December 20, 2002	Friday	Shawwal 15, 1423

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WASHINGTON, Dec 19: The United States on Thursday declared Iraq in “material breach” of the latest UN resolution requiring it to disarm and warned war against President Saddam Hussein was moving closer.

Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered the US government’s long-awaited response to the 12,000 page declaration, as the building crisis over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction took an ominous turn.

“It should be obvious that the pattern of systematic holes and gaps in Iraq’s declaration is not the result of accidents or editing oversights or technical mistakes,” said Secretary of State Colin Powell.

“These are material omissions that, in our view, constitute another material breach.”

The words “material breach” could provide the legal justification for attacking Iraq. But a Nov. 8 resolution, adopted by the UN Security Council, requires more than false statements or omissions in an arms declaration Baghdad recently submitted.

The Bush administration, in statements by its UN ambassador, John Negroponte, and Secretary of State, Colin Powell, accused Iraq of a “material breach” because of gaps in the 12,000-page document Iraq handed over on Dec. 7 dealing with its weapons of mass destruction programmes.

However, the resolution, says Iraq must commit other serious violations in addition to any fabrications in the arms declaration.

The resolution requires Iraq to disarm and provide a full report of its past programmes designed to produce nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

The 15-member Security Council then has to “assess” a material breach but is not required to adopt a resolution approving war, although some members would like it.

“It is not up to individual council members to make this judgment,” Russia’s UN Ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, said in response to Negroponte’s announcement.

Powell warned that the world would not wait for ever for Iraq to comply with UN resolution 1441, warning that Iraq would be disarmed by force if necessary.

“This declaration fails totally to move us in the direction of a peaceful solution,” Powell said.

Iraq’s noncompliance and defiance, he said, only move Baghdad “close to the day when it will have to face these consequences.”

BRITAIN: Iraq has committed a “flagrant violation” of the UN disarmament resolution, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, but he added that this did not make war against Baghdad inevitable.

Repeating his earlier charge that Iraq had omitted key information from the report it handed in to the world body on December 7, Straw said: “It is a very serious failure to comply and a clear warning has to go out to Iraq that they now have to cooperate fully with the UN and its inspectors as is required of them by the international community.”

FRANCE: Iraq’s declaration detailing its weapons programme contains “grey areas”, France said, but added that it was up to UN inspectors to determine whether Baghdad was fulfilling its obligations.

“There are grey areas in the Iraqi declaration but we have confidence that Mr. Blix and Mr. Elbaradei will clear them up,” Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said.

UNITED NATIONS: Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said that the world cannot be sure Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction.

In a briefing to the UN Security Council on Iraq’s 12,000-page weapons declaration, Blix said there was “a lack of supporting evidence” for Iraq’s claim that it has no chemical, biological or nuclear arms.

“The absence of that evidence means of course that we cannot have confidence that there do not remain weapons of mass destruction,” Blix told reporters afterwards.

However, during the briefing, Blix also pointed out that he could not “disprove” the Iraqi claims to have destroyed all prohibited weaponry.

IRAQ DENIES: Iraq denied that its weapons declaration did not comply with the UN resolution demanding it disarm.

“Iraq is not in a material breach. This is the interpretation of the US and does not represent the interpretation of the whole international community,” Mohammed Salman, Iraq’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters.

“The US made it clear that the matter is not disarmament, but to change the legitimate government of Iraq,” he added.

Salman said Iraq “will proceed with Mr. Blix in the same cooperation, in the sense of cooperation it has shown in the past.”—AFP/Reuters