(as delivered)
THE SECURITY COUNCIL, 27
JANUARY 2003:
Executive Chairman of
UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix
The
governing Security Council resolutions
The resolution adopted by the Security Council on Iraq in
November last year asks UNMOVIC and the IAEA to “update” the Council 60 days
after the resumption of inspections.
This is today. The updating, it
seems, forms part of an assessment by the Council and its Members of the
results, so far, of the inspections and of their role as a means to achieve
verifiable disarmament in Iraq.
As
this is an open meeting of the Council, it may be appropriate briefly to
provide some background for a better understanding of where we stand today.
With
your permission, I shall do so.
I
begin by recalling that inspections as a part of a disarmament process in Iraq
started in 1991, immediately after the Gulf War. They went on for eight years until December 1998, when inspectors
were withdrawn. Thereafter, for nearly
four years there were no inspections. They were resumed only at the end of
November last year.
While
the fundamental aim of inspections in Iraq has always been to verify
disarmament, the successive resolutions adopted by the Council over the years
have varied somewhat in emphasis and approach.
In
1991, resolution 687 (1991), adopted unanimously as a part of the cease-fire
after the Gulf War, had five major elements.
The three first related to disarmament.
They called for :
After
the completion of the disarmament :
·
the Council would have authority to proceed to a lifting of the
sanctions (economic restrictions); and
Resolution
687 (1991), like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required
cooperation by Iraq but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. Unlike South Africa, which decided on its
own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of
creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a
genuine acceptance – not even today – of the disarmament, which was demanded of
it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to
live in peace.
As
we know, the twin operation ‘declare and verify’, which was prescribed in
resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of ‘hide and seek’. Rather than just verifying declarations and
supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in
efforts to map the weapons programmes and to search for evidence through
inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence
organizations. As a result, the
disarmament phase was not completed in the short time expected. Sanctions remained and took a severe toll
until Iraq accepted the Oil for Food Programme and the gradual development of
that programme mitigated the effects of the sanctions.
The
implementation of resolution 687 (1991) nevertheless brought about considerable
disarmament results. It has been recognized
that more weapons of mass destruction were destroyed under this resolution than
were destroyed during the Gulf War:
large quantities of chemical weapons were destroyed under UNSCOM
supervision before 1994. While Iraq
claims – with little evidence – that it destroyed all biological weapons
unilaterally in 1991, it is certain that UNSCOM destroyed large biological
weapons production facilities in 1996.
The large nuclear infrastructure was destroyed and the fissionable
material was removed from Iraq by the IAEA.
One
of three important questions before us today is how much might remain
undeclared and intact from before 1991; and, possibly, thereafter; the second
question is what, if anything, was illegally produced or procured after 1998,
when the inspectors left; and the third question is how it can be prevented
that any weapons of mass destruction be produced or procured in the future.
In
December 1999 – after one year without inspections in Iraq – resolution 1284
(1999) was adopted by the Council with 4 abstentions. Supplementing the basic resolutions of 1991 and following years,
it provided Iraq with a somewhat less ambitious approach: in return for “cooperation in all respects”
for a specified period of time, including progress in the resolution of
“key remaining disarmament tasks”, it opened the possibility, not for the
lifting, but the suspension of sanctions.
For
nearly three years, Iraq refused to accept any inspections by UNMOVIC. It was only after appeals by the
Secretary-General and Arab States and pressure by the United States and other
Member States, that Iraq declared on 16 September last year that it would again
accept inspections without conditions.
Resolution
1441 (2002) was adopted on 8 November last year and emphatically reaffirmed the
demand on Iraq to cooperate. It
required this cooperation to be immediate, unconditional and active. The resolution contained many provisions,
which we welcome as enhancing and strengthening the inspection regime. The unanimity by which it was adopted sent a
powerful signal that the Council was of one mind in creating a last opportunity
for peaceful disarmament in Iraq through inspection.
