The chances of the U.N. Security Council approving the U.S.-British-Spanish draft resolution on Iraq did not improve over the weekend, as the United States has still not gained commitments from nine members of the council and Russia explicitly vowed to veto the resolution, according to reports (see GSN, March 7).

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said today that Russia would vote against the resolution that includes a March 17 deadline for Iraq to comply with earlier U.N. resolutions.  Ivanov’s statement is the first time Russia has explicitly said it would vote against the resolution.

“Russia believes that no further resolutions of the U.N. Security Council are necessary, and therefore Russia openly declares that if [the] draft resolution that currently has been introduced for consideration and which contains demands in an ultimate form that cannot be met is nonetheless put to a vote, then Russia will vote against this resolution,” Ivanov was quoted by Interfax as saying (Associated Press/Yahoo.com, March 10).

As for getting the nine votes needed to pass a council resolution, “We don’t have it in the bank,” an administration official said, adding that the United States would still continue to push for a vote on the resolution this week.

U.S. officials said they still hope that nine of the 15 council members will ultimately decide to support the resolution.  Two of the six undecided permanent members, Chile and Guinea, indicated over the weekend, however, that they were not yet ready to give their support, according to the New York Times.

In a further attempt to gain backing, the United States is “likely” to agree to define the benchmarks Iraq would have to meet before the deadline to show compliance, although such requirements would likely be described outside the resolution, an administration official said.  Some officials also said the March 17 deadline might be extended if that would help increase support.

“If somebody comes to us and says, ‘Give us a few more days, and we’ll vote for you,’ it’s something we would have to consider,” an administration official said (Weisman/Barringer, New York Times, March 10).

The United States might soon dispatch several senior officials, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, to the undecided council members to try and gain their support, according to the London Independent.

“There may well be a need for us to do some travel,” Rice said yesterday on ABC’s This Week (London Independent, March 10).

France, which has vigorously opposed any new resolution that would authorize military action against Iraq, has also begun a new round of diplomacy to persuade the undecided council members to oppose the draft resolution, according to CNN.com.  French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has been sent to visit three undecided African council members — Angola, Cameroon and Guinea (CNN.com, March 10).

In an apparent countermeasure to de Villepin’s Africa trip, the United Kingdom, a staunch supporter of the U.S. stance on Iraq, has dispatched Baroness Amos, minister for Africa, to Angola, Cameroon and Guinea, according to the BBC (BBC.com, March 10).

French President Jacques Chirac has called for an emergency summit of Security Council members in an attempt to develop a compromise solution to the Iraq crisis, his office said Saturday.

“War is not a small thing,” Chirac’s office said.  “When you declare death or life, this merits being taken to the highest level of responsibility, (where leaders could) think through crisis management,” it added.

Powell, however, dismissed the idea, saying there was no need for such a meeting when council members have been expressing their opinions “openly and candidly” (Associated Press/Ha’aretz, March 9).

Inspectors Question U.S.-British Evidence

Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told the Security Council Friday that an important piece of evidence that Iraq sought to rebuild its nuclear weapons program appears to be a fraud (see GSN, Jan. 29).

Documents that indicated that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger were determined to be “not authentic” after being examined by U.N. and independent experts, ElBaradei said.  The documents, a series of letters between Iraqi agents and Nigerien officials, were given to inspectors by the United Kingdom after prior review by U.S. intelligence.  The creators of the documents had made a number of crude errors that signaled their forgery, such as the inclusion of names and titles that did not match the individuals who held office at the time the letters were supposed to have been written, officials said.

“We fell for it,” said one U.S. official who reviewed the documents.

The IAEA does not fault the United Kingdom or the United States for the forged documents, an agency spokesman said.  The documents “were shared with us in good faith,” the spokesman said.

In his report, ElBaradei also rejected the claim, often made by U.S. officials, that Iraq had purchased high-strength aluminum tubes for use in a uranium-enrichment program (see GSN, Feb. 6).  Investigators had discovered a large number of documents that supported Iraq’s claim that the tubes were for use in a conventional rocket program, ElBaradei said.  IAEA centrifuge experts had also concluded the tubes were not suitable for use in centrifuges, he said.

“It was highly unlikely that Iraq could have achieved the considerable redesign needed to use them in a revived centrifuge program,” ElBaradei said (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, March 8).

White House officials yesterday attempted to counter ElBaradei’s report.

On the issue of whether the aluminum tubes were meant for a nuclear program, Powell said, “We still have an open question with respect to that and we see more information from a European country this week that suggests that that is exactly what those tubes were intended to be used for.” 

The United States had never meant for the claim that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger to be the sole evidence of a renewed nuclear program, Rice said.

“I think you’ll find this has not been cited as a core to our case,” Rice said.  “What we’ve said is that we believe the weakness in (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein’s program is the absence of fissile material and we do not know whether he has acquired fissile material,” she said (Agence France-Presse, March 9).

In his briefing Friday to the Security Council, U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix expressed frustration with the quality of intelligence that the United States has provided to inspectors.

“I would rather have twice the amount of high-quality information about sites to inspect than twice the number of expert inspectors to send,” Blix said.

While the White House has insisted that all relevant information is being given to the inspectors, some officials have privately said the quality and quantity of intelligence is low.

