Iraq stepped up its charm offensive towards the United Nations weapons inspectors yesterday by quickly letting them into one of Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad palaces when they turned up for a surprise search. Baghdad also promised to provide a full list of its arms capabilities a day ahead of the UN deadline.
A convoy of white UN vehicles roared up to the opulent al-Sajoud palace along the river Tigris on the sixth day of the first international inspection programme for four years. They were kept waiting for seven minutes as Iraqi officials made mobile phone calls before the huge gates swung open.
Within minutes, President Saddam’s secretary, Abed Hamoud, arrived and entered the palace grounds, according to journalists on the scene. As at other sites, security staff were undoubtedly aware the palace would be visited but there was no sign that the staff knew it would be yesterday, reporters said. A second UN team entered from a back gate.
The inspectors left after 90 minutes and reporters were allowed into the palace’s spectacular entry hall. Every wall was inscribed in large gold letters with a poem praising the president.
The UN team had, as usual, no comment for reporters but General Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer, said: ”The Iraqi side was cooperative. The inspectors were happy.”
The declaration of Iraq’s arsenal, which is required by UN resolution 1441 to be delivered on Sunday, would be ready a day early, he added. ”It will include new elements, but those new elements don’t mean that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction,” he insisted.
President George Bush said this week the list must be ”credible and complete” but the White House has damped down speculation about a quick reaction.
”This needs to be gone over completely and thoroughly,” Bush’s representative, Ari Fleischer, said. ”We don’t know how many pages they’ll provide. It could be hundreds, it could be thousands of pages. We just don’t know. But depending on how long it is we’ll take the appropriate time to study it”.
The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, described Iraqi actions as ”a good indication that the Iraqis are cooperating but this is only the beginning”.
The UN has reported that their inspectors found equipment which had been tagged by earlier inspectors was missing. The Iraqis said some of it had been destroyed in US bombing in 1998, when 18 cruise missiles struck the site, and some had been transferred to other locations.
”If it were to be moved for some illicit purpose, then of course it would be more serious,” Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector said. Sources close to the UN weapons inspectors hinted yesterday that they expect the Iraqi declaration may contain ambiguities over so-called ”dual use” items. Iraq had recently admitted to several failed attempts to acquire aluminium tubing for use in conventional weapons in violation of United Nations sanctions, a source said.
”The Iraqis said they tried to import the tubing, but not for use in nuclear weapons as the US and Britain have alleged,” the source told Reuters.
The source said the Iraqis told the inspectors it was to be used in multi-barrelled rocket launchers and denied it was intended to help revive Baghdad’s nuclear weapons programme, which the International Atomic Energy Agency said it neutralised before inspectors left Iraq in December 1998.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi vessel opened fire on two Kuwaiti coast guard boats yesterday, Kuwaiti officials claimed. The border between Iraq and Kuwait is monitored by a long-standing UN observation mission. Daljeet Bagga, its representative, said they had ”no knowledge” of the incident but added that it could have taken place outside the zone which the observers patrol. – Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001