01 March 2000

Blix Takes Over UN Weapons Inspectors for Iraq
By Judy Aita
Washington File UN Correspondent

United Nations -- Sketching out the beginnings of a new UN weapons inspection team for Iraq, Hans Blix, a disarmament expert and former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), took over the helm of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) March 1.

At a press conference Blix described what appears will be a change in the tenor of the new agency but said that he will not abandon the on-site inspections which were the source of many problems between the UN and Baghdad.

The Security Council resolution establishing UNMOVIC "shows no difference in regard to the right of unrestricted inspections," Blix noted. "The Security Council confirmed the right of UNMOVIC to unrestricted access to sites and to information and, indeed, I intend to exercise that," he said.

"I think that such inspections are indispensable in order to get to credible evidence about Iraq," he added.

Fifteen months have passed without any inspections, Blix said; "I think we will have to re-establish the baselines."

"Iraq may tend to look upon inspections as a penalty that they like to minimize," Blix said, "but I think the way they should look at it is as an opportunity that they should maximize."

"Because if the government simply says we have nothing, there many not be much confidence in the world about the statement. But if you have international impartial inspectors who do a thorough job and they say it; well, then the world may believe it," he said.

"The Security Council has designed the resolution in such a way that it should have some positive elements for Iraq, notably the possibility of the suspension of sanctions but also in alleviating the condition under which they can buy products under the oil-for-food program," he noted.

Mixing the diplomatic tone for which he is noted with a firmness that comes from his many years as head of the IAEA, Blix pointed out that it would be in Iraq's interest to cooperate with UNMOVIC, but insisted that he would use all techniques at his disposal -- not just surprise inspections -- to get as near complete a picture of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs as humanly possible.

Blix said he did not want to dwell on the confrontational inspections of the past. "I have enough problems for the future," he said.

"I am determined we shall exercise the right to unrestricted access, but I am also determined that our role is not to humiliate the Iraqis," Blix said.

"I am totally aware of the hardships the Iraqi people are subjected to and the best way out, certainly in my view, is that they cooperate. ... Thereby the material conditions will be improved," he said.

The former Swedish diplomat also talked about hiring new weapons experts who will be responsible only to the United Nations and not their respective governments and stressed the importance of using the "institutional memory" and the huge amount of documents from UNMOVIC's predecessor -- the UN Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons (UNSCOM).

Blix said that he first wants to assess the huge archives of film and documents that have been collected by UNSCOM over the past eight years. A lot of material, he speculated, may not have been translated and assessed as yet, especially those which were part of the tons of documents taken from a chicken farm after their whereabouts were disclosed by Iraqi defector General Hussein Kamel.

Blix added that we will "welcome" intelligence from governments willing to share their information with UNMOVIC as well as talk to countries which have exported to Iraq materials that could be used in weapons programs.

Blix indicated that he would set up "clear and rigid" rules on handling intelligence similar to that used by IAEA and the data would be "critically analyzed" before it is used as a basis for on-site inspections.

At IAEA, he said, "we stated there it is desirable to have intelligence from several sources. Apart from information there is a lot of disinformation also and you have to have (information) from several sources. You also need to analyze and assess it in a critical, crucial way."

It is important to receive intelligence data "in a secure manner and to handle it in a secure manner, because if you don't you will not be given the best information," Blix added.

Blix explained the difference between the IAEA inspections that did not stand out as confrontational and those of the UNSCOM inspectors as one of "style."

"Our staff was long-term international staff," he said. "In Vienna we had 600 people in the safeguards department who are international civil servants. They have the correct style. While UNSCOM started with a bilateral (group) and had to develop their own style -- which I think gave rich rewards in the beginning."

But he pointed out that "some early IAEA inspections were very dramatic" and it was an IAEA team that had one of the early stand-offs with Iraqi officials in a parking lot when they were denied access to a building.

"However, one must remember always that Iraq is not a country under occupation," Blix said. "It is under the control of the government and you cannot go on forever to take the authorities by surprise there. Inspectors are not an army; they are not a commander unit that can leap in and shoot their way to the target."

