POLITICS-IRAQ: UN Weapons Chief Defends Work Amid New Woes

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 27 1998 (IPS) - U.N. officials, backed into a corner by a worsening standoff with Iraq over arms inspections, insisted this week that disarmament work is going on despite one key resignation and rumours of outside pressure.

“I’ve got a job to do, and I intend to continue to do it,” vowed Richard Butler, executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) which is to verify Iraq’s disarmament. Regardless of problems, he said, UNSCOM is pushing ahead to “make it possible at the earliest possible moment to make sure that Iraq is disarmed” of prohibited nuclear, biological, chemical and long-range-missile weapons.

Yet Butler’s dilemma was underscored by his acceptance Thursday of the resignation a day earlier of Scott Ritter, a former U.S. Marine who headed UNSCOM’s efforts to find concealed Iraqi weapons and facilities. Ritter, in a resignation letter issued Wednesday, argued that the U.N. Security Council’s recent actions “constitute a surrender to the Iraqi leadership”.

“The issue of immediate, unrestricted access is, in my opinion, the cornerstone of any viable inspection regime, and as such is an issue worth fighting for,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, others do not share this opinion, including the Security Council and the United States.”

“Scott Ritter’s resignation letter is a classic,” Butler said Thursday, calling it “the strongly-held views of a man of integrity”. However, neither Butler nor any other UNSCOM official commented on Ritter’s argument that, in recent months, the United Nations and the United States had not been eager to challenge Iraq by allowing intrusive UNSCOM inspections or by putting pressure for full access to suspected weapons sites.

Since Iraq suspended cooperation with UNSCOM on Aug. 5, the weapons inspectors’ frustration has grown, with some members privately complaining of an unwillingness by key Security Council members – including the United States and Britain, the two strongest Iraqi opponents in the 15-nation body – to back up their work. Since the latest standoff began, the Council has released a few mild statements condemning Iraq’s actions but has made no move to compel its cooperation with UNSCOM.

In that climate, rumours of worsening ties between UNSCOM, Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Council have spread. A recent ‘Washington Post’ story alleged that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pushed Butler not to conduct surprise inspections of Iraqi sites last month; other reports accuse U.S. diplomats of urging Ritter’s dropping.

This week, as Ritter’s departure became known, some diplomats also dropped hints that they would not mind if Butler, an Australian diplomat whose blunt style has been sharply criticised by Baghdad, left as well.

The bleak mood has prompted U.N. officials to defend UNSCOM’s work anew and to assert that the inspectors are continuing their mission – even though Iraq currently bars surprise inspections, allowing UNSCOM teams to visit only declared weapons sites.

“The secretary-general recommended the appointment of Ambassador Butler and he stands by that recommendation, as he has throughout,’ U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Thursday.

Other charges were more firmly denied. Butler blasted allegations of U.S. pressure on his work as “utterly false”, and said that, while governments often present their views to him, “I have never felt that the representation of those views could be described as undue persuasion or pressure”.

Albright and other U.S. officials have also denied in recent days that they ever attempted to call off any UNSCOM inspections. But they have conceded that international support for the inspections – and for U.N. sanctions in place since 1990 against Iraq – has dropped dramatically in recent months.

Even over the past year, U.S. resolve to back up UNSCOM’s work has shifted. In February, when Ritter’s team was blocked from several Iraqi presidential palaces and Iraq temporarily expelled all U.S. inspectors, Washington responded by threatening military strikes on Iraq – requiring Annan’s last-minute intervention and a deal with Baghdad for improved cooperation.

This month, a more far-reaching blocking of inspections, effectively freezing all Iraqi cooperation, met with muted U.S. response. For now, Washington and London are only threatening to suspend a review of Iraqi sanctions scheduled for October.

Baghdad had hoped the review could pave the way for the U.N. to roll back the sanctions, but few diplomats think it will herald any change in the current climate.

Ritter placed at least some of the blame for the shift on Annan’s involvement, calling the secretary-general a “sounding board” for Iraqi complaints. U.N. officials, however, deny that Annan has done anything to undercut UNSCOM. “(Annan) doesn’t act at the behest of anybody,” Eckhard said. As for being a sounding board for member states, the U.N. spokesman added, “that’s part of his job description”.

Ritter, meanwhile, has his own problems. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating charges that the former Marine could have passed information that he gathered on to the Israeli government. Butler, who said he had not been approached by the FBI on the matter, declined to comment on it, calling it “an American matter”.

Ritter has denied the allegations, but FBI officials say their inquiry is continuing.