UN's blix asks Iraq for list of weapons scientists
( 2002-12-14 12:04 ) (7 )

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix has written to Iraqi officials asking for a list of scientists and others associated with Baghdad's chemical, biological and ballistic missile program, U.N. officials said on Friday.

The U.N. Security Council in its Nov. 8 resolution 1441 gave U.N. inspectors the right to interview in private any official they believed would have intimate knowledge of Iraq's arms program and also to take them out of the country.

Blix wrote a letter to presidential adviser Amir al-Saadi on Thursday giving Iraq until the end of the month "to provide us with the names of personnel" associated with weapons of mass destruction programs, said his spokesman, Ewen Buchanan.

The United States has been especially eager for Blix to conduct the interviews and take scientists, along with their families, out of the country.

Blix faxed his letter to Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri for transmission to Baghdad. Iraq, diplomats said, had been aware the request was coming since the resolution was adopted, and had probably compiled the list already.

Blix is executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, which is in charge of accounting for Iraq's chemical, biological and ballistic missile programs. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency is responsible for nuclear inspections.

Blix has welcomed the right to interview Iraqi personnel without a government minder but has frequently questioned the feasibility of unarmed inspectors organizing a defection program without Iraq's cooperation.

NOT A 'DEFECTION AGENCY'

"We are not going to abduct anybody, and we're not serving as a defection agency," Blix said last week. Except for the United States, key Security Council members agree with him.

The Bush administration wants the interviews to begin soon to fill in gaps of information and clarifying any data missing in the Iraqi governments 12,000-page declaration of its arms programs required under the Nov. 8 resolution.

Many diplomats believe the push by the administration is another attempt to spark a clash between Iraq and the U.N. arms experts without going through the long process of inspections.

On Thursday, the United States sent George Wolfe, its liaison with UNMOVIC, to press the interview question again. Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, had pressured Blix on the same subject during a private meeting in New York on Dec. 2.

The Nov. 8 resolution says that false statements or omissions in the declaration coupled with a failure to comply with inspections would be a "further material breach" of Iraq's obligations.

Washington is expected to argue that military action is the only way to force Iraqi compliance but will look for other violations and not just omissions in the document in order to get international support for any future action.

While Bush has said that he would lead a coalition of the willing to force Iraq to disarm, countries such as Britain or Turkey could have trouble joining him if the U.N. process were short-circuited.