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Russia Tells US To Take Any
Iraq Inspector Problems To UN

By Haitham Haddadin
11-15-2

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Russia on Friday urged U.N. weapons inspectors returning to Baghdad to focus solely on the disarmament job in hand and Iraqi newspapers said they had to be objective and free from any U.S. influence.
 
Moscow, an ally of Baghdad from the Soviet days with important oil interests in the country, wants to ensure the U.N. experts cannot be used by Washington to justify a military invasion to oust President Saddam Hussein, a stated U.S. aim.
 
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said inspectors had to compare the current arsenal with what existed at the end of 1998 when the head of the team Richard Butler unilaterally quit Iraq, complaining Baghdad was not cooperating.
 
"That was how he cleared the way for strikes against that country," Fedotov told Itar-Tass news agency.
 
This time, Fedotov said, any hitch in the U.N. inspectors' work had to be brought before the U.N. Security Council.
 
An advance party of U.N. technicians is scheduled to arrive in Baghdad on Monday to prepare for inspections, which are not expected to begin for another week or two.
 
The group will be accompanied by chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general Mohamed ElBaradei.
 
Moscow's U.N. ambassador Sergei Lavrov said he hoped the inspectors had drawn lessons from the time experts were last in Iraq, when they pursued "tasks which had nothing to do with the need to eliminate weapons of mass destruction."
 
"Crude and arrogant methods were used which ignored the sovereignty and dignity of Iraq and its people," he told Russian television late on Thursday.
 
Iraq accepted on Wednesday a new U.N. resolution giving Baghdad one last chance to disarm and paving the way for weapons inspectors to return after a four-year absence.
 
But the United States vowed again on Thursday that military force would be used to oust Saddam if he did not comply.
 
HONEST, OBJECTIVE
 
Iraq's official al-Thawra newspaper, mouthpiece of Saddam's ruling Baath Party, said Baghdad's acceptance of the tough new resolution will put U.N. credibility to the test and said inspectors had to be honest and objective.
 
"The most important thing is that inspection teams should keep themselves away from American and Zionist influence which will take different forms such as bribes, blackmail, threats and the recruitment of spies under the label of experts," al-Thawra said.
 
The Iraqi press has repeated Baghdad's denial it has any weapons of mass destruction, and said Iraqi cooperation should be rewarded with a lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
 
"America will also try to confuse and complicate the task of the (U.N.) inspectors in order to create a crisis with Iraq that will allow Washington to carry out its threats of war," it said.
 
But ElBaradei has said he will not report to the Security Council any minor, unintentional omission in a weapons disclosure statement Iraq is obliged to produce, a stand putting him at odds with President Bush's "zero tolerance" policy.
 
ElBaradei said in Washington: "If there is minor omission and this is clearly not intentional we are not running to the Security Council to say that it's a material breach."
 
Some analysts believe that absolute denial that Iraq has any banned weapons, if maintained, could be taken by Washington as reason for waging war. The resolution adopted unanimously last week calls on Iraq to give the United Nations "full, accurate and complete" details of weapons programs by December 8.
 
Australian Bill Jolley will serve as chief weapons inspector on the first inspections team in Iraq, the Australian Defense Ministry said on Friday. Russia had bitterly criticized Butler, another Australian, when he quit Iraq in 1998, for not consulting the Security Council first.
 
ANY DELAY SERIOUS
 
Blix said in an interview published on Friday even a half-hour delay in allowing inspectors access to sensitive sites in Iraq could be serious, but stopped short of saying it would violate the U.N. resolution, which could trigger war.
 
"You cannot hide a bulky weapon or a big machine in half an hour, but you can hide documents or test tubes," Blix told French newspaper Le Monde.
 
The Bush administration, which has an official policy of "regime change" in Iraq, has set a more stringent standard for judging Iraqi compliance with the resolution.
 
Asked on Wednesday how he would define a "material breach" of the U.N. resolution, a term that could lead to military action to disarm Iraq, Bush said: "Zero tolerance...We will not tolerate any deception, denial or deceit, period."
 
In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac discussed Iraq on Friday with Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and their French counterparts, Chirac's spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said.
 
Chirac "said essentially that Iraq must not make any mistakes this time around. Its full and complete cooperation with the international community is vital," she told reporters.







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