Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix on Friday warned Iraq against playing ”cat-and-mouse games” with weapons inspectors due to arrive there shortly under UN mandate.
The behaviour of the Iraqi authorities would be pivotal between war and peace, he told a news conference.
”What will they declare? How open are they? How much transparency will there be?” he asked.
Blix, before leaving New York to start the first inspections in Iraq in four years, implored Baghdad to make a clean breast of its weapons arsenal.
”We expect that the first inspections will take place on November 27,” he said, adding that the Security Council would not tolerate any ”cat-and-mouse games” by the Iraqis.
Security Council Resolution 1441, adopted November 8, gave the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 30 days to make a full declaration of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programmes.
”Iraq’s declaration is a very important document and we hope they take it seriously,” Blix said.
The resolution warned Iraq it faced ”serious consequences” for making false statements or omissions, and US President George Bush has made clear that would mean war.
US warplanes bombed an air defence communications facility in southern Iraq on Friday, after coalition aircraft came under Iraqi fire in violation of last week’s UN Security Council resolution, the military said.
The Bush administration was expected to report the incident to the UN Security Council, but it was still debating whether to declare it a ”material breach,” US officials said.
A US defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said US warplanes have come under surface-to-air fire from Iraqi forces 11 times since UN Security Council resolution 1 441 was passed November 8.
In Paris meanwhile, French President Jacques Chirac and visiting Mexican counterpart Vicente Fox stressed their common approach to the crisis and their rejection of any unilateral attack on Baghdad by the United States.
”Our position on the picture of the world and the crises that unfortunately are occurring is absolutely identical,” Chirac told a joint press conference with Fox, whose country chairs the security council.
Blix, noting that Iraq concealed its biological weapons for many years, said ”an omission can be very serious . . . that was a very significant omission”.
With Blix in Iraq, Bush will be at a Nato summit in Prague next week where the Iraq question was sure to dominate talks among the allies.
”I suspect that we will hear from Nato partners what they are prepared to do and what they can do,” in the event Baghdad thwarts a UN disarmament plan, said Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
In a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday, Iraq denied having weapons of mass destruction, but said it would welcome the inspectors so as to expose ”the fabrications of the liars” in the US and British governments.
”They will have one month — not quite one month — to consider this and to examine their archives, their stocks to see whether indeed there is something or not,” Blix said.
Blix was scheduled to leave for Paris and to go from there to Cyprus before flying to Baghdad on Monday with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed El-Baradei.
He acknowledged that effective inspections were not easy, saying there were ”lots of reports that they are hiding things, that there are mobile units and underground units”.
He said the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission (UNMOVIC) which he heads was ready to conduct inspections anywhere, even in mosques.
”There are no sanctuaries,” Blix said, but added: ”We are aware of religious sensitivities… and are not instructed to carry out provocative inspections.”
”If I had solid evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction, then I would put that on the table of the Security Council,” he added.
Resolution 1441 warns Iraq that false or incomplete statements, coupled with a failure to cooperate with the inspectors would put it in ”material breach” of resolutions including one which set the terms of the Gulf War ceasefire.
Blix said his first task in Baghdad was to reopen offices that have not been used since the previous inspectors were recalled in December 1998.
”We have to make sure that the pigeons which have broken through the windows are chased out, and that there is a new coat of paint on the walls,” he said.
Meanwhile former US president Jimmy Carter, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, on Friday called US foreign policy ”arrogant”, saying the United States would do well to do away with its own weapons of mass destruction.
Carter called on the US government ”to try to comply with and enforce international efforts targeted to prohibit the arsenals of biological weapons,” as well as reducing stockpiles of chemical and nuclear weapons,” he said. – Sapa-AFP