UN further boosts inspections, Iraqi opponents paper over unity cracks

15/12/2002| IslamWeb

The United Nations was further strengthening weapons teams after a record number of site inspections, as Iraqi dissidents plotting in London were accused of fudging the real issues to ensure a show of unityAnother 20 inspectors were due to arrive in Baghdad during the day on Sunday bringing their total number on the ground to 113.The UN experts visited a record 11 sites Saturday, officially "the busiest day so far", testing the veracity of Baghdad's arms declaration delivered to the United Nations last weekend.

Almost half of the sites were connected to Baghdad's short-range missile programme allowed under UN resolutions, an Iraqi official said. Long-range missiles are banned.

A team of UN nuclear experts on Sunday swooped on a military industrial firm previously linked with missile warhead production that they visited after giving prior notice in an earlier inspection.

Three four-wheel drive cars of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) pulled up in front of a facility of the Um al-Maarik (Mother of All Battles) General Company, just west of Baghdad, in the morning.

IAEA experts visited another facility of the same company south of Baghdad on November 30, after warning the company director knew they were coming, denying the element of surprise deemed crucial to the inspections.

At least four groups of experts from the IAEA and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) left their headquarters in Baghdad during the morning.

After fresh US and British air raids Saturday which Iraq said targeted civilian installations, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri wrote again to the United Nations to demand action against the "undeclared war" being waged by London and Washington.

"These daily violations committed by US and British planes with the backing of Kuwait's government and the barbaric bombings of Iraq's towns and villages can be compared to an undeclared war," he said.

US Central Command said US and British warplanes struck three military defense sites after coming under threat.

Meanwhile in London, Iraqi opposition groups holding a second day of meetings of some 350 participants were likely to fudge or put off contentious issues, delegates and conference-watchers said.

Former general Fawzi al-Shamari said that the organizers were engaging in "political niceties" rather than coming to grips with substantive issues.

"Their policy is to postpone everything until 'after Saddam'," he complained.

But the US-based Shamari, once portrayed as one of Washington's favoured "alternatives" to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, reserved his most bitter criticism for what he called "Saddamist manifestations".

He accused the organisers of "marginalizing" ex-army officers.

Other delegates made similar charges, saying a number of leftist and pan-Arabist opposition groups stayed away because they were not offered a fair share in the conference.

Some, such as the Shiite Muslim Al-Daawa Party, boycotted the conference because they could not condone a potential US attack on Iraq.

Organizers include the INC, the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Constitutional Monarchy Movement and the National Accord Movement.

Organizers have publicly ruled out forming a transitional government, which Washington opposes at this stage, saying they were only planning to name a coordination and follow-up committee that would articulate the opposition's views and liaise between its various factions.

London's Sunday Telegraph reported that Britain will dispatch a task force including an aircraft carrier and 600 special forces to the Gulf early next month as it begins the build-up to war with Iraq.

An announcement on the deployment of a ground force of about 20,000 British troops, led by a "light" armoured division, is expected within two weeks, the right-wing weekly said, quoting senior military figures.

The number of US servicemen stationed in Kuwait has ballooned in recent days to around 15,000, officials said, as the United States has beefed up its own military presence in the region to 65,000 troops.

Before they are called into action however, the weapons inspection process must runs its course under Security Council Resolution 1441.

The disarmament experts are to submit a formal report on Iraq to the Security Council on January 27.

Iraq has denied possessing any banned weapons in a 12,000-page inventory delivered to the United Nations last weekend and challenged the United States to prove otherwise.

The United Nations has given Iraq until the end of the month to provide a complete list of scientists involved in its banned arms programmes, although UN officials made clear they remained reluctant to use powers to whisk them or their families abroad.

Washington has been pressing the UN inspectors to use such powers to spirit Iraqi scientists and their families out of Iraq to allow them to speak out without fear of intimidation.

PHOTO CAPTION

Demonstrators protest against possible attack on Iraq