Iraq has refused to accept the resolution or cooperate with the UN on UNMOVIC. Nevertheless, Blix said his "working assumption will be that they will accept the resolution one day and my immediate task is to get down and draft the organization plan."

Blix said he will not try "to tempt" the Iraqis to cooperate. But, he added, "To my mind [the stipulations in the resolution] should be attractive ... (as) an avenue for suspension of sanctions."

"But it is up to them to decide if they want to cooperate," he said. "The first step, of course, would be to accept the resolution."

But if the cooperation is delayed "it means also that the light that there might be at the end of the tunnel is moved further on," he said.

None of the so-called files on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are closed, he noted, although the nuclear weapons file is the most complete because the nature of the program requires a larger infrastructure and leaves tell-tale traces. The chemical and biological weapons categories have the most gaps.

"You will not in any area come to a total clarification. There will always be a small residue of uncertainty ... in a vast country there is no way you can be sure," Blix said.

Nevertheless, it will be up to the Security Council to decide when that residue is low enough to suspend sanctions, he pointed out.

As Blix began his duties March 1, he met with Secretary General Kofi Annan, the president of the Security Council, and the remaining UNSCOM staff.

Talking to the UNSCOM staff about what was useful and what modifications are needed, he said it will be for his new team to draft an operational plan for UNMOVIC under his direction.

Blix's first task is to work out an organizational plan in 45 days. He said the work has already begun by three experts he brought on board: a former IAEA inspector who worked with UNSCOM in its early days, a former UNSCOM biological weapons inspector, and an Arabic-speaking Swedish diplomat who had been stationed in Baghdad in the past.

Blix said he did not visit any capitals before arriving at UN headquarters but he had "a lot of advice" as other governments "sent people to me to give me advice on what the structure should be." He did, however, meet with the head of the IAEA action team in Vienna and officials at the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons in The Hague before arriving in New York.

Blix said he sees staffing as one of the areas where there will be a significant difference between UNMOVIC and UNSCOM. Whereas UNSCOM had many staff members who were on short-term loan from their government, the new operation will have experts who have the "UN as their employer and governments are not to give them any instruction," he said.

Blix said he will consider retaining those UNSCOM staff who wish to remain and will also ask governments to submit names of others interested in serving in the new commission, but "we will have a competition about who gets in, who gets the job."

The secretary general has accepted the resignation of Charles Dulfer, the American deputy chairman of UNSCOM, who oversaw the operation after the departure of UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler in June 1999. Blix said he has talked with Dulfer and plans to continue to consult with him.

"It was natural that he took the step he did," Blix said. "When you change the head of an organization, it is not good to have two heads around. You have to have a clean slate, but at the same time it is good if you can talk to each other and get the advice."

Blix said he is not sure UNMOVIC will have a deputy chairman. IAEA does not have one and department heads take turns overseeing the agency when the director general is out of the office, he noted. The Security Council offered the UNMOVIC position to Blix after it was unable to agree with Secretary General Kofi Annan on the directorship.

Blix came out of retirement to take on what most have called a thankless and frustrating job. He said he did so because he spent many years on the question of proliferation and Iraq and so he saw the offer "as a great challenge."

UNMOVIC was established in resolution 1284 by the Security Council in December 1999 to continue ridding Iraq of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and their programs. It also will oversee long-term monitoring of Iraq's weapons programs to ensure that Baghdad does not rebuild the banned weapons. According to the resolution, which also lifts restrictions on how much oil Iraq can export under UN supervision, UNMOVIC and the IAEA must draw up for council review a work program that includes both the remaining disarmament tasks and long-term monitoring and verification.

The 72-year-old Blix served as director general of the IAEA from 1981 until 1997. From 1962 to 1978 he was a member of the Swedish delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. An international law specialist, Blix studied at the University of Uppsala, Columbia University, and Cambridge.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)