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CIA Reports May Be Used in U.N. Inspections: Blix
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| Inspection teams will not allow their missions to be dictated by foreign governments: Blix |
WASHINGTON,
November 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Chief U.N. arms
inspector Hans Blix said his teams could use U.S. intelligence reports
to verify a full accounting of nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons programs that Iraq is bound to complete by December 8.
Meanwhile,
U.N. arms experts visited a factory and a laboratory close to Baghdad
Thursday, November 28, on the second day of inspections in Iraq in
nearly four years, after describing cooperation on the first day of
checks as good, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Although
admitting using CIA reports, Blix said in an interview Wednesday,
November 27, with CNN that inspection teams, which earlier launched
the first weapons inspections in Iraq in four years, would not allow
their missions to be dictated by foreign governments.
A
previous U.N. team in Iraq was accused of spying for the United
States, hampering its inspection regime.
Blix
said he would use information by U.S. officials contradicting Iraqi
claims in the December declaration, “if it is plausible.”
“They
have to give us some suggestion that is based upon something - that
they are not just pulling us by our noses,” he warned.
“We
are not supposed to trust anybody ... government’s cannot just tell
us go there and we go there - no, we decide ourselves where we go, and
therefore we have to have some reason to go to a site.
“Simply
stating that intelligence said this, is not evidence, I think we have
to be factual and see what is evidence.”
Under
the U.N. resolution authorizing inspections, Blix is the only official
permitted to receive intelligence estimates of Iraq’s weapons
capability.
U.N.
inspectors on Wednesday combed a factory complex in northeastern
Baghdad in their first inspection in Iraq in four years.
Blix
said their mission “went as well as we expected it.”
“We
have had long discussions with Iraq about the practical arrangements
precisely because we want to avoid any clashes ... and it worked out
as it should.”
He
urged Iraq to make the full accounting that is required of it, saying
it had a last chance to come clean on any programs not declared to
previous inspection teams.
“We
maintain the burden of proof is on Iraq ... we are not in a criminal
tribunal,” he said.
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| U.N. inspectors prepare their cars at the mission inside the U.N. headquarter in Baghdad |
“We
are in a situation where you want to create confidence (that) Iraq
does not have any anthrax or anything else.”
Under
Security Council Resolution 1441 adopted November 8, the inspection
teams have unprecedented powers to conduct no-notice searches of
suspect sites and question Iraqi scientists about President Saddam
Hussein’s arms programs.
If
Baghdad does not cooperate, it could face “severe consequences,”
including possible military strikes led by the United States, which
has pushed the U.N. Security Council to act against Saddam's regime.
Meanwhile,
a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) entered
without incident the Al-Nasser factory, 25 kilometers (15 miles) north
of the Iraqi capital, belonging to the industry ministry, AFP said.
The
factory, which produces mechanical equipment, is located within the
huge Al-Taji compound, suspected by Washington of being used to
produce weapons of mass destruction.
At
the same time, a U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission (UNMOVIC) team visited a former vaccines laboratory in
Al-Dura, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad.
Both
teams and the Iraqis accompanying them entered the suspect sites
immediately, while journalists were kept outside.
The
IAEA and UNMOVIC teams left the Canal Hotel, a former hotel turned
into the UN base in the Baghdad suburbs, at 8:30 am (0530 GMT).
The
six IAEA experts and 11 UNMOVIC inspectors split into two groups, with
each team to visit different facilities taken from a list of more than
700 suspect sites.
The
two teams were accompanied by counterparts from Iraq’s National
Monitoring Directorate.
The
number of inspectors will begin to increase rapidly in the coming days
to reach about 100 by the end of the year to accelerate the
disarmament process, according to the United Nations.
Under
U.N. Security Council resolution 1441 adopted November 8, the teams
have unprecedented powers to search Iraqi sites and question local
scientists about President Saddam Hussein’s alleged arms programs.
Iraq
has strongly denied having any weapons of mass destruction and says
the inspectors will find nothing incriminating.
“The
team was able to complete the inspection work as it planned with the
cooperation of the Iraqi side, and we had access to what we wanted to
see,” IAEA mission head Jacques Baute said Wednesday after leading
an IAEA team to a northeastern suburb of Baghdad.
“It’s
a good start,” said Baute, while adding that the “degree of
cooperation needs to be judged over the long term.”
U.N.
inspectors started their operation by visiting two localities in the
Baghdad region where they inspected three suspect sites.
An
UNMOVIC team went unannounced to a missile factory and a graphite
factory contained in the Al-Amiriya compound, 70 kilometers (45 miles)
west of the capital. The site was inspected by U.N. experts between
1991 and 1998.
A
former women’s prison, now a complex called “Defiance”, was also
singled out by the IAEA for a three-hour visit because it houses
facilities of Iraq’s state body for military industrialization.
“We
managed to do all the things that we planned to do,” said Dimitri
Perricos, who led the UNMOVIC team.
“We
got the activities and the data we wanted to get in order to be able
to assess further the capabilities of the sites.”
An
Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman said the three sites visited by U.N.
experts were among those “suspected by the foreign ministries of
Britain and the United States of having banned activities.”
At
the third site, the inspectors examined “fuel-propelled missile
systems,” the spokesman said in a statement, showing particular
interest in a “warehouse that checks propulsion systems under
construction.”
U.N.
resolutions forbid Iraq from having missiles with a range above 150
kilometers (95 miles).
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