Steve Quayle News Alerts

October 1, 2002

VIENNA, Austria — The United Nations and Iraq reached agreement Tuesday on details to renew weapons inspections, but they rejected a key demand by the United States and Great Britain -- the right to inspect Saddam Hussein's eight presidential palaces.

The Iraqi chief negotiator, Amir al-Sadi, said the issue of surprise inspections of Saddam's presidential sites, which encompass 12 square miles, was "not a subject on the agenda."

"Quite honestly I don't understand why it is so critical," al-Sadi said.

Al-Sadi said an advance party of weapons inspectors is expected to arrive in Baghdad in two weeks.

Asked if there would be access to the president palaces, the Iraqi negotiator said such visits were regulated by an agreement worked out between the United Nations and Iraq four years ago that required advance notice and the presence of international diplomats.

"It is regulated by a memorandum of understanding, and it is also referred to in Security Council resolutions and that remains valid," he said.

The restrictions on inspecting presidential sites would have to be lifted by the Security Council, something U.N. representatives in Vienna had emphasized throughout the two days of talks.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the Vienna-based Atomic Energy Agency, the site of the talks, said the negotiations had resulted in "assurances from the Iraqis that we will have unconditional access to all sites," except the so-called presidential sites.

That apparently was an Iraqi concession, in that Baghdad had put a number of other sites off limits to surprise visits, including the headquarters of the Republic Guard and Defense Ministry.

Immediately after the Vienna agreement was announced, the State Department said any inspections should be deferred until a new resolution outlining the mission is approved by the U.N. Security Council. However, spokesman Richard Boucher said the Bush administration had no objection to inspectors making arrangements in advance.

AP
Nov. 5, 1998: U.N. weapons monitors load gear into a van in Baghdad, Iraq, as they prepare to leave the country.

The United States demands that all sites be open to surprise inspections and wants the United Nations to adopt a news inspections resolution outlining that stance as well as the threat of military action if Saddam does not comply.

Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix said the Iraqi representatives have said "that they accept all the rights of inspections that are laid down" in previous resolutions authorizing U.N. inspections.

He said tentative agreement has been reached with Iraq on the return of his team to check for the presence of illegal, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Blix said the talks focused on practical aspects of the renewed inspections. "Where do you fly into Baghdad," he said.

Asked if the results of the two-day meeting were a rebuff to the United States and Britain, Blix said he would not be so "presumptuous," as to rebuff anyone and that he would report in "all humility" to the Security Council on Thursday.

He said restrictions on access to the eight so-called presidential sites remained in effect.

The Iraqis handed over four CDs containing a backlog of monitoring reports for suspect sites and items, spanning June 1998 to July 2002, he said. Although that information was not yet analyzed, it would provide important clues about Iraqi weapons activity, he said.

Blix said the Iraqis were serious about allowing the return of his team, saying: "There is a willingness to accept inspections that has not existed before."

Before the inspections resume, the Americans are expected to push the Security Council for a new resolution to include the threat of military action if inspections fail. But Russia, China and France oppose issuing threats before inspectors can test Iraq's sincerity.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Monday that France was still interested in a first resolution demanding a return to inspections, followed by a second resolution threatening military action if Iraq fails to comply.

AP
Saddam Hussein

British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a strong statement Tuesday backing the United States.

"Let us lay down the ultimatum. Let Saddam comply with the will of the U.N.," Blair said in a tough speech to a convention of his governing Labor Party.

"If we lose our collective will to deal with it, we will lose the authority not of the United States or of Britain, but of the United Nations," Blair said.

At a regular weekly Cabinet meeting led by Saddam in Baghdad, senior Iraqi officials discussed the American efforts toward a new resolution.

"If those evil people think that the war drums that are beating can force Iraq to give up its national rights, its rights according to the U.N. charter and to the (past) Security Council resolutions, they are under an illusion," Iraqi TV quoted the unidentified spokesman as saying after the meeting.

In Ankara, Turkey, meanwhile, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said the delegation in Vienna had been under instructions to cooperate fully.

"Iraqis will totally assist U.N. inspectors," Aziz said. "That way, those inspectors will be able to fulfill their mission and uncover the fact that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Aziz was in Turkey trying to persuade Ankara not to take part in any U.S.-led military action against Baghdad, as Turkey did in the Gulf War.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the full success of Blix's mission would await Security Council comes up with new guidance or additional resolutions that might require him to modify his plan.

"I'm pleased that he is in that state of readiness and we'll have to see how things develop over the next couple of weeks with respect to a resolution with new requirements," Powell said in a television interview with PBS Monday night.

Nearly four years ago, inspectors withdrew from Iraq on the eve of U.S.-British airstrikes amid allegations that Baghdad was not cooperating with the teams.

By the end of the 1991 Gulf War, IAEA assessments indicated Saddam was six months away from building an atomic bomb. Inspectors discovered the oil-rich nation had imported thousands of pounds of uranium, some of which was already refined for weapons use, and had considered two types of nuclear delivery systems.

Over the next six years, inspectors seized the uranium, destroyed facilities and chemicals, dismantled over 40 missiles and confiscated thousands of documents.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,64519,00.html