[Peace-discuss] No justification for war verified

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Blix Says No Smoking Guns Found in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 
Filed at 10:29 a.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.N. weapons inspectors have not found any smoking 
guns in Iraq during their search for weapons of mass destruction, the chief 
U.N. weapons inspector said Thursday.

``We have now been there for some two months and been covering the country in 
ever wider sweeps and we haven't found any smoking guns,'' Hans Blix told 
reporters at the United Nations.

Blix and his counterpart Mohamed ElBaradei, who heads the International 
Atomic Energy Agency, were to brief the Security Council Thursday on their 
assessments of Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration. They will also likely 
provide an update on the inspections process.

Asked whether inspectors were getting significant intelligence from the 
United States, Blix said: ``Well, we are getting intelligence from several 
sources and I will not go into the operative part of that, but it's clear 
that this will be helpful in the future to us.''

``We have gone to, I think, about 125 sites already, and some of them were 
not visited before, and there will be more. And as more intelligence comes 
in, there will be more sites visited. I'm confident that we will get more 
intelligence.''

Secretary of State Colin Powell told The Washington Post for Thursday's 
editions that in the past few days, the United States has begun giving 
inspectors ``significant intelligence'' that has enabled them to become 
``more aggressive and to be more comprehensive in the work they're doing.''

But Washington is holding back some information to see if inspectors ``are 
able to handle it and exploit it. ... It is not a matter of opening up every 
door we have,'' Powell said.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said his government wants the 
council to adopt a resolution that requests all countries to provide 
information on Iraq's ``prohibited programs'' and recommend sites to be 
visited and Iraqis to be interviewed.

The United States has promised to share information with inspectors, as long 
as U.S. intelligence sources aren't compromised. ``We have and will continue 
to provide information to the inspectors,'' a U.S. official said Wednesday, 
speaking on condition of anonymity.

Blix has said his inspectors need intelligence from other nations because 
Iraq's weapons declaration leaves so many unanswered questions that it's 
impossible to verify its claim of having no weapons of mass destruction.

On Thursday, Blix reiterated that Iraq's weapons declaration was incomplete.

``We think that the declaration failed to answer a great many questions.''

ElBaradei said Monday that after two months of inspections it was still too 
early to determine whether Saddam Hussein's regime was trying to develop 
nuclear weapons.

``We are not certain of Iraq's (nuclear) capability,'' he said.

Blix has called on Iraq to answer outstanding questions in the declaration on 
Iraq's chemical, biological and missile programs, which is required under 
Resolution 1441, adopted Nov. 8.

``Iraq may have more to say. I hope so,'' Blix said.

A senior Iraqi official denied on Thursday that the arms declaration was 
incomplete, as inspectors have repeatedly said.

``People who claim there were gaps, I could tell you right away they have not 
read it,'' Amir al-Saadi, Saddam's science adviser, said.

The purpose of Thursday's Security Council meeting was to give council 
members an assessment of Iraq's arms declaration and update them about ``our 
increasing capability in country, including the use of helicopters, the 
opening of a temporary regional monitoring center in Mosul and other steps to 
make us more effective,'' Blix's spokesman, Ewen Buchanan, said.

Blix is to give the council a formal report on the inspections on Jan. 27.

After his last briefing to the council on Dec. 19, Blix urged the United 
States and Britain to hand over any evidence they have about Iraq's secret 
weapons programs so U.N. inspectors can check it.

Britain opened a channel weeks ago to provide the inspectors with information 
and ``they are getting all that we can usefully give,'' a British official 
said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Blix said the United States and Britain have given briefings to inspectors on 
what they think the Iraqis have, but what inspectors really want to know is 
where weapons-related material is stored.