IRAQ-UN: Security Council Puts Pressure on Weapons Inspectors

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 1998 (IPS) - Richard Butler, chairman of the U.N’s special team of weapons inspectors, returns to Baghdad this week under heavy pressure to negotiate further checks of Iraq’s arsenal of missiles.

After months of negotiations between the United Nations, the 15- nation U.N. Security Council and the Iraqi government all sides are pushing Butler’s team – the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) – to work harder to complete its verification that Iraq’s nuclear, biological, chemical and long-range missiles have been destroyed.

Butler has held firm on the UNSCOM insistence that Iraq provide all information on its weapons programmes – and their scrapping – before Baghdad’s claims that it has destroyed its arsenal can be deemed credible.

As a result of this tough stance, and Iraq’s tortuously slow process in providing necessary data, U.N. sanctions will remain in place until the disarmamant demands are verified. So far sanctions have lasted eight years and the long wait has changed the mood of many governments in Iraq’s favour.

“It’s eight years – what have we got?” argued Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf after the latest Security Council debate on Iraq last week. “Politicising this issue is distorting it.”

Iraqi officials have complained for years to little avail that UNSCOM and most Security Council nations, chiefly the United States and Britain, are biased against it. But now, as al-Sahaf acknowledged, the pressure is increasingly on UNSCOM and the Security Council – not Baghdad – to show results.

“The Security Council is now squeezing (UNSCOM), asking it real questions – they want to know the facts,” al-Sahaf said.

Last week, many Council diplomats pushed for the weapons inspectors to provide a “road map” of disarmament items Iraq needs to accomplish as it seeks the lifting of sanctions. But some ambassadors, like Celso Amorim of Brazil, wanted considerably more detail than the vague list of broad goals – to account for biological, chemical and long-range weapons programmes – that Butler provided.

Consequently, many countries on the Council – led by Iraqi allies France and Russia – are prodding Butler to outline what UNSCOM’s disarmament objectives will be, the closest effort Iraq has won yet to providing some form of timeline for the lifting of sanctions. As Butler noted, even the idea of providing a road map was “considered unacceptable for years” in the Council.

Until the next major sanctions review in October, no diplomat expects any significant change in Iraq’s fortunes, or in UNSCOM’s work. Just a few months ago, in February, Baghdad risked a U.S. attack when it blocked UNSCOM inspectors from several presidential palaces. UNSCOM meanwhile is providing greater detail of its work to the Council than before, partly to prove that it is not responsible for any delays.

The turning point clearly was U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Feb 22 negotiation with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the presidential sites, which led to an agreement the following day that allowed the UNSCOM inspectors in.

Although Annan emphasised the deal on the sites allowed inspections without preconditions, it is clear that Baghdad secured a major advantage in recent months: the growth of direct involvement by the secretary-general and the Security Council in UNSCOM’s affairs.

In February, Butler was the chief U.N. official dealing with Iraq. Now, he has been joined by special U.N. reprsentative Prakash Shah and Under-Secretary-General Jayantha Dhanapala – the head of a special team of diplomats which accompanies UNSCOM members on the presidential palace inspections.

During the winter Iraqi officials had to deal with Butler directly for any complaints they had about UNSCOM’s work. Now, officials like al-Sahaf regularly appear before the Security Council to air their views, and involve Shah – and sometimes Annan – in their disputes.

The tone of Butler’s comments on Iraq – bluntly critical when he first was appointed last year – has shifted and in recent days even appeared helpful to Iraq. Last week, as he presented his road map, he remarked that if Iraq cooperates in resolving the issues he listed, “I could foresee a report in October that was different from any previous report.”

He added wryly, “That’s a pretty big hint.”

The question remains: Has Iraq done what it takes to earn the lifting of sanctions? Certain Iraqi programmes – particularly its production of biological agents like those responsible for anthrax – remain murky; in other areas, like missile technology, Iraq only has to wrap up a few loose ends, which even Butler acknowledged “could be done in a day.”

Although Iraq’s cooperation is little changed from last year, the political situation has changed. Impatience with sanctions and frustration that the White House cannot push the Israeli government on the Middle East peace process have cut away at support for the U.S. hard line.

More importantly, the threat of U.S. air strikes last winter – and Annan’s 11th-hour deal to prevent them – has pushed some countries to decide that the time for offering carrots, not sticks, to Baghdad is at hand. Still, Washington has resisted any compromise and has dug in its heels with U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson arguing that “sanctions are not near being lifted.”