UNITED NATIONS, Dec 18: The 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council were given edited version of the Iraqi declaration on its weapons programme late Tuesday.
The five permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — received the uncensored declaration of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and long-range missile programmes over a week ago
The United States took an unedited version of the declaration to Washington and made copies for its own assessment and handed over copies to its counterparts in the council.
However, the UN version was also given to the permanent members on Tuesday.
The document, which runs in the thousands of pages, was screened first by the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Each then prepared edited copies of their portion — the first on chemical and biological arms and the second on nuclear weapons — for the council.
Asked about this development, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said it was important that all council members receive the text before they meet Thursday on Iraq. “But I think the actual analysis is going to come later,” he added
Diplomats picked up the abridged, 3,500-page report on Iraq’s chemical, biological and missile programmes late Tuesday from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission headed by chief UN inspector Hans Blix.
The International Atomic Energy Agency handed over a 2,000-page report on Iraq’s nuclear programme to the non-permanent members on Tuesday.
The agency’s director, Mohammed ElBaradei, said last week that Saddam’s 2,400-page nuclear dossier contained scant new information.
A Security Council diplomat who saw the sanitized version said parts of the declaration were blacked out, including the names of foreign individuals and companies and some Iraqis. But blackening of some of the portions appeared to have been done in a rush, and in the 709-page missile declaration the names of some West German and Swiss companies could still be discerned.
“There seem to be a lot of gaps and omissions in this declaration but they seem to be produced by UNMOVIC, the IAEA and the five permanent members, not by Iraq,” said a diplomat.
The diplomat said the edited declaration did not contain any statement by Iraq stating that it does not have weapons programme, or any summary. Two of the binders dealt with Iraq’s chemical programme, two with its missile programme and one with the biological programme, the diplomat said.
The five countries joining the council next month for two-year term — Pakistan, Germany, Spain, Chile, and Angola — will also receive edited copies of the declaration, said Colombia’s UN Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, the current council president.
UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix and IAEA chief ElBaradei are scheduled to give the council their initial views on the declaration on Thursday.
The US Assistant Secretary of State, John Wolf, who oversees the non-proliferation issue, will represent the United States when Blix reports to the Security Council on Thursday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.
“I am sure we will have something to say later this week. Whether it will be a final judgment, I don’t know,” Boucher said.
