*EPF405 02/27/2003
State Officials Say Iraq Has Failed to Comply with U.N. Resolution
(Iraq offers deception and lies to weapons inspectors, they say) (440)

Washington -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has failed to avail himself of a final opportunity to disarm his country of weapons of mass destruction as called for in the four-month-old U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1441, says Kim Holmes, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs.

The resolution, unanimously adopted November 8 by the 15-member UNSC, required Iraq to provide immediate and unconditional cooperation to weapons inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Holmes said February 27 at a Washington Foreign Press Center briefing.

The resolution required Iraq to provide the U.N. weapons inspectors with a complete and accurate declaration of all aspects of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, and ballistic missile systems, as well as information on other chemical, biological, and nuclear programs which were supposed to be for civilian purposes, he said.

Because Iraq has failed to comply with 1441, Holmes said the United States introduced a draft UNSC resolution February 24 that states "Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it." The draft resolution was introduced by the United States, Britain and Spain. France, Germany and Russia have circulated an alternative proposal to intensify U.N. arms inspections for at least four more months.

The U.N. Security Council held a closed meeting February 27 to discuss the U.S.-British-Spanish draft resolution and the alternative offered by France, but no vote is expected on a new resolution before a report is made to the Security Council by Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix March 7. Holmes said the United States expects a "positive vote" shortly after the Blix report.

Holmes said this is not about inspections, but about disarmament, and the United States sees itself "as enforcing U.N. Security Council resolution 1441."

John Wolf, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, who also spoke at the Foreign Press Center briefing, added that the United States began this process through the United Nations to achieve the peaceful disarmament of Iraq. Wolf said that Iraq has instead offered lies, cheating and deception, and the degree of cooperation offered to the weapons inspectors has been without substance.

Wolf also said the al-Samoud 2 ballistic missiles found by inspectors in Iraq, which exceed a 150-kilometer limit imposed by the U.N., should never have been there if Iraq were genuinely attempting to reach disarmament requirements set forth by the U.N.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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