Iraqi scientists whose evidence could provide Washington with a trigger for war are to be whisked out of the country soon to a neutral venue, Cyprus.
The foreign minister of Cyprus, Ioannis Cassoulides, told the Guardian: ”It seems they will be coming.”
A tug-of-war between the US and Baghdad over the scientists is shaping up as the crunch issue. The dilemma for the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, is that if he allows a scientist out to blow the whistle on a banned weapons programme, it could lead to war, but if Iraq were to block their departure, that too could be the cause of all-out conflict.
Ominously, the Iraqi government, which claims it has destroyed all banned weapons, insisted yesterday it did not expect any scientist would volunteer to leave.
The UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, who briefed the security council yesterday on the work of his inspectors in Iraq, appears to be bowing to US pressure to make use of his powers to take inspectors out of the country.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, said the US expected inspectors to begin out-of-country interviews.
Before Christmas, Blix had been scornful of the idea, stressing the impracticalities of taking out not only the scientists and their immediate families but their extended families, who could be used as a lever if left behind.
Cypriot officials said it was likely the scientists would be interviewed in the Larnaca hotel where the inspectors have set up their main field and administrative centre. The scientists and their families would be put up in the hotel.
Cassoulides said that, given the inspectors had their field headquarters in Cyprus, ”it is quite natural that the inspectors would be wanting to come here”.
He added: ”Informal contacts have been made as our policy is to cooperate with the UN. We would not object as long as they [the scientists] only stay for a few days.”
But describing the expected arrival of the scientists as ”a high security risk”, he said the Cypriot authorities would want to ”negotiate certain aspects” of their stay.
One high-ranking foreign ministry aide said the UN had ”not come back to us with a date because the policy seems to be one of complete blackout so they can move quickly when the time comes”.
That time, he said, was likely to be soon. ”If Mr Blix is to be fully debriefed in time to write up his report by January 27, then it is our guess the Iraqi scientists will arrive in Cyprus in the coming days.”
Blix declined to confirm that scientists will be taken out: ”I’m sure there will be interviews within the near future. But where and which mode, that’s for us to decide what is appropriate in each case.”
Blix told the security council: ”We have now been there for some two months and been covering the country in ever wider sweeps and we haven’t found any smoking guns.”
But he complained that the Iraqi government was not being pro-active enough in cooperating with the inspectors and he had still not received answers to questions he had raised with Baghdad about its declaration that it had eliminated all banned weapons.
The US and British governments insist they have intelligence that President Saddam has ordered biological and chemical weapons to be hidden and that since 1998 hundreds of his scientists have been working on a nuclear weapons programme. The best hope of the US and Britain in proving this is an Iraqi scientist prepared to take the risk of becoming a whistleblower.
Reacting to Blix’s report that he had found no smoking gun, the White House representative, Ari Fleischer said: ”Well, the problem with guns that are hidden is you can’t see their smoke.”
The US has offered the equivalent of a witness protection programme, in which scientists and their families would be given new identities and a new life in the US in return for giving evidence. Iraq has accused the US of trying to bribe scientists into giving false evidence.
The prospect of a stand-off came on the same day that the march to war appeared to slow. Tony Blair told the cabinet that the inspectors must be given the ”time and space” to do their job.
The Iraqi official who liaises with the UN inspectors, General Hossam Mohammed Amin, disclosed that one inspector had raised the possibility of taking a scientist out. ”There is nothing official that has been presented to our side in this regard but… there was an oral request by one inspector.”
He claimed it was up to the scientists to decide, but ”nobody is ready to go outside for an interview”. – Guardian Unlimited Â