Iraqi intransigence over missiles that can travel 30 kilometres beyond a 150 kilometre limit set by the United Nations was rapidly emerging last night as a possible trigger for an American invasion.
As weapons inspectors prepared to order the rockets’ destruction, President Saddam Hussein held a council of war with his military chiefs. The meeting came a day after the Iraqi leader vowed that peace ”at any cost” was unacceptable. Several westerners who have been working privately to avert conflict expressed desperation yesterday at what they see as a hardening of Iraq’s stance.
They point out that Baghdad has made no positive moves on disarmament since last Friday — which they fear is due to a misreading of the disarray in the UN security council and the anti-war demonstrations last weekend.
In his latest report to the UN security council, the chief inspector, Hans Blix, declared the Samoud 2 missiles illegal because they had been test-fired to a distance of 182 kilometres.
Iraq says the missiles flew the extra distance because they were unburdened by guidance and control systems.
UN weapons inspectors yesterday visited the Ibn al-Haithem facility, north of Baghdad, which produces missile parts, and the Samoud factory, which makes liquid-propellant engines for the missiles, according to Iraq’s information ministry.
They are believed to be compiling inventories of items to be destroyed, and Blix is expected to call for their destruction within the next few days.
Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has already declared the missiles’ destruction ”unacceptable”.
”They should not be destroyed because they are practically within the range we are allowed to have,” he said in a recent interview with CNN. ”It would be quite unfair and unacceptable by any scientific and security standards … Destruction should be based on a reason, a reason linked with questions of security and peace.”
The rockets, which carry a conventional warhead but could potentially be fitted with chemical or biological weapons, are viewed by Iraq as a key part of its arsenal.
British officials said yesterday that it is up to Blix to decide what to do about the missiles, though they described the issue as a test for Iraq. It would be ”an element of judging Iraqi cooperation,” they said.
The missile dispute has arisen at a propitious time for British and American officials who are drafting a new UN resolution which they said yesterday the would circulate next week.
The draft will seek to impose a time limit for Iraqi compliance with security council demands.
Russia yesterday upped the stakes in its fervent opposition to US military action by saying they had evidence the weapons inspectors were being ”pressurised” to force them to abandon their work in Iraq.
Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, said: ”According to our information, strong pressure is being exerted on international inspectors to provoke them to discontinue their operations in Iraq, as happened in 1998, or to pressure them into coming up with assessments that would justify the use of force”.
He stopped short of directly accusing Washington of interfering with inspections, instead preferring to suggest that the international community should ”help rather than put pressure” on Blix and El Baradei and their teams in Iraq.
Leaving no doubt as to the source of the pressure, he added that ”the faster we receive concrete results from the international inspectors’ activities” the better chance the world had of avoiding the war that Washington increasingly says is justified.
The foreign minister’s remarks constitute the most pointed criticism that Moscow has yet levelled at Washington during the Iraq crisis. However, the Kremlin has relentlessly sought to keep its options open, its remarks usually ambivalent enough not to tie President Putin to a particular stance.
Yesterday, Ivanov was careful to reiterate Moscow’s insistence that Baghdad cooperate fully with weapons inspectors, demanding a ”full openness” from Baghdad, the apparent absence of which fuels Washington’s argument. President Putin has in the past said Moscow’s insistence on diplomacy may evaporate if inspections are hampered.
Ivanov’s comments also come a day after he met US Congressman Tom Lantos, who left their meeting in Moscow on Wednesday feeling assured that Russia would eventually ”create no obstacles” to US intentions. – Guardian Unlimited Â