UNMOVIC
shares the sense of urgency felt by the Council to use inspection as a path to
attain, within a reasonable time, verifiable disarmament of Iraq. Under the resolutions I have cited, it would
be followed by monitoring for such time as the Council feels would be
required. The resolutions also point to
a zone free of weapons of mass destruction as the ultimate goal.
As
a subsidiary body of the Council, UNMOVIC is fully aware of and appreciates the
close attention, which the Council devotes to the inspections in Iraq. While
today’s “updating” is foreseen in resolution 1441 (2002), the Council can and
does call for additional briefings whenever it wishes. One was held on 19 January and a further
such briefing is tentatively set for 14 February.
I
turn now to the key requirement of cooperation and Iraq’s response to it.
Cooperation might be said to relate to both substance and process. It would appear from our experience so far
that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably
access. A similar decision is
indispensable to provide cooperation on substance in order to bring the
disarmament task to completion through the peaceful process of inspection and
to bring the monitoring task on a firm course.
An initial minor step would be to adopt the long-overdue legislation
required by the resolutions.
I
shall deal first with cooperation on process.
It
has regard to the procedures, mechanisms, infrastructure and practical
arrangements to pursue inspections and seek verifiable disarmament. While
inspection is not built on the premise of confidence but may lead to confidence
if it is successful, there must nevertheless be a measure of mutual confidence
from the very beginning in running the operation of inspection.
Iraq
has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field. The most important point to make is that
access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one
exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the
infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and
our helicopters have been good. The
environment has been workable.
Our
inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and
private residences. Inspections have
also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas day and New
Years day. These inspections have been
conducted in the same manner as all other inspections. We seek to be both effective and correct.
In
this updating I am bound, however, to register some problems. Firstly, relating
to two kinds of air operations.
While
we now have the technical capability to send a U-2 plane placed at our disposal
for aerial imagery and for surveillance during inspections and have informed
Iraq that we planned to do so, Iraq has refused to guarantee its safety, unless
a number of conditions are fulfilled.
As these conditions went beyond what is stipulated in resolution 1441
(2002) and what was practiced by UNSCOM and Iraq in the past, we note that Iraq
is not so far complying with our request.
I hope this attitude will change.
Another
air operation problem – which was solved during our recent talks in Baghdad –
concerned the use of helicopters flying into the no-fly zones. Iraq had insisted on sending helicopters of
their own to accompany ours. This would have raised a safety problem. The
matter was solved by an offer on our part to take the accompanying Iraq minders
in our helicopters to the sites, an arrangement that had been practiced by
UNSCOM in the past.
I
am obliged to note some recent disturbing incidents and harassment. For instance, for some time farfetched
allegations have been made publicly that questions posed by inspectors were of
intelligence character. While I might not defend every question that inspectors
might have asked, Iraq knows that they do not serve intelligence purposes and
Iraq should not say so.
On
a number of occasions, demonstrations have taken place in front of our offices
and at inspection sites.
The
other day, a sightseeing excursion by five inspectors to a mosque was followed
by an unwarranted public outburst. The
inspectors went without any UN insignia and were welcomed in the kind manner
that is characteristic of the normal Iraqi attitude to foreigners. They took off their shoes and were taken
around. They asked perfectly innocent
questions and parted with the invitation to come again.
Shortly
thereafter, we receive protests from the Iraqi authorities about an unannounced
inspection and about questions not relevant to weapons of mass
destruction. Indeed, they were
not. Demonstrations and outbursts of
this kind are unlikely to occur in Iraq without initiative or encouragement
from the authorities. We must ask
ourselves what the motives may be for these events. They do not facilitate an already difficult job, in which we try
to be effective, professional and, at the same time, correct. Where our Iraqi
counterparts have some complaint they can take it up in a calmer and less
unpleasant manner.
The
substantive cooperation required relates above all to the obligation of Iraq to
declare all programmes of weapons of mass destruction and either to present
items and activities for elimination or else to provide evidence supporting the
conclusion that nothing proscribed remains.