“We have some information, not a lot,” a U.S. official said.

Some of the information that the CIA has compiled on suspect Iraqi sites is of such low value it would be of little use to the inspectors, a U.S. intelligence official said.  “You don’t swamp the U.N. with everything we have ever heard,” the official said (Drogin/Miller, Los Angeles Times, March 8).

New Evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts

U.N. inspectors have discovered in Iraq a new type of rocket that appears to be configured to disperse bomblets filled with biological and chemical weapons agents, U.S. officials said.

The reconfigured rocket warheads appear to be made out of Iraq’s arsenals of imported and indigenous weapons, according to the New York Times.  The rocket was discovered in the last few months during the latest round of inspections, a U.S. official said.  Iraqi officials first said the weapon was designed as a conventional cluster bomb, but a few days later they said some might have been configured for use with chemical weapons, the U.S. officials said.

The appearance of the rocket’s cluster bomblets suggested their use with biological and chemical agents, the U.S. official said. 

“If you take the kinds of fuses we know they have, and you screw them in there, when these things come out from the main frame and they explode inward, chemical agents come out,” the official said.  “These can be used for biological weapons, too,” the official added (Cushman/Weisman, New York Times, March 10).

A report circulated by Blix to the Security Council members after his briefing Friday also contained evidence of an undeclared large Iraqi drone, according to the London Times (see GSN, Feb. 6).  The drone is believed to be the same one mentioned by Powell during his intelligence presentation to the Security Council on Feb. 5, diplomatic sources said (Bone/Watson, London Times, March 10).

The United States and the United Kingdom are expected to call on Blix today to label the drone as a “smoking gun,” according to the Times.  The U.S. and British U.N. ambassadors plan to call on Blix to provide more information on the drone — the first undisclosed program discovered by inspectors — than he did during his speech to the council.

“It’s incredible,” said a senior diplomat from one of the still-undecided council members.  “This report is going to have a clearly defined impact on the people who are wavering.  It’s a biggie,” the diplomat added (James Bone, London Times, March 10).

Blix’s written report also detailed Iraqi plans to use biological and chemical weapons during the 1991 Gulf War in the event of a U.S. nuclear strike on Baghdad, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Hussein authorized Iraqi commanders to launch an attack with 50 al-Hussein missiles armed with chemical weapons and 25 armed with biological weapons in the event of a nuclear strike, the report says.  The missiles, which had a range of 400 miles, were deployed at four hidden sites around Baghdad, it says.

In the event of a new war with the United States, Hussein has authorized the use of biological and chemical weapons in the event he is either captured or killed, which would place his younger son, Qusay, in power, U.S. intelligence officials said (Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times, March 10).

Time Drawing Near

ElBaradei today called on Hussein to take distinct steps to demonstrate compliance with inspections.

“What’s required is a dramatic change in spirit and sincerity,” ElBaradei said in an interview with the al-Hayat newspaper.  “The Iraqi president (could) himself announce on television that he is prepared for complete cooperation and that he is giving directives to all Iraqi officials to cooperate completely and present all the documents they have, or even if they have weapons, to reveal them,” he added.

Iraq still has a chance to avoid war, through the door is quickly closing, ElBaradei said.

“I still feel that the war is not inevitable.  But without doubt we are drawing near,” ElBaradei said.  “The two coming weeks will be decisive and the ball is still in Iraq’s court,” he added (Reuters, March 10).

Iraq, however, believes it can do nothing now to prevent a war with the United States, Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, chief Iraqi liaison to the inspectors, said yesterday.  Even so, Iraq would still continue to cooperate with the inspections process in order to derail the latest draft resolution, he said.

“We are preparing ourselves for a war, and at the same time we are working to resolve remaining issues” with the inspectors, said Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate.  “There is a probability that the situation will be enhanced by the (support) of other states in the Security Council and the people around the world,” he said (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, March 10).

Inspections

U.N. inspectors visited at least three suspect Iraqi sites today, according to Reuters.  Inspectors traveled to al-Taji to observe the destruction of prohibited al-Samoud 2 missiles (see related GSN story, today).  They also traveled to al-Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range to search for additional R-400 bombs.  Inspectors also visited a leather-dyeing factory in Nahrawan, south of Baghdad, said Iraqi Information Ministry official Uday al-Ta’ae (Hassan Hafidh, Reuters, March 10).

Yesterday, inspectors visited at least eight suspect Iraqi sites, according to a U.N. press release.

Inspectors supervised the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles.  They also traveled to al-Qa Qaa storage site to verify the tagging of al-Samoud 2 warheads and to inspect the facility’s solid propellant production plant; and to al-Fatah Factory of the Karama State Company to destroy mechanical parts of guidance and control assemblies for al-Samoud 2 missiles, the U.N. release said.

Biological experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission traveled to al-Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range to supervise the transfer of excavated R-400 bombs to a more secure section of the site.  UNMOVIC chemical inspectors visited the Tadmur Company for Tanning and Leather Industry.  Inspectors also visited areas northwest of the northern city of Kirkuk.

IAEA inspectors visited the General Systems Company in central Baghdad.  They also conducted a radiation survey inside the buildings of the Jurf al-Naddaf complex, south of Baghdad (U.N. release, March 9).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

IAEA Iraq Action Team

U.N. Resolution 1441

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