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All set for submission of Blix report

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON JAN. 26. The stage is set for a report that could make all the difference between war and a peaceful resolution of a crisis even if a military conflict in West Asia is not about to start.

The top United Nations weapons inspector, Hans Blix, will be telling the Security Council on Monday morning his assessment of the first 60 days of inspections in Iraq. Mr. Blix will be making an open address to the Council following which there will be a question and answer session. And on Wednesday, the Council is scheduled for its deliberations on the report — a critical phase in the ongoing showdown with the Saddam Hussein regime.

And in between, the reaction of the United States will come from the President himself when he delivers the State of the Union Address on Tuesday. Mr. Blix is expected to be quite critical of Iraq, especially of the manner it has gone about the business in the last several days over the questioning of scientists. Yet, he will stop far short of what the Bush administration would want to hear — a wholesale condemnation of Baghdad, not merely confined to the present Security Council resolution 1441, but past resolutions as well. In the last two months, Mr. Blix has not minced words when it came to assessing Iraq's cooperation with the weapons inspectors. And on more than one occasion, the top U.N. official had made the point that in substantive terms, Baghdad could have done much better. And one of the things that Mr. Blix is expected to tell the Council is that in terms of cooperation, Iraq does not get a failing grade. The bottom line is that Iraq, in the view of the U.S., has a lot of explaining to do whether it pertains to the destruction of shells filled with mustard gas or those thousands of bombs and shells that are capable of carrying chemical and biological weapons.

Mr. Blix is expected to address this issue, at least in very general terms. But the more serious issue raised by the U.N. itself has to do with questioning of Iraqi scientists.

The Bush administration has maintained that Baghdad has been threatening its scientists or sending intelligence folks as scientists for interviews. The Blix report comes at a critical time even if another assessment is not due until about the third week of February. The Bush administration, which has been pushing other members of the Council for a more aggressive path, is now giving the indication that it could wait for some more time.

And other permanent and non-permanent members are hoping to see enough positive things in the Blix report to push for the inspections to continue. For its part, the Bush administration will be paying close attention to the Blix report. It would want him to list as many violations by Iraq as possible so that this could be used to pin down those in the Council who are now seen standing in the way of Washington.

In fact, one thinking is that the U.S. may insist on a separate U.N. resolution listing "all" the shortcomings of Iraq but stopping short of authorising use of force.

The posturings of France and Germany, and to some extent that of Russia, have been frustrating to the President, George W. Bush, who sees in all these an attempt to stretch things too far into the future, thereby upsetting the political, diplomatic and military calculations.

But a delay at the U.N. could send the message of Washington paying attention to allies even as the Pentagon uses this period to get fully prepared for any military action in the Persian Gulf. Senior officials of the Republican administration have consistently warned that the U.S. has the resolve to go alone in the event of a showdown with Iraq; at the same time, Washington would like to have as many on board as possible in this so-called "coalition of the willing".

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