Paragraph
9 of resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be
“active”. It is not enough to open
doors. Inspection is not a game of
“catch as catch can”. Rather, as I
noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating
confidence. It is not built upon the
premise of trust. Rather, it is
designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and
action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the
absence of any such items.
The
declaration of 7 December
On
7 December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response
to paragraph 3 of resolution 1441 (2002) and within the time stipulated by the
Security Council. In the fields of
missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new
material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward. This is welcome.
One
might have expected that in preparing the Declaration, Iraq would have tried to
respond to, clarify and submit supporting evidence regarding the many open
disarmament issues, which the Iraqi side should be familiar with from the
UNSCOM document S/1999/94 of January1999 and the so-called Amorim Report of
March 1999 (S/1999/356). These are
questions which UNMOVIC, governments and independent commentators have often
cited.
While
UNMOVIC has been preparing its own list of current “unresolved disarmament
issues” and “key remaining disarmament tasks” in response to requirements in
resolution 1284 (1999), we find the issues listed in the two reports as
unresolved, professionally justified.
These reports do not contend that weapons of mass destruction remain in
Iraq, but nor do they exclude that possibility. They point to lack of evidence and inconsistencies, which raise
question marks, which must be straightened out, if weapons dossiers are to be
closed and confidence is to arise.
They
deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than being brushed aside as evil
machinations of UNSCOM. Regrettably,
the 12,000 page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents,
does not seem to contain any new evidence that would eliminate the questions or
reduce their number. Even Iraq’s letter
sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the President of the
Security Council on 24 January does not lead us to the resolution of these
issues.
I
shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered
and I turn first to the sector of chemical weapons.
The
nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed.
Iraq
has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and
that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said, that the agent was never weaponised. Iraq said that the small quantity of agent
remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.
UNMOVIC,
however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are
indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and
that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that
the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than
declared.
There
are also indications that the agent was weaponised. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the
fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing
in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.
I
would now like to turn to the so-called “Air Force document” that I have
discussed with the Council before. This
document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air
Force Headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of
bombs, including chemical bombs, by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I am encouraged by the fact that Iraq has
now provided this document to UNMOVIC.
The
document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air
Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were
consumed during this period. Thus,
there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs.
The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of
about 1,000 tonnes. In the absence of
evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now
unaccounted for.
The
discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a
storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and
therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a
time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.
The
investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of
some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged
iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets
does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of
chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.
The
finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that
its declaration is currently accurate.
During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would
make new efforts in this regard and had set up a committee of
investigation. Since then it has
reported that it has found a further 4 chemical rockets at a storage depot in
Al Taji.
I
might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory
quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor.
Whilst
I am addressing chemical issues, I should mention a matter, which I reported on
19 December 2002, concerning equipment at a civilian chemical plant at Al
Fallujah. Iraq has declared that it had
repaired chemical processing equipment previously destroyed under UNSCOM
supervision, and had installed it at Fallujah for the production of chlorine
and phenols. We have inspected this equipment and are conducting a detailed
technical evaluation of it. On
completion, we will decide whether this and other equipment that has been
recovered by Iraq should be destroyed.
I
have mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions and I
come back to it as it is an important one.
Iraq
has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this biological warfare
agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this
production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.
There
are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and
that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction
date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed
under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to
show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.
As
I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare a
significant quantity, some 650 kg, of bacterial growth media, which was
acknowledged as imported in Iraq’s submission to the Amorim panel in February
1999. As part of its 7 December 2002
declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing
this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the
pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.
In
the letter of 24 January to the President of the Council, Iraq’s Foreign
Minister stated that “all imported quantities of growth media were
declared”. This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved
would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 litres of concentrated
anthrax.
I turn now to
the missile sector. There remain
significant questions as to whether Iraq retained SCUD-type missiles after the
Gulf War. Iraq declared the consumption
of a number of SCUD missiles as targets in the development of an anti-ballistic
missile defence system during the 1980s.
Yet no technical information has been produced about that programme or
data on the consumption of the missiles.
