WASHINGTON, Jan 16: The Bush administration on Thursday took exception to a statement by the chief UN arms inspector that the Jan 27 deadline for a report on Iraqi weapons was the begining of the inspection process, not the end of it.
The administration sees Jan 27, the day a UN report on arms inspections in Iraq is due, as an “important date” in determining whether there will be war against Iraq, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
The remarks reflected a renewed emphasis on the Jan 27 UN report in the administration’s decision making, after previous comments playing down timetables seemed to suggest an early decision on war to disarm Iraq may be unlikely.
In an interview with the Post, Blix said the Jan 27 briefing will mark “the beginning of the inspection and monitoring process, not the end of it”.
Blix “would like to head off US military action at any cost, even though such action clearly has been justified by Iraq’s failure to comply”, the editorial said, echoing language used by administration officials.
Fleischer played down the importance of the inspection timetable under a 1999 UN resolution on Iraq, which requires a separate report by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix in March. The United States wants that timetable dropped, and planned to raise the issue in the Security Council this week.
He said the 1999 timetable no longer applied in view of a new resolution adopted by the United Nations on Nov 8, which required that Iraq dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programmes or face serious consequences. The November resolution, he said, was “immediately relevant”.
Bush had made no decisions about whether to go to war, he said. “That decision will ultimately be made by Saddam Hussein in terms of whether he starts to comply or indeed complies with the inspectors,” Fleischer told reporters travelling with Bush to Pennsylvania.
Referring to the Jan 27 report, called for in the November UN resolution, he said: “That’s an important date. Beyond that events will dictate timetables.”
The United States had already concluded Iraq was in “material breach” of the November resolution, by virtue of its failure to acknowledge possession of banned weapons in its arms declaration submitted to the United Nations in December.
Asked whether this was enough to justify war, a US official said: “that’s a decision only he (Bush) can make.”
The United States is assembling a large military force in the Gulf region for a possible war against Iraq. More than 60,000 troops already are in the region, and another 67,000 have been ordered there over the coming weeks.
FIERCE EDITORIAL: A fierce editorial in Thursday’s Washington Post accused chief inspector Hans Blix of “attempting to redefine” his mission by taking his orders from the earlier resolution.
But a senior council diplomat said the editorial board “failed to understand that the nature of inspections is to build up layers of experience”.
The inspectors needed time to “work up to their maximum efficiency”, he said.
The diplomat said he had “no doubt that Blix and ElBaradei understand that they are being lied to” by the Iraqis.
But the inspectors’ job was to operate under rules defined by the council and “not to respond to orders from one particular source”, he said.—Reuters\AFP