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WASHINGTON, Dec 16: The United States said on Monday that Iraq would not get an opportunity to fix what US officials say are gaping holes in its UN weapons report, calling the document Baghdad’s “last chance” to come clean.
“It was abundantly plain, from the will of the United Nations, that this was Iraq’s last chance to inform the world in an accurate, complete and full way what weapons of mass destruction they possessed,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
US and British officials have cast doubt on the accuracy of the 12,000-page declaration to the United Nations on chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic weapons Baghdad is forbidden from possessing.
US President George Bush has warned that he will lead a “coalition of the willing” to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by force if Baghdad does not heed a UN ultimatum to do so peacefully.
Bush, who was to discuss possible war on Iraq during a White House meeting with Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, could publicly respond to Iraq’s report this week, said Fleischer.
“It’s always being considered for when the president is going to talk about something as important as the Iraqi declaration,” he said, adding that the US government was still reviewing the document “in a comprehensive way”.
Bush and Sultan Hassan, who governs the tiny oil-rich nation, “will talk generally about Iraq, about the need to enforce UN Security Council resolution 1441, which gives Iraq one last chance to fulfil its obligations to the international community”, said a senior Bush aide.
INSPECTORS: UN arms inspectors entered six suspect sites on Monday, buoyed by reinforcements which have taken their number above 100, as Iraq announced they had begun taking the names of its weapons scientists.
The United Nations announced last week that it had given Iraq until the end of the month to provide a complete list of scientists involved in its banned weapons programmes.
Earlier this month, Washington coupled open scepticism of Baghdad’s then-pending arms report with appeals to the United Nations to get information on banned arms programmes directly from Iraqi scientists.
The White House urged UN inspectors scouring Iraq in search of biological, chemical and nuclear arms to use their prerogative under a UN disarmament resolution to bring scientists and their families out of the country.
“Given Iraq’s history of brutal witness intimidation — including imprisonment, torture and murder — this is a key tool for inspectors to make certain that Saddam Hussein disarms,” Fleischer said on Dec 6.
The inspectors have probed a total of 80 military and industrial facilities since resuming their work last month, their spokesman said on Monday.
“Around 80 sites have been visited, so far so good,” Hiro Ueki said.
A record number of 14 inspections was carried out on Saturday, he said, updating a previous count of 11 searches which did not include after-dark visits undertaken on the same day.
Teams of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Iraq on Nov 25 and resumed inspections two days later after a four-year break.
The number of inspectors climbed to 105 on Sunday — 86 from UNMOVIC and 19 from the IAEA.
RALLY: Some 2,000 people rallied in Chicago on Sunday to protest the United States government’s threats to go to war with Iraq.
Hundreds of demonstrators packed into St James Episcopal Cathedral for an inter-faith service and their numbers swelled to the thousands for a march and rally down the city’s main artery, Michigan Avenue.
“There is definitely a growing number of people who are starting to get nervous about the Bush administration’s stance on Iraq,” said Jennifer Bing-Canar, programme director for the American Friends Service Committee, a peace group that organised the gathering.
“The jury is still out,” said Cardinal Francis George, head of the Chicago Archdiocese, in a reference to the evidence on Iraq’s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
“Let’s see what the evidence is.”
George is one of more than 40 religious leaders from the Chicago area who sent a letter to President George Bush earlier this month urging him to work toward a peaceful alternative to war with Iraq.—AFP
