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Iraqi
Media Rubbishes U.S., U.K. Claims of Gaps in Arms Report
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Iraqi children face an uncertain future
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BAGHDAD,
December 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. and British
claims that Iraq’s weapons declaration contains omissions are
“nonsense,” Iraq’s ruling Baath party newspaper Ath-Thawra
said Thursday, December 19.
“All
this talk is nonsense,” wrote the daily in an editorial to answer
U.S. and British charges that Iraq had not disclosed all information
on banned weapons programs in a report handed over to the United
Nations on December 7.
“Washington
and London till now have not provided one single piece of evidence to
back their accusations against Iraq. That’s the only truth and
everything else is lies,” it said.
The
newspaper added that U.S. President George Bush’s administration was
“resorting to twisted methods to hide the truth in order to find
justification for a new aggression on Iraq.”
It
also said the United States and Britain “have confiscated the right
of (Hans) Blix,” the U.N. chief arms inspector, “to carry out his
duty and to issue the final judgment on the extent of Iraq’s
cooperation.”
Ath-Thawra
paid tribute to Russia and China who have said they would wait for the
assessment of Blix on the weapons declaration before making a
judgment.
Blix
and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed
El-Baradei were to brief the U.N. Security Council on Iraq’s weapons
programs declaration later Thursday in New York.
The
briefing is the first of its kind since U.N. weapons inspectors
returned to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction on November
25, after a four-year break.
Iraq
said in the 12,000-page declaration it has no such weapons.
White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Wednesday, December 18, that Bush
was “concerned about omissions in the declaration and about problems
in the declaration.”
British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also said the declaration was not the
“full and complete” version demanded by U.N. Security Council
Resolution 1441.
However,
Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said that an omission would not by itself
be a “material breach” of the resolution.
Straw
said Iraq’s claim that it had abandoned the development of nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons was an “obvious falsehood.”
However,
France, like China, Russia - which with the United States and Britain
are the only security council members with veto-power - said that any
doubts about the Iraqi document must be proven by Blix and El-Baradei.
Resolution
1441, adopted unanimously by the Security Council on November 8, gave
Iraq a “final opportunity” to disarm, and warned of “serious
consequences” of failure to do so.
Meanwhile,
a convoy of U.N. weapons inspectors headed off Thursday in the
direction of northern Iraq, where a group of nuclear experts has been
at work since Tuesday, an AFP correspondent reported.
Six
four-wheel drive vehicles and an ambulance of the U.N. Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) set off in convoy for
a long journey without revealing the exact destination.
U.N.
spokesman here Hiro Ueki said Wednesday one UNMOVIC biological team
and another from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
deployed Tuesday in the region of Mosul, 400 kilometers (240 miles)
north of Baghdad.
He
said the bio team returned Wednesday to Baghdad after inspecting the
Ninevah Pharmaceuticals Company and the Mosul Bakery Yeast Factory.
“The
IAEA continued to inspect facilities in the Mosul region,” he added,
giving no further details.
According
to an Iraqi official, the IAEA team carried out work Wednesday by the
Saddam Dam on the Tigris river, near Mosul, probably sampling water.
The
U.N. inspectors said nine teams had visited eight sites Wednesday, in
and around Baghdad and in northern Iraq, checking military, industrial
and academic facilities.
More
than 100 inspectors are on the ground in Iraq and have visited more
than 80 sites since monitoring resumed on November 27 under U.N.
Resolution 1441.
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