UN report on Iraq: grist for many mills

United Nations weapons chiefs Monday report to the Security Council on Iraq's compliance to disarm - providing a document that is unlikely to resolve any debates.

The report's conclusions about Iraq's willingness to cooperate are likely to provide ammunition for both pro-war and pro-peace camps.

"Blix is almost off the hook, because no matter what he says, unless he has a true 'smoking gun,' the US will interpret it one way, and countries that don't want to confront Iraq will interpret another," says Andrew Krepinevich, head of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell Sunday reaffirmed a US promise not to "rush to judgment" about the report's findings. But he made clear the US "will not shrink from war, if that is required" to disarm Iraq, and that "time is running out."

President George Bush is expected to announce the "final phase" in the Iraq crisis in his State of the Union address tomorrow night, while reportedly providing more time for inspections to continue.

Such a timetable coincides with slower-than-expected US troop deployments, which would be critical to any attack and which point to a late February or early March launch date if Mr. Bush orders war.

The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency will spell out how the UN's nuclear watchdogs systematically followed leads provided by member nations like the US, but will not yield "any great surprises," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Sunday in a phone interview from Vienna. "We have been able to fill in a lot of blanks," she says, noting that the IAEA efforts are mid-course. "So far we have done over 100 inspections, and these have not turned up evidence that there has been any prohibited nuclear activity."

After two months of renewed inspections, UN weapons chief Hans Blix has said teams have not found a "smoking gun" to confirm US and British assertions that Iraq harbors weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Mr. Blix and IAEA head Mohamed El Barradei say they need more time to do their work. Anti-war activists say more time should also be given for diplomacy and peace initiatives that sources say may include a visit to Iraq by Nelson Mandela, or someone else of similar stature.

Nuclear inspectors say they have uncovered no evidence so far that Iraq has tried to reconstitute its bomb program. But wide gaps in Iraq's accounting of missing WMD material remain.

One reason for the discrepancy - and therefore Baghdad's unwillingness to give up residual WMD capabilities, analysts say - may be Iraq's calculation that Washington will carry out regime change regardless. "What [the Iraqis] have is some scrappy bits of chemical and biological [material], but it's enough to strap to a dirty bomb," says a British analyst who asked not to be named. "They believe they are going to be invaded anyway, so they would rather it happen with opposing troops in chemical-weapons suits, and with a Samson option overshadowing."

Any last-minute deal, he notes, "would have to broker some kind of security guarantee" that Iraq not be attacked, in exchange for Baghdad revealing WMD secrets.

Page: 1 | 2