There
has been a range of developments in the missile field during the past four
years presented by Iraq as non-proscribed activities. We are trying to gather a clear understanding of them through
inspections and on-site discussions.
Two
projects in particular stand out. They
are the development of a liquid-fuelled missile named the Al Samoud 2, and a
solid propellant missile, called the Al Fatah.
Both missiles have been tested to a range in excess of the permitted
range of 150 km, with the Al Samoud 2 being tested to a maximum of 183 km and
the Al Fatah to 161 km. Some of both
types of missiles have already been provided to the Iraqi Armed Forces even
though it is stated that they are still undergoing development.
The
Al Samoud’s diameter was increased from an earlier version to the present 760
mm. This modification was made despite
a 1994 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its
missile diameters to less than 600 mm.
Furthermore, a November 1997 letter from the Executive Chairman of
UNSCOM to Iraq prohibited the use of engines from certain surface-to-air
missiles for the use in ballistic missiles.
During
my recent meeting in Baghdad, we were briefed on these two programmes. We were told that the final range for both
systems would be less than the permitted maximum range of 150 km.
These
missiles might well represent prima facie cases of proscribed
systems. The test ranges in excess of
150 km are significant, but some further technical considerations need to be
made, before we reach a conclusion on this issue. In the mean time, we have asked Iraq to cease flight tests of
both missiles.
In
addition, Iraq has refurbished its missile production infrastructure. In particular, Iraq reconstituted a number
of casting chambers, which had previously been destroyed under UNSCOM
supervision. They had been used in the
production of solid-fuel missiles.
Whatever missile system these chambers are intended for, they could
produce motors for missiles capable of ranges significantly greater than 150
km.
Also
associated with these missiles and related developments is the import, which
has been taking place during the last few years, of a number of items despite
the sanctions, including as late as December 2002. Foremost amongst these is the import of 380 rocket engines which
may be used for the Al Samoud 2.
Iraq
also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test
instrumentation and, guidance and control systems. These items may well be for proscribed purposes. That is yet to be determined. What is clear is that they were illegally
brought into Iraq, that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq, circumvented the
restrictions imposed by various resolutions.
Mr.
President,
I
have touched upon some of the disarmament issues that remain open and that need
to be answered if dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise. Which are the means at the disposal of Iraq
to answer these questions? I have
pointed to some during my presentation of the issues. Let me be a little more systematic. Our Iraqi counterparts are fond of saying that there are no
proscribed items and if no evidence is presented to the contrary they should
have the benefit of the doubt, be presumed innocent. UNMOVIC, for its part, is not presuming that there are
proscribed items and activities in Iraq, but nor is it – or I think anyone else
after the inspections between 1991 and 1998 – presuming the opposite, that no
such items and activities exist in Iraq.
Presumptions do not solve the problem.
Evidence and full transparency may help. Let me be specific.
Information
provided by Member States tells us about the movement and concealment of
missiles and chemical weapons and mobile units for biological weapons
production. We shall certainly follow
up any credible leads given to us and report what we might find as well as any
denial of access.
So
far we have reported on the recent find of a small number of empty 122 mm
warheads for chemical weapons. Iraq
declared that it appointed a commission of inquiry to look for more. Fine.
Why not extend the search to other items? Declare what may be found and
destroy it under our supervision?
When we have urged our Iraqi counterparts to present more
evidence, we have all too often met the response that there are no more
documents. All existing relevant
documents have been presented, we are told.
All documents relating to the biological weapons programme were
destroyed together with the weapons.
However, Iraq has all the archives of the Government and
its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and
reports on how they have been used. It
should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports on production
and losses of material.
In response to a recent UNMOVIC request for a number of
specific documents, the only new documents Iraq provided was a ledger of 193
pages which Iraq stated included all imports from 1983 to 1990 by the Technical
and Scientific Importation Division, the importing authority for the biological
weapons programme. Potentially, it
might help to clear some open issues.
