re: no turning back now - inspector report
By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 (Reuters) - U.N. weapons inspectors deliver a crucial report on Monday saying they have been unable to resolve key questions about Iraq's former arms programs but not corroborating U.S. charges that Iraq has rebuilt its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. After two months and more than 350 inspections, the reports by inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to the U.N. Security Council (10:30 a.m. EST) (1530 GMT) are expected to fuel U.S. arguments in favor of war but prompt other nations, including France and Russia, to say inspections should go on. To underline the Bush administration's aims, Secretary of State Colin Powell, only hours before the report, said the United States would go to war against Iraq alone if European allies would not join the fight, regardless of inspections. "To those who say, why not give the inspection process more time, I ask, how much more time does Iraq need to answer these questions?" Powell told an audience at the annual World Economic Forum at Davos in the Swiss Alps. Blix, a 74-year-old Swedish diplomat in charge of chemical, biological and ballistic arms teams, has listed unresolved issues, which his staff said were not settled after he and ElBaradei, responsible for nuclear weapons programs, came back from a trip to Baghdad last weekend.
OBTAINED MISSILE ENGINES He has said that documents Iraq submitted in a 12,000-page weapons declaration submitted on Dec. 7 have not answered questions about its former weapons programs, including the whereabouts of the deadly VX nerve gas, 2 tons of nutrients or growth media for biological agents, such as anthrax, and 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas, among others. His teams have also found that Iraq, which says all weapons had been accounted for or destroyed since the 1991 Gulf War, obtained missile engines as well as raw material for rocket fuel and chemical agents, a violation of an arms embargo that is part of 12-year old U.N. sanctions. And despite assurances from Iraq that it would encourage its scientists to submit to private interviews, no such talks have taken place and Baghdad has blocked the use of U-2 surveillance flights over all parts of Iraq. "Satellites can't loiter over an area. If you have inspections in an area, a U-2 can hover over it," Blix said. But at the same time the inspectors have not found evidence of banned activity or production facilities at any of the sites investigated that the United States says exist. Both Britain, whose officials briefed reporters on intelligence findings on Sunday, and the United States say they have evidence of Iraq squirreling missile parts out of a production site or trucks leaving facilities during inspections. Blix, after his return from Baghdad, said Iraq had generally opened all sites to inspectors, who had not found "any hidden large quantities of anything."
THOUSANDS OF DOCUMENTS Blix's U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission teams, however, found thousands of documents hidden in the home of an Iraqi scientist, and at least 16 empty and undeclared chemical warheads, which are being tested. ElBaradei, director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, has prepared a 22-page report in which he intends to make the case for continued inspections. "I think we are making good progress in the nuclear area. We, just as I said, need to exhaust the option of inspection," he said on arrival on Sunday. ElBaradei earlier this month also told the Security Council that aluminum tubes Iraq tried to purchase were meant for artillery rockets they are allowed to have and not for enriching uranium for a nuclear program, as the Bush administration had claimed last autumn. The U.N. Security Council debates the crisis on Wednesday, amid strong signs the United States has delayed a formal decision to go to war for several weeks. Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the council for February, would like another report from inspectors on Feb. 14. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has sent thousands of troops to join a U.S. military build-up in the Gulf, has also said inspections should continue for a bit longer. "I don't believe it will take them months to find out whether he is cooperating or not, but they should have whatever time they need," Blair said on BBC television over the weekend. In Davos, Powell said the United States would carefully study the report of the inspectors and consult other members of the deeply divided U.N. Security Council before acting. But he made clear time was running out. "We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction," Powell said. "When we feel strongly about something, we will lead; we will act, even if others are not prepared to join us."
