Inspectors still can't say whether Iraq is rearming

UNITED NATIONS -- Iraq's arms declaration is incomplete, its scientists aren't cooperating with inspections and Baghdad is obstructing the use of a U-2 plane which could be helpful in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.

After two months on the job, the chief weapons inspectors, who will issue their current assessments to the Security Council today at 9:30 a.m., can't confirm claims by the Bush administration that Iraq is rearming. Inspectors still don't know what happened to Iraq's stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons or how much time they have left to find the answers.

Still, with all the open questions, the reports by Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei will likely be key to Washington's efforts to bolster international support for a war on Iraq, or efforts by skeptics to avert one.

According to Security Council Resolution 1441, crafted by the Bush administration and adopted in November, inspectors don't need to prove Iraq is rearming.

'Material breach'

Any false statements or omissions in Iraq's arms declaration, coupled with a failure to comply with and cooperate fully in the implementation of the resolution, would place Baghdad in "material breach" of its obligations -- a finding that could open the door for war.

For the Bush administration, that has already happened and time is now running out for Saddam to disarm through inspections. In Davos, Switzerland Sunday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he believed the inspections had run their course, though he did not explicitly call for their end. He said that as a result of Iraq's lack of cooperation, he had lost faith in the ability of inspectors to fulfill their mission.

But most of the Security Council believes that's a determination they must jointly make based on the inspectors' assessments.

While there is general agreement that Iraq hasn't been fully honest in its declaration and that it could be cooperating better with inspectors, the absence of a smoking gun or cries for help from Blix and ElBaradei have led council members such as France, Germany and Russia to argue against military intervention and in favor of more time for peaceful disarmament.

While Blix and ElBaradei have made some sharp criticisms of Iraq, they have also praised the access inspectors were given at hundreds of sites, including presidential palaces, as well as cooperation in the areas of logistics and supplies.

Blix's report will focus on what his inspectors at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission have -- and haven't -- learned about Iraq's biological, chemical and missile programs.

Thousands of documents

So far, inspectors have discovered thousands of pertinent documents hidden in the home of an Iraqi scientist, at least 16 empty and undeclared chemical warheads and have said that Iraq illegally imported parts for its missile program. Based on one of the few new documents Iraq produced last fall, inspectors are now convinced there are an additional 6,000 chemical weapons unaccounted for.

But what inspectors have learned is far less than they had hoped to know by now.

Unanswered is whether Iraq really destroyed all of its deadly chemical and biological agents, such as VX and anthrax, which it managed to weaponize more than a decade ago on the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Iraq's 12,000-page arms declaration has been of little help. Two weeks after he received the dossier in December, Blix slammed the Iraqis for submitting a report filled with inconsistencies, contradictions and old material.

During a meeting with Iraqi officials in Baghdad last week, Blix, a Swedish international law expert who has spent decades working on disarmament, pressed for fresh evidence and answers to long outstanding questions on their weapons of mass destruction.

But that information hasn't been forthcoming.

"They didn't do anything to resolve any of the outstanding issues," Blix's spokesman Ewen Buchanan said.

Neither Blix not ElBaradei's teams have been able to privately interview Iraqi scientists believed to have the best information about Iraq's weapons programs. And the Iraqis are blocking inspectors from conducting U-2 reconnaissance flights.

Still, the picture emerging on Iraq's nuclear program seems to be slightly more favorable.

ElBaradei's spokesman said Iraq would get a "satisfactory" grade for its response to questions and requests for information from the nuclear inspectors.

As he headed to New York from Vienna on Sunday, ElBaradei told reporters his speech wouldn't contain any surprises. "I hope our report will give the international community an objective assessment. How they want to use it -- that's their prerogative," he said.

His teams seem convinced that aluminum tubes the Iraqis tried to purchase were meant for artillery rockets they are allowed to have and not for enriching uranium for a nuclear program as the Bush administration claimed last fall.

And ElBaradei's oral report will include samples results revealing no indication of prohibited nuclear activities at sites inspected so far.

Still, ElBaradei, an Egyptian who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to argue for more time in order to determine whether Iraq is trying to rebuild its nuclear capabilities.

According to its weapons declaration, Iraq possessed all the necessary components for making nuclear weapons by the time the United States launched Operation Desert Storm to remove Saddam's troops from neighboring Kuwait.

Inspectors returned to Iraq in November, after a four-year absence, under the terms of Resolution 1441, which gave them broader authority but a tighter timetable for reporting to the Security Council.

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