VIENNA, Feb 7: Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Friday that Baghdad appeared to be trying to be more cooperative on disarmament, after inspectors were allowed for the first time to question an Iraqi scientist.
“It seems they are making an effort,” Mr Blix told reporters in Vienna, shortly before leaving for Baghdad, where he is to hold talks with Iraqi officials on Saturday in a last-ditch attempt to legitimize the disarmament process and avoid a US-led attack.
US President George Bush warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Thursday: “The game is over. All the world can rise to this moment. The community of free nations can show that it is strong and confident and determined to keep the peace.”
Blix said: “We want to see disarmament of Iraq through the inspection avenue. That is the alternative to the avenue of armed action.”
Asked about the arms experts’ first private interview with an Iraqi scientist, Blix said: “I think I’d like to get down to Baghdad and hear the results.”
He said about Iraq’s effort to cooperate with international inspectors: “We want to see a lot more this weekend.”
Mr Blix said an effective inspection system “requires an active cooperation by Iraq both on process and on substance”.
“I think everybody would like to see effective inspection to be the way to disarmament. It is certainly the wish of the Arab world, of Europeans and I’m convinced also of (US) President (George) Bush and (British Prime Minister) Mr (Tony) Blair,” Blix said.
Blix and head nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei are scheduled to report back to the UN Security Council on Feb 14.
Blix was in Vienna to speak to a graduating class of UN inspectors at the headquarters of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA chief ElBaradei will be in Baghdad with Blix.
In London on Thursday, Blix and ElBaradei had warned Baghdad the situation was critical and that it needed to show a “drastic change” in cooperation.
But Blix told the graduating inspectors that the arms experts were “not in Iraq to humiliate the Iraqis. We are there to perform effective inspections, to be correct and professional”.
He said the current disarmament effort was “the most intrusive inspection system we have in the world” and that the inspectors should understand that it is “always somewhat unpleasant to be submitted to controls whether it’s the taxman or the controls when we go through airports”.
We “don’t want to make it additionally unpleasant”, the chief inspector said.
He said the goal was “to maintain inspection as a viable path to disarmament”.
The United States, however, is stepping up pressure for a new UN security council resolution to trigger military action.
Russia responded on Friday by saying there was no need yet for new action by the 15-member council.
“Today, we see no basis for adopting a UN security council resolution that would open the way for the use of force against Iraq,” Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said.—AFP