A rchive Date
[ 02-02-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/02/01/19207-ap.html
Iraq talks of 'compromise proposals' ahead of chief weapons inspectors' visit
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
Sun, February 2, 2003
BAGHDAD (AP) - Just days before a crucial round of talks with chief inspectors, a senior Iraqi official said Sunday that Baghdad is "keen to resolve any pending issues" in the United Nations search for banned weapons, but didn't immediately offer new concessions.
Maj.-Gen. Hossam Mohamed Amin indicated, nevertheless, that Iraq may have compromise proposals on hand for the talks next Saturday and Sunday with Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei. "We shall do our best to make his (Blix's) visit successful," Amin told reporters.
Iraq, which steadfastly denies it has forbidden arms, is under pressure to make concessions and show progress in the UN inspections process, to forestall any U.S.-British diplomatic bid for support for military action against Baghdad.
Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison to the inspectors, also dismissed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's plan to present purported evidence of prohibited Iraqi weapons programs to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
That material will probably be "fabricated space photos or aerial photos," of a kind the Iraqis could refute if given a chance to study it, Amin said. "It is a political game," he said.
Chief UN weapons inspector Blix and ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, accepted an Iraqi invitation to return for a new round of talks just ahead of their next report to the Security Council, on Feb. 14. It will be the second round of Baghdad talks for Blix and ElBaradei in three weeks.
The two chief inspectors say they hope to see Iraqi movement beforehand on two immediate issues: UN reconnaissance flights over Iraq, and UN access to weapons scientists in private interviews.
Asked whether Iraq was prepared to bend to the UN position, Amin instead repeated Baghdad's positions on both items.
The Iraqis say they will allow American U-2 surveillance flights on behalf of UN inspections as long as the United States and Britain halt air patrols over southern and northern Iraq while the spy planes are in the air. This way, they say, Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries won't mistake the reconnaissance aircraft for U.S. and British warplanes and fire on them.
In their Jan. 19-20 talks here, the chief inspectors "told us they have no authority to achieve this," Amin said.
On private interviews with scientists, Amin reiterated to reporters: "We cannot force them (scientists) to conduct such interviews."
In an authoritarian system like Iraq's, the inspectors believe, such specialists will be more candid in private meetings, without government officials monitoring, when asked about possible illicit weapons programs. Thus far, every potential Iraqi witness has refused to submit to such secret interviews, demanding the presence of a witness.
American officials contend President Saddam Hussein's government has threatened death for any scientist who grants a private interview.
Although he discussed no possible compromise approaches on the issues, Amin told reporters: "We are always ready to discuss or make technical discussions with (the inspectors) to resolve any pending issues from their point of view."
The Bush administration insists, without presenting proof, that Iraq is hiding banned weaponry and says it will invade the country if, in its view, Baghdad has not disarmed.
The United States has marshalled almost 90,000 military personnel in the Persian Gulf region, a number that may double within weeks. In a further sign of the rising tension, the Turkish military Sunday began moving troops from western Turkey to its border with Iraq, a likely flashpoint in any war.
The U.S. war plans, backed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have stirred opposition worldwide. Small numbers of western protesters sometimes bring their protests to Baghdad's streets, as a dozen American women activists did on Sunday.
Calling themselves the CodePink peace vigil, they demonstrated in Baghdad's Tahrir (Liberation) Square sporting pink caps and pink umbrellas and balloons, and unfurling a banner reading, "Working Together For Peace."
In Sunday's daily UN arms inspections, monitors made surprise visits to, among other sites, a missile factory west of Baghdad and a chemicals complex to the south, both often inspected before, and to the Abu Ghraib Dairy Company, 20kilometres west of the capital, the Information Ministry reported.
The dairy inspection, during which the UN team examined the interior of milk truck tanks, was not immediately explained, but the site presumably was linked to the hunt for signs of biological weapons work.
"They have been looking for more than 50 days, and didn't find anything. The Iraqis are right - we don't have these kinds of weapons," a leader of Iraq's National Assembly, Secretary General Ghalib Jassim, told a reporter at a ceremony marking the 12-year anniversary period of the 1991 Gulf War.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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