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Sounds like a pretty good deal for those who supplied Saddam with weapons. What a deal! Andrew ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/international/middleeast/11NATI.html?ex=1040 627354&ei=1&en=86979a06798e7edb THE WEAPONS DECLARATION U.N. Official Won't Reveal Iraq Suppliers to the Public By JULIA PRESTON UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 10 — Hans Blix, a chief of the weapons team here, told the Security Council today that he was not going to release the names of foreign arms suppliers that Iraq has listed in its weapons declaration because they could be valuable to United Nations inspectors as sources of information about Baghdad's programs. Mr. Blix confirmed to the Council that there appeared to be bomb recipes in the hundreds of pages detailing Iraq's secret nuclear program, which was discovered by inspectors in 1991 and deactivated. He said he would identify by Friday any passages in the vast document that must be screened out before it can be distributed to the full Council. Iraq delivered the report, required under Resolution 1441, to inspectors in Baghdad on Saturday night. A 300-page section of the declaration, describing industrial facilities in Iraq where there could have been nuclear activity after 1991, includes much new information that analysts have to scrutinize carefully, he said. Mr. Blix briefed the 15 Council nations over lunch today with Secretary General Kofi Annan. On Sunday, all of them except Syria agreed to allow the five permanent members, which are all nuclear powers, to examine the declaration immediately, before the 10 rotating members, none of which are nuclear powers. In Washington, London and Paris today, experts plunged into the trove of documents and CD-ROM's, after agreeing to assist Mr. Blix in detecting information that could be used to make an illegal weapon. Russian and Chinese diplomats said that their copies of the declaration were only just arriving today in Moscow and Beijing. Mr. Blix turned the tables today on the United States and other permanent members, saying he wanted to receive by Friday their assessments of the information that had to be filtered out of the documents. Up to now, the Bush administration, echoed by Britain, has been vocal in its complaints that Mr. Blix is moving too slowly with his inspections. Both Russia and China said they doubted that they would have their assessments ready by Friday. Mr. Blix said he wanted to give the filtered declaration to all 15 Council members on Monday. As soon as the declaration is so widely distributed, it is certain to leak out and become public. Mr. Blix, the chairman of the United Nations chemical and biological weapons team, explained that he would, at least initially, remove the suppliers' names from the document that will be made public because inspectors found in the past that suppliers could provide vital information about what Baghdad was buying and where. If the inspectors "were to give the names publicly, then they would never get another foreign supplier to give them any information," he said after the Council session. Diplomats have indicated that disclosing the suppliers could be embarrassing to several nations, even perhaps the United States, which provided arms to Iraq during its long war with Iran in the 1980's. Mr. Blix said he would abide by whatever the Council ultimately decided about the suppliers. The plan is for Mr. Blix's team and the International Atomic Energy Agency to keep the risky information confidential. Mr. Blix said the most important part of the declaration is contained in 3,000 of its 12,000 pages, about 500 of which are in Arabic and must be translated. Weapons analysts here will not even begin to assess the far more interesting issue of the accuracy of the declaration until next week. Mr. Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the atomic energy agency, will give their first evaluation to the Council Nov. 19. A senior Mexican official sought today to clarify remarks by Mexican diplom ats here that indicated they were reluctant to back the United States plan to have Washington and the other permanent members see the declaration first. The official said that Jorge G. Castañeda, the foreign minister, had in fact proposed to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that Colombia, which holds the Council presidency this month, should decide whether to turn over the declaration to Washington on behalf of the nonpermanent members. Mr. Castañeda also talked to Mr. Blix on Saturday to make sure he agreed, the official said. "We have nobody in the whole country that can go through this declaration in three days and see if there are weapons cookbooks in there," the official said. _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk