The Hindu : Iraq cooperating a lot more: Blix

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 07, 2003

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Iraq cooperating a lot more: Blix

UNITED NATIONS March 6. In an upbeat preview of his report on Iraq, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has said that Baghdad is now cooperating "a great deal more" in providing evidence about its weapons programmes and he would welcome more time for inspections. But with 2,30,000 U.S. troops in the region preparing for a possible war against Iraq, Dr. Blix told a news conference on Wednesday that he had made contingency plans to evacuate the inspectors within 48 hours if necessary.

In a press conference, he said it was only under intense military pressure in the last month or so that Iraq had become "active, even proactive" in addressing disarmament issues. He expressed the hope that it was not too late to avoid war.

"There is a great deal more of cooperation now. The threat certainly has brought it there. I hope it's not too late," he said.

"If war breaks out, of course, I think that it is a serious failure for the approach through inspection to disarmament," he said. "The shadow falls upon us, upon the U.N. system and the Security Council, and divisions may follow from this."

Dr. Blix sidestepped a question on whether the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, still posed a danger to the world because of his weapons of mass destruction — an issue for some council members. But he said "everyone agrees that (the Iraqis) have a much, much smaller ... capability than they had in 1991" when they were routed from Kuwait by a U.S.-led coalition force.

With the Security Council bitterly divided, Britain was exploring the idea of giving Mr. Hussein a short deadline to completely disarm as a possible compromise to get the council to agree to a resolution authorising a war against Iraq, council diplomats said on Wednesday.

Dr. Blix said he would welcome the continuation of inspections for some "more months". But he reiterated that he would not ask the council to let his teams continue their work because the council should decide this.

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