The recent inspection find in the private home of a
scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the
laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that
documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi
side, which claims that research staff sometimes may bring home papers from
their work places. On our side, we
cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such
placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek
to shield documents by placing them in private homes.
Any
further sign of the concealment of documents would be serious. The Iraqi side committed itself at our
recent talks to encourage persons to accept access also to private sites. There can be no sanctuaries for proscribed
items, activities or documents. A
denial of prompt access to any site would be a very serious matter.
When
Iraq claims that tangible evidence in the form of documents is not available,
it ought at least to find individuals, engineers, scientists and managers to
testify about their experience. Large
weapons programmes are moved and managed by people. Interviews with individuals who may have worked in
programmes
in the past may fill blank spots in our knowledge and understanding. It could also be useful to learn that they
are now employed in peaceful sectors.
These were the reasons why UNMOVIC asked for a list of such persons, in
accordance with resolution 1441.
Some 400 names for all biological and chemical weapons
programmes as well as their missile programmes were provided by the Iraqi
side. This can be compared to over
3,500 names of people associated with those past weapons programmes that UNSCOM
either interviewed in the 1990s or knew from documents and other sources. At my recent meeting in Baghdad, the Iraqi
side committed itself to supplementing the list and some 80 additional names
have been provided.
In
the past, much valuable information came from interviews. There were also cases in which the
interviewee was clearly intimidated by the presence of and interruption by
Iraqi officials. This was the
background of resolution 1441’s provision for a right for UNMOVIC and the IAEA
to hold private interviews “in the mode or location” of our choice, in Baghdad
or even abroad.
To
date, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have invariably been that the
individual will only speak at Iraq’s monitoring directorate or, at any rate, in
the presence of an Iraqi official. This
could be due to a wish on the part of the invited to have evidence that they
have not said anything that the authorities did not wish them to say. At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi
side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews “in private”,
that is to say alone with us. Despite
this, the pattern has not changed.
However, we hope that with further encouragement from the authorities,
knowledgeable individuals will accept private interviews, in Baghdad or abroad.
UNMOVIC’s capability
Mr
President, I must not conclude this “update” without some notes on the growing
capability of UNMOVIC.
In the past two
months, UNMOVIC has built-up its capabilities in Iraq from nothing to 260 staff
members from 60 countries. This
includes approximately 100 UNMOVIC inspectors, 60 air operations staff, as well
as security personnel, communications, translation and interpretation staff,
medical support, and other services at our Baghdad office and Mosul field
office. All serve the United Nations
and report to no one else. Furthermore,
our roster of inspectors will continue to grow as our training programme
continues — even at this moment we have a training course in session in
Vienna. At the end of that course, we
shall have a roster of about 350 qualified experts from which to draw
inspectors.
A team supplied
by the Swiss Government is refurbishing our offices in Baghdad, which had been
empty for four years. The Government of
New Zealand has contributed both a medical team and a communications team. The German Government will contribute
unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and a group of specialists to operate
them for us within Iraq. The Government
of Cyprus has kindly allowed us to set up a Field Office in Larnaca. All these contributions have been of
assistance in quickly starting up our inspections and enhancing our
capabilities. So has help from the UN
in New York and from sister organizations in Baghdad.
In
the past two months during which we have built-up our presence in Iraq, we have
conducted about 300 inspections to more than 230 different sites. Of these, more than 20 were sites that had
not been inspected before. By the end
of December, UNMOVIC began using helicopters both for the transport of
inspectors and for actual inspection work. We now have eight helicopters. They have already proved invaluable in
helping to “freeze” large sites by observing the movement of traffic in and
around the area.
Setting up a
field office in Mosul has facilitated rapid inspections of sites in northern
Iraq. We plan to establish soon a
second field office in the Basra area, where we have already inspected a number
of sites.
Mr.
President,
We
have now an inspection apparatus that permits us to send multiple inspection
teams every day all over Iraq, by road or by air. Let me end by simply noting that that capability which has been
built-up in a short time and which is now operating, is at the disposal of the
Security Council.
* * *