[casi] Bush ignores request for UN inspectors to return

["k hanly" <khanly@DELETETHISmb.sympatico.ca>]

Will the UN actually have the gumption to demand that the US allow its
inspectors back? I wouldnt hold my breath. The total contempt for the UN is
evident. If Hussein had ever placed the restrictions on the UN inspections
that THE AUTHORITY has think of the barrage of criticism that would result.
     Is Mohammed Ali a real person or a Pentagon computer programme to
combine facts and fictions in contradictory ways to confuse THE WORLD LEFT
movement? :)

Cheers, Ken Hanly

PS Can anyone remember the name of the Iraqi general who was involved in the
gassing of Kurds who later fled and was in exile in Denmark. He was to be
investigated for war crimes but was spirited back to Iraq after the war
started probably by the CIA. There were some reports he was assasinated in
Iraq. Has anyone more on this?

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/06/1054700387263.html
Bush ignores UN call for inspectors
By Colum Lynch at the United Nations and David Sanger aboard Air Force One
June 7 2003



United Nations Security Council members have called on the Bush
Administration to allow UN weapons inspectors to return to Iraq to certify
whether Baghdad possessed biological and chemical weapons before the war.

But their plea was shrugged off by President George Bush, who vowed to
"reveal the truth" about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

The call for a resumption of UN inspections, which was endorsed on Thursday
by an overwhelming majority of council members, including Britain, America's
closest military ally, came as the Bush Administration faces charges by
members of Congress and some intelligence analysts that it may have
exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq to justify the invasion.

It also reflected a growing consensus in the 15-nation council that the UN
Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) should test US
and British claims that Iraq continued to develop chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons.

"The disarmament of Iraq must be verified and confirmed by UNMOVIC and the
International Atomic Energy Agency on the ground and in conjunction with the
coalition," France's UN ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, told the
Security Council.


In his farewell appearance before the Security Council, the chief UN weapons
inspector, Hans Blix, said Iraq's failure to account for its alleged
biological, chemical or nuclear weapons did not mean that it possessed
them - or posed an imminent threat.

"There remain long lists of items unaccounted for, but it is not justified
to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it is
unaccounted for," he said.

Dr Blix, who retires at the end of the month, said he could not verify
claims by Mr Bush and other senior US officials that two trucks discovered
in Iraq were mobile biological weapons production plants.

But Iraq had apparently violated its obligation to declare their existence
to UN inspectors. "We will make absolutely no assessment without having seen
them."

The US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, said the Iraq Survey Group,
established by the Pentagon, was capable of finding Iraq's hidden weapons
programs on its own and the US had no foreseeable role for UN inspectors.

The Administration has agreed to permit the Vienna-based International
Atomic Energy Agency, which was responsible for conducting inspections of
Iraqi nuclear programs, to send a seven-member team to Iraq. The team
arrived yesterday to survey a nuclear storage site south-east of Baghdad.

Mr Bush addressed troops at US Central Command in Qatar, where he insisted
that Saddam Hussein had been preparing to unleash biological weapons and
that the truth about them would emerge.

But he showed a new caution in his language, and omitted his previous
confident avowals that the weapons will be found.

However, Mr Bush's aides still predict they will be.

"We're on the look; we'll reveal the truth," Mr Bush said before boarding
Air Force One and flying directly up the length of Iraq and over Baghdad.

The decision to view Iraq from nearly 10 kilometres up, rather than from the
ground as Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, did last week, underscored
US concerns about the obstacles still facing Mr Bush as his Administration
struggles to gain its footing as an occupying power.

The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times





Cheers



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