UN Fumes As U.S. Breaks Agreement On Iraq Report

by Haider Rizvi

U.S. officials took possession of the document Sunday despite an earlier understanding among the 15 members of the Security Council that the UN weapons inspectors should have time to look over the report before it was distributed to all members of the Council.

On Monday, Washington sent copies to Britain and France. On Tuesday, the other two permanent members of the council, Russia and China, received their copies.

U.S. officials justified the move on security grounds, arguing they did not want detailed information on nuclear weapons production to get into the hands of nations that might be pursuing weapons programs.

The non-permanent Security Council members are: Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Guinea, Ireland, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Singapore and Syria.

"It could have signalled to the rest of the world what Iraq still needs, and we have plenty of enemies who could supply what they need," the New York Times quoted an official as saying.

But diplomats and observers charged that the U.S. government's action violates the Security Council's resolution on weapon inspections in Iraq, which was endorsed unanimously.

"It's not a matter of a copy," said Mikhail Wehbi, the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations. "It's a matter of principle. The Council says it's always looking for unity. Sometimes they want unity and sometimes they don't want it."

Like Wehbi, diplomats from Mexico and Norway were also reportedly upset with the Council president's decision to hand over the document to U.S. officials, but they refrained from making public statements.

The report was one of the demands contained in November's Council resolution that sent arms inspectors back into Iraq for the first time in nearly four years.

The U.S. media has reported that U.S. diplomats on Saturday pressed Alfonso Valdivieso, the Columbian ambassador to the United Nations and president of the Council this month, to allow their officials to take charge of the document.

U.S. Secretary of State Collin Powel met Columbian officials last weekend and announced major increases in the military aid to Bogota, which is trying to crush leftist opposition movements.

Observers say Washington's action to secure the document amounts to a campaign of political harassment.

"The U.S. controlling of documents and sharing them with only permanent members of the Security Council and not the 10 rotating members further intensifies the existing caste system within the Council," says Hans Van Sponeck, a former head of the UN oil for food program in Iraq.

"This is not a question of asserting some special privilege," said John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "It's more of a question of drawing on the expertise of declared nuclear powers."

Despite promises to reduce their arsenals, the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China continue to possess thousands of nuclear weapons.

Chief arms inspector Hans Blix said Tuesday he hoped his team of inspectors would be able to complete their study of 3,000 pages of the Iraqi declaration by Friday, adding that the document would possibly be delivered to remaining Council members by Monday.

Blix and nearly 70 other inspectors will remove the sensitive passages from the text and keep them in their confidential files.

"We are focusing on what you call 'cook books', the things that are risky from the point of view of nuclear non-proliferation," he told journalists after meeting the Security Council on Tuesday.

Outside the UN building in New York, more than 60 people were arrested in an anti-war protest Tuesday, one of dozens held in cities around the world.

Tuesday was also UN Human Rights Day.

A few hours after Washington sent copies of the document to China and Russia on Tuesday, Iraq accused the United States of "unprecedented blackmail," and warned that Washington could distort the contents of the document.

"This American behavior aims at manipulating UN documents to find cover for aggression against Iraq," the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

U.S. media has reported that a section of the report might detail which countries or companies supplied controversial equipment to Iraq.

"It is subject to the Security Council agreement," said Blix when asked to explain if inspectors would edit or remove the names of foreign suppliers of objectionable material to Iraq.