The United States and the United Kingdom have amassed a military presence large enough in the Persian Gulf region to invade Iraq at any time, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday.
“I would characterize it as ample,” Rumsfeld said of the U.S.-British military force, during an interview on PBS’s NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. “We are at a point where, if the president (George W. Bush) makes that decision (to attack), the Department of Defense is prepared and has the capabilities and the strategy to do that,” he said.
So far, the United States and the United Kingdom have assembled more than 150,000 troops, dozens of warships and hundreds of aircraft, defense officials said. Six aircraft carriers, five U.S. and one British, are also expected to join the force soon, which could number more than 200,000 troops by the end of the month, according to U.S. officials.
Rumsfeld, however, refused to provide more details on the exact makeup of the U.S.-British force. “I don’t do numbers,” he said (Reuters/Financial Times, Feb. 21).
Inspections
Inspectors yesterday conducted a second reconnaissance flight over Iraq using a U.S. U-2 aircraft — the second such flight this week, according to the Associated Press. During yesterday’s flight, the aircraft spent more than six hours over Iraq, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said (see GSN, Feb. 18).
Iraq has also submitted to inspectors a list of people involved in the destruction of prohibited biological weapons and missile items, Buchanan said. Iraq had previously submitted a list of 83 people who were reported involved in the destruction of banned chemical weapons.
“Those lists are being studied, and clearly might be potential names for interviews,” Buchanan said (Niko Price, Associated Press/Boston Globe, Feb. 21).
Two French Mirage 4 surveillance aircraft left an airbase in southern France today and are expected to later arrive at an undisclosed location in the Persian Gulf region, according to Agence France-Presse. The aircraft, along with two refueling planes and a 70-member support team, were offered to inspectors as part of a French-German-Russian proposal to strengthen inspections (see GSN, Feb. 12; Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, Feb. 21).
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said yesterday inspectors were being subjected to unwelcome, heavy pressure.
“Inspectors are being subjected to very strong pressure in order to provoke their departure from Iraq, as occurred in 1998, or to present Security Council assessments which could be used as a pretext for the use of force against Iraq,” he said.
While declining to identify the source of such pressure, Ivanov has previously accused “certain circles” in the United States of doing so (Reuters/Gulf News, Feb. 21).
Inspectors visited at least 23 suspect Iraqi sites yesterday, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency press release. UNMOVIC missile teams placed additional tags on al-Samoud 2 missiles and warheads located in Baghdad. Missile experts also visited al-Qudis factory and al-Wazariya site. Inspectors also conducted an aerial survey via helicopter of several sites northwest of Baghdad, located up the Tigris River to the city of Tikrit.
UNMOVIC chemical inspectors visited al-Aaela Factory for Sulfochemicals, where they conducted a rebaselining inspection, according to the IAEA release. UNMOVIC biological inspectors performed aerial inspections on a site west of Baghdad and a site southwest of the city. Biological inspectors also visited via helicopter an alcohol-producing factory south-southwest of the city of Amarah in southeastern Iraq.
IAEA inspectors inspected flow-forming equipment at al-Karama facility and the Ghraib facility, the agency release said. IAEA inspectors also visited the Shakyli Stores at the Tuwaitha site, to inspect materials from Iraq’s past centrifuge program, and al-Eyz Company. Agency inspectors conducted radiation surveys at ElBasel Company-ElNahrawan, the Sabaa (Seven) Nissan General Company, an oil workers residential complex, the Department of Oil Truck Maintenance and an air defense unit east of Baghdad (IAEA release, Feb. 20).
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