IRAQ: UN Withdraws Inspectors After Iraq Orders US Expulsions

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13 1997 (IPS) - The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) will pull out all but a small ‘skeleton crew’ of weapons monitors from Iraq on Friday in the growing crisis over the participation of U.S. inspectors.

UNSCOM chairman Richard Butler of Australia, said that 78 members of the monitoring group – including six U.S. nationals – would depart Friday. His announcement came within hours of Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz confirming that Baghdad’s expulsion order against the Americans would be carried out immediately.

Aziz informed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday that the U.S. inspectors, whom Baghdad accuses of bias, should leave by road to the Jordanian border within 24 hours.

“UNSCOM can perform its duties fully with the personnel it has…except the Americans,” Aziz said after meeting Annan. “The timing of this departure (of U.S. nationals) is today.”

Butler responded by criticising any effort to segregate the U.N. weapons team by nationality, and urged Iraq to allow all the UNSCOM agents, except for a ‘skeleton crew’ of nine people and a few transport officers, to leave together for Bahrain on Friday.

“We will not accept this illegal separation of nationalities,” the UNSCOM chief declared. Instead, the UNSCOM officers who had been based in Baghdad will be based there until the conditions for their return can be established. “Our goal is to keep open the possibility to restart our work as soon as possible,” Butler said.

That may be a long time. Iraq’s enforcement of the expulsion order, first announced Oct. 29, came quickly after the U.N. Security Council unanimously voted to ban travel by all top Iraqi officials deemed to have blocked UNSCOM’s work.

Although Aziz described the expulsion of the U.S. nationals as a “temporary measure”, he left little doubt that Baghdad intended to keep them out until the 15-nation Security Council agreed to a weapons inspection team with fewer inspectors as demanded by the United States.

“Iraq is ready to cooperate with UNSCOM,” Aziz argued. “But UNSCOM is supposed to be an international organ, and that organ could work with or without Americans…This organ should not be dominated by any one nationality, (because) the American government is hostile against Iraq.”

Aziz, who claims that some 32 percent of all UNSCOM personnel are U.S. nationals, this week argued with diplomats here that Iraq will never be free of the seven-year-old U.N. embargo as long as the United States enjoys its present degree of influence with the monitors. (UNSCOM must verify that Iraq has abandoned its biological, chemical, nuclear and long-range missile capabilities before sanctions acan be lifted by the Council.)

Butler – who has countered that the United States accounts for only 14 percent of all regular UNSCOM personnel – has defended all UNSCOM staff as fair and impartial. Calling Baghdad’s attitude on the U.S. nationals “distasteful and wrong,” Butler noted that, in one list provided by Iraq of U.S. members of the team, several British workers, as well as one Canadian and one Dane, were included.

Aziz argued that, as long as the crisis persisted, it made sense to replace the U.S. members and let the rest of UNSCOM perform its tasks. “Until (Butler) can find a solution to this problem, why doesn’t he do that?” he asked.

With the plan to remove almost all of the UNSCOM team, however, the already tense crisis has escalated to the point where the possibility of military action by the United States is looming ever larger. U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson said that President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council held a meeting on Iraq Thursday, and he warned Baghdad of “serious consequences” if it maintains its position.

“I think it’s an outrageous and irresponsible action on the part of the Iraqis,” Richardson said. “We are going to consult with our allies — that’s the first step.”

At the same time, many here still hope that a diplomatic solution can restore the previous status quo in which U.S. nationals had served on UNSCOM for six and a half years.

“It is a problem that is solvable,” Annan said after meeting Aziz. “(The Iraqi officials) had a chance to do that and they missed it, but I hope that, if they are serious about solving it through diplomatic means, they will make the right gestures.”

Many Security Council governments – including those of Russia and France, both of which have urged the easing of the Iraqi sanctions – also have prodded all sides to avoid military action. Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov, in voting for the travel ban Wednesday, emphasised that the Council “in no way” supported a military escalation.

Aziz left New York on Thursday for Paris, but downplayed the significance of his trip there, saying he would only be in transit on his way back to Baghdad.

Despite the pressure to resolve the crisis through diplomacy, the worsening of the standoff has dimmed hopes for a negotiated solution. Instead, as Butler warned, there remains the prospect that Iraq could rebuild its biological weapons within a week, by its own estimates, if there are no inspections. “Every day lost makes the circumstances worse,” he said. “I don’t know what they’re doing because we can’t see anymore.”

There also remains the possibility that the United States could strike at Iraq if Baghdad makes good on its threat to fire on U2 spy planes, which have often conducted surveillance work for UNSCOM. Butler said that he has informed Iraq of plans for the next U2 flight, and Aziz in turn has warned Annan that the flights must cease. Clinton emphasised this week that any firing on a U.S. plane would be “a big mistake” and could prompt retaliation.