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West must share intelligence: Blix

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON DEC. 20. The chief of U.N. arms inspectors Hans Blix, who has been under pressure from Americans to be more tough in dealing with Iraq, has hit back saying that Britain and U.S. are not sharing with him crucial intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

In controversial remarks on the BBC on Friday, Dr. Blix said: "If the U.K. and the U.S. are convinced (that Iraq has such weapons). And they say they have evidence, then one would expect that they would be able to tell us where this stuff is.''

Asked whether he was getting the sort of cooperation he expected from the two countries, he said bluntly: "Not very much, not yet''. He said though his team got "a lot of briefings'' about what London and Washington believed Iraq had there was little concrete information to go on.

``The most important thing...would be to tell us the sites where they are convinced that (Iraqis) keep some weapons of mass destruction. This is what we want to have.'' he said. He pointed out that Britain and the U.S. had sources of information such as `spies' and `satellites' which his team did not, and he expected them to be more forthcoming than they had been.

Observers noted that this was Dr. Blix's first public statement in the face of persistent sniping by U.S. officials about his team's inspection methods and was likely to embarrass his critics. There was no immediate official comment here, but Sky TV quoted sources as saying that more information would be provided to the weapons' inspectors.

Dr. Blix's remarks came as Britain stepped up the war rhetoric with the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, warning the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, to stop playing "hide-and-seek'' with the inspectors amid reports that January 27 could be a `crunch' date for a decision on a military intervention in Iraq. That is the day when Dr. Blix is to report to the U.N. Security Council on the progress of his inspections.

Mr. Blair, in an interview to The Guardian, said Mr. Hussein had a "duty to be open and transparent'' with the inspectors, and not treat it as a "bit of a game of hide and seek''. Echoing the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was for Iraq to decide whether it wanted the crisis to be resolved peacefully or through military means.

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