UN/IRAQ: Over 200 UN inspectors are preparing to examine up to 700 sites in Iraq. Michael Jansen in Nicosia explains their task and how they will do it
The chief UN weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, will arrive in Cyprus on Sunday en route to Baghdad where he is set to launch the programme to destroy prohibited weaponry, in line with last Friday's Security Council resolution 1441.
Dr Blix, chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), will be accompanied by Dr Muhammad El-Baradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and 20-30 administrative and technical staff. The group will spend the night at the commission's recently established forward base at a hotel in the port city of Larnaca and fly to the Iraqi capital on a UN aircraft on Monday.
An informed source told The Irish Times that Dr Blix's visit will be both "symbolic" and practical. On one hand, it will signify the renewal of the effort to find and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction or banned missiles Iraq may have acquired or manufactured since the disbanded UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) pulled out of the country in late 1998. On the other, Dr Blix will discuss with Iraqi officials arrangements and logistics for inspections and return to Cyprus on Wednesday the 20th.
The two dozen members of Dr Blix's advance team in Baghdad will reopen UNSCOM's offices, establish communications and laboratories and arrange billets and transport for the teams of inspectors. The vanguard could also inspect its equipment in facilities previously monitored by UNSCOM, Dr Blix said last week. A team of 12 inspectors is expected to reach Baghdad on or about November 25th to begin surveying the most high-profile 100 of the 700 sites which were being monitored by UNSCOM before it was withdrawn ahead of the Anglo-US bombing campaign in December 1998.
Some 200 to 300 additional sites have been added to the list by the US and Britain, on the basis of intelligence provided by satellites, reconnaissance aircraft and Iraqi defectors. Washington and London insist that Iraq has rebuilt and expanded physical facilities over the past four years although there is no independent confirmation that its banned chemical, biological and nuclear programmes have been reconstituted.
Survey teams are expected to give priority to sites such as the al-Mamoun Solid Rocket Motor Production plant where medium-range missiles were produced before the 1991 Gulf War; the missile launch facility at al-Rafah; a nuclear power plant at al-Furat, bombed by US warplanes on the last day of the 1991 campaign; and a chlorine production plant at Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
Dr Blix's roster of 230 inspectors is drawn from two score countries rather than the narrow range of Western nations which provided recruits for UNSCOM. Last summer, Dr Rolf Ekeus, a former head of UNSCOM, admitted that UNSCOM adopted an aggressively antagonistic stance toward Iraq and that some of its experts, who were appointed to the commission by governments, reported back to their intelligence agencies.
UNMOVIC, which was established in December 1999, has tried to break with the UNSCOM example. Dr Blix's inspectors take leave of absence from their regular jobs and work on short-term UN contracts. Each rotation is expected to spend four to six months in Iraq. Dr Blix has stated repeatedly that any inspector found to be spying will be promptly dismissed and sent home. He has pledged "tough" but "tactful" inspections, and has said that UNMOVIC should not "harass and humiliate" the Iraqis.
Since UNMOVIC is to conduct the most intrusive inspection regime ever attempted, Dr Blix has made it clear he is determined to ensure UNMOVIC's neutrality and even-handedness. He has also said that his teams will have the advantage of new technologies developed since UNSCOM conducted its last inspection. Amongst these are high-resolution satellite imaging; miniature sensors which can constantly monitor the air, water and soil; portable germ detectors; and improved radar systems which can penetrate tunnels and caves and underground bunkers.
Cyprus was chosen to be UNMOVIC's logistical and administrative base and staging post because of its proximity to Iraq. The island has excellent communications facilities and a large UN presence in the form of the peacekeeping force which has been stationed there since 1964. Bahrain served as the staging post for UNSCOM.
But since it is the regional port of the US Fifth Fleet which would play a major role in any fresh US military offensive against Iraq, sources believe Dr Blix may have preferred a more neutral base for UNMOVIC. Team members will be inducted into UNMOVIC, receive their credentials in Cyprus.