IRAQ: Iraq Is No Longer a Military Threat, Says U.N. Monitor

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 20 1995 (IPS) - The United Nations has moved a step closer toward giving Iraq a clean bill of health on scrapping its weapons of mass destruction.

Its finding that Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and missile programmes no longer constitute a military threat could pave the way for the lifting of a ruinous U.N. embargo against Iraq, in effect since August 1990.

In a report released Tuesday, Rolf Ekeus, the chairman of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) which monitors Iraq’s major arms systems, said Baghdad has come clean over its missiles and chemical weapons capability.

“The Commission is … satisfied that, in the missile and chemical fields, it has achieved such a level of knowledge and understanding of Iraq’s past programmes that it can have confidence that Iraq does not have any significant proscribed capability,” the report says.

UNSCOM would be capable of detecting any Iraqi attempt to rebuild its chemical or long-range missile arsenals, the report adds.

With Iraq’s fledgling nuclear programme confirmed by the United Nations as effectively dead, Baghdad’s cooperation in chemical and missile weaponry has all but completed its compliance with U.N. demands.

“Iraq does not exert a military threat,” Ekeus said emphatically after delivering his latest report to the U.N. Security Council.

The only area in Iraq’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that remains uncertain to U.N. investigators is its alleged biological weapons programme.

The UNSCOM report discloses that Iraq still possesses an undisclosed amount of biological ‘growth media’ which can be used to produce toxic agents.

One of the agents for which Iraq possesses necessary components is a gas called VX, which Ekeus described as “ten times more deadly than sarin,” the nerve gas which killed six people in the Tokyo subway system this February.

“The evidence available to the Commission establishes that Iraq obtained or sought to obtain all the items and materials required to produce biological warfare agents in Iraq,” the UNSCOM report says.

It adds that, despite Baghdad’s insistence that all the items are used for legitimate commercial or medical purposes, outside information indicates a “high risk” that Iraq has tried to build biological warfare agents.

But Iraq has so far refused to disclose its biological capabilities to UNSCOM. It wants guarantees that once it does so, the U.N. embargo will be ended.

Ekeus said that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz promised to provide all relevant biological data, but only once it is has received UNSCOM’s certification that the chemical, missile and nuclear files are closed.

The Security Council, which has repeatedly refused even to a partial lifting of sanctions, criticised Aziz’s comments as an effort to avoid full compliance with U.N. resolutions.

But Iraq is concerned that its enemies on the Council — particularly veto-wielding United States and Britain — will never allow the embargo to end.

Security Council Resolution 687 allows for the lifting of the all-embracing U.N. embargo once UNSCOM has certified that its chemical, biological, missile and nuclear weaponry have all been dismantled.

But the last few years have seen an elaborate game of cat-and- mouse in which Iraq reveals only some of its weapons arsenal, while the Council refuses to set any clear timetable for ending the sanctions.

Iraq is getting desperate. Recent visitors have said poverty has spread throughout the country, and that the gap between rich and poor has widened.

Published reports from Iraq last week said some military units mounted an unsuccessful coup attempt against President Saddam Hussein just last week. Western intelligence sources claim at least 12 failed efforts to oust Hussein over the past five years.

But, as long as the biological programme remains murky, Iraq’s critics have all the leverage they need to keep sanctions in place.

“The Iraqis think they are in a position to bargain as if this were a bazaar,” U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said of Baghdad’s efforts to win a clean bill of health for its non- biological programmes. But Albright warned they would receive no rewards for “a la carte” compliance with the resolutions.

“They’re trying to do deals all the time,” said British Ambassador David Hannay. “And we’re not buying carpets.”

The British envoy added that the Council has not decided what it would do even if the biological issues are cleared up — leaving open the possibility sanctions may still continue.

Hannay and Albright both stated firmly that their nations remain worried about Iraq’s biological programme, and that the latest Ekeus report does little or nothing to allay those fears.

In fact, Albright argued, the report presents a worse picture of the biological programme than before. While a report in April indicated Iraq possessed some 17 million tonnes of growth media to produce toxic agents, the new report says the amount may be much higher.

Ekeus conceded that the biological programme must be disclosed. But he said it may not be that much of a threat, since Iraq likely lacks any delivery mechanism, whether missile-based or otherwise, to use those agents in a war.

“We don’t see that the loose ends and remaining items constitute a pattern consistent with efforts to conceal a weapons programme,” he said.