[Peace-discuss] NATO Chief on War with Iraq

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Thursday, 26 December, 2002, 12:35 GMT 
Nato chief defends Bush on Iraq

 
Inspectors say Iraq's arms declaration is incomplete 

Nato's secretary general has defended the Bush administration's policy on 
Iraq saying there is no question of the Americans taking unilateral military 
action. 
Lord Robertson told the BBC's Today programme that President George W Bush 
had so far kept rigidly to the United Nations route to disarming Iraq. 

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He also warned that Nato members are morally obliged to give the US whatever 
help it requires if the process of weapons inspections breaks down and the UN 
decides to launch military action against Iraq. 

The UN hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is continuing without a 
break over the Christmas period. 

Weapons inspectors interviewed an Iraqi scientist at Baghdad's Technology 
University on Thursday. 

The 100-minute meeting with the dean of the university marked the second time 
UN officials have spoken to an Iraqi scientist in their five weeks of 
inspections. 

No bypassing allies

Responding to charges that President Bush is preparing to by-pass the UN on 
Iraq, Lord Robertson said America could not act alone in the event of war, if 
only because it needed other states for airspace and bases. 

The American leader, he said, had been quietly building an international 
coalition which might be required if Saddam Hussein failed to comply with UN 
demands. 

He added that Nato members' obligation to help Washington followed an 
agreement reached at the Prague summit this autumn. 

Search goes on 

UN weapons inspectors visited seven sites in Iraq on Christmas Day, saying 
they would not stop for the holiday. 

"They are in Baghdad to work and they will work their butts off as long as 
they are there," Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the International Atomic 
Energy Agency, said. 

Biological weapons experts inspected a liquid gas company and chemical 
experts went to a paper factory. 

Also inspected were two explosives factories and a factory for making weapons 
parts, and two military storage facilities. 

Aid concern 

Relief agencies have begun preparations for war in Iraq, fearing that 
military action will only aggravate the suffering of ordinary Iraqis. 

One, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod), estimates that a 
US-led attack could result in between 10,000 and 100,000 civilian deaths, 
including deaths from disease and population displacement. 

 
Children already fall sick due to inadequate water and sanitation systems 
A spokesman for Save the Children UK said one major concern was the effect of 
war on infrastructure such as electricity, water, sewerage and hospitals - 
facilities already exhausted by a decade of tough UN trade sanctions. 

Speaking by satellite phone from northern Iraq, Brendan Paddy told Reuters 
that it was all too easy to overlook the humanitarian fallout of any war. 

"The important thing is that people do not lightly dismiss the likely 
humanitarian consequences of any military action on a society where people 
are so vulnerable. 

"For the people I've been speaking to, there's a slightly different concern 
and that's that people not forget that they are more than just pawns in some 
larger game."