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Security Council to study weapons declaration
( 2002-12-18 09:12 ) (7 )

UN experts will make their first evaluation of Iraq's declaration on its weapons programmes to the UN Security Council on Thursday, with leading powers already expressing scepticism about the document.

Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei will address the council even though UN Secretary General Kofi Annan insisted an in-depth study will only come later.

The UN verdict of the report could eventually decide whether a military operation against Iraq is ordered. The United States has already said it sees "problems" in the Iraqi declaration.

Iraq handed over the 12,000 page document to Blix's UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) on December 7 and full copies have been given to the five permanent members of the security council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

An edited 3,000-page version -- stripped of sensitive material for the 10 non-permanent members of the council -- was being distributed to be handed to all Security Council members on Tuesday.

The five, who had already seen the full version, were given the expurgated version as well because, according to a UN diplomat, that they wanted to know what the other 10 were seeing.

The permanent members, along with the IAEA and UNMOVIC, recommended which parts of the Iraqi report would breach international non-proliferation treaties. The names of foreign companies that supplied Iraq were also taken out.

Annan emphasised that no major developments should be expected from Thursday's meeting.

"I think it's important in the sense that they are giving these documents to all the 15 members. But I think the actual analysis is going to come later."

Blix last week demanded that Iraq hand over a new list of scientists and other experts involved in the weapons programmes by the end of the month.

The United States wants scientists moved out of Iraq with their families, if necessary, so they can be questioned about accusations that Iraq has developed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that it would be a breach of UN resolution 1441, under which UN inspectors returned to Iraq, if scientists were stopped from leaving.

Annan said however it was up to the UNMOVIC and IAEA chiefs whether the scientists should be questioned.

"If they do ask to see the scientists and want to interview them, I hope they'll be able to do it inside or outside. But of course this is something that the inspectors will have to resolve on the ground."

The United States also expects to give its formal response to Iraq's declaration later this week and has already detected "problems", Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday. A harsh US evaluation could increase pressure on UN inspectors to make their detection work more thorough, according to analysts.

Powell said the United States had always been sceptical of the Iraqi declaration.

"We've said since the very beginning that we approach it with scepticism, and the information I've received so far is that this scepticism is well founded," Powell said.

"There are problems with the declaration," he said.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday the declaration was "Iraq's last chance to inform the world in an accurate complete and full way what weapons of mass destruction they possessed."

President George W. Bush has threatened to disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by force if he refuses to give up alleged weapons of mass destruction peacefully.