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US says Iraq in 'material breach' on arms report
( 2002-12-20 08:08 ) (7 )

The United States declared on Thursday Iraq to be in "material breach" of a UN resolution over its new arms report, stopping short of calling it a trigger for war but increasing the risk of future military action.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Baghdad's 12,000-page arms declaration "totally fails to meet the resolution's requirements," after chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix criticized the document for inconsistencies.

Washington's Ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, said omissions from the Iraqi report constituted "another material breach" of the key Nov. 8 UN resolution passed as part of a renewed US effort to disarm Iraq of any weapons of mass destruction.

But neither Blix nor any of the other 14 Security Council members characterized Baghdad's declaration as a material breach, a legal term that could justify war, or a violation of the resolution that demanded the document.

War jitters drove gold to its highest price in almost six years on Thursday, oil hit a near three-month peak and Wall Street stocks slid as nervous financial markets reacted to the US evaluation of Iraq's report.

Powell said there would be no peaceful solution to the crisis in Iraq if the Baghdad government "continues its pattern of non-cooperation, its pattern of deception, its pattern of dissembling, its pattern of lying.

"Then we're not going to find a peaceful solution to this problem," he told a news conference in Washington. "The Iraqi declaration ... totally fails to meet the resolution's requirements."

Britain, Washington's closest ally, held back from officially declaring Iraq to be in breach, while France said only that it agreed with Blix's analysis. Russia, another of the key five permanent council members, said no one council member could make such a judgment alone.

Iraq said the United States was looking for a pretext to launch an attack.

Negroponte told the 15-member Security Council and reporters the declaration "seeks to deceive when it says Iraq has no ongoing weapons of mass destruction programs."

"These are material omissions which in our view constitute another material breach," he said.

But Iraq said the charges were baseless and that Baghdad had been asked to give voluminous documents of all past arms programs and related civilian goods.

"The United States made it clear that the matter is not disarmament but to change the legitimate government of Iraq," said Muhammed Ali, Iraq's deputy Iraqi U.N. ambassador.

Under the Nov. 8 resolution the Security Council has to "assess" a material breach. It also says clearly that more violations are need than omissions or falsifications in the declaration before a breach can be declared. And all members insisted this had to be done by the inspectors.

NO EVIDENCE FROM U.S. TO U.N.

Blix said he had not been given any convincing evidence by the United States or any other government to disprove Iraq's contention that it no longer had weapons of mass destruction.

But he said Iraq had yet to supply evidence to its contention that all chemical and biological arms agents were destroyed.

For example, Iraq had said it produced 8,500 liters of anthrax but had given no evidence that all of it was destroyed. "So we must ask ourselves was there more?" Blix said, noting that inspectors in 1998 estimated Iraq could have "produced about three times as much, something like 24,000 liters."

"The overall impression is that not much new significant information has been provided in the part of Iraq's declaration, which relates to proscribed weapons programs," Blix said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, also told the council that Iraq's declaration on its nuclear program contained nothing new compared to statements in 1998.

He said Iraq needed to provide answers and evidence regarding Iraq's reported purchase of aluminum tubes, which can be used for a variety of weapons purposes.

The weapons inspectors said they would give a fuller report to the Security Council in mid-January.

France's ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere told the council and reporters that the analysis by Blix "doesn't lift the doubts about the possible continuation by Iraq of prohibited activities since December 1998" when arms inspectors left the country and before they resumed work last month.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iraq had "failed to meet the obligations imposed on it" and suggested Baghdad was in breach of resolutions, although London's U.N. ambassador refrained from saying the document constituted a material breach.

"These failures amount to breaches of the resolution. So they are material breaches in one sense," said Straw.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, however, said that if Iraq was not able to clear up questions in the declaration it may be in material breach of the resolution.

Russia's U.N. ambassador Sergei Lavrov said it was not up to one member to declare a material breach and said the arms inspector should not be "pushed into a direction that they themselves do not believe is advisable."

"It is up to one country to have its own view on any issue in world affairs. But it does not mean that this view is the view of the Security Council," he said of Negroponte.

Bush has threatened to disarm Iraq by force if it does not come clean on whether it has weapons of mass destruction or is trying to acquire them.

In Baghdad, presidential adviser Amir al-Saadi told a news conference that Iraq was not worried by accusations that its weapons declaration contained little new.

"We are not worried. It's the other side that is worried because there is nothing they can pin on us," Saadi said before Blix gave his report.

And in Paris, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, said, "The United States is looking for a pretext for an attack."