UN: US officials have challenged the objectivity of Dr Hans Blix in his report on Iraqi disarmament to the UN Security Council last Friday.
The chief UN weapons inspector gave an upbeat assessement of Iraqi co-operation in his summary of a 173-page document he circulated privately to Security Council members.
After studying the report, US officials said he should have made more of a number of items which could bolster the American case that Iraq is not giving "full, unconditional, immediate and active" co-operation, as required under Resolution 1441.
These included the discovery in recent months of a new type of rocket which could possibly be used to strew bomblets filled with chemical or biological agents, and of a drone aircraft which might be capable of dispensing chemical weapons.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said that the information in the report "was the kind of thing we're going to be making some news about in the course of the week and . . . there are other things that have been found that I think more can be made of".
The White House press secretary, Mr Ari Fleischer, said that the unpiloted Iraqi drones had a 24-foot wingspan and "may violate" the 150-kilometre range imposed by the UN on missiles.
The information about the drones, or Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPV), was contained in an appendix added late to the report, he said, "and not discussed by Mr Blix in his oral presentation".
In his oral presentation, however, Dr Blix made clear that investigation of the drones was ongoing. "Inspectors are also engaged in examining Iraq's programme for Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs)," he told the Security Council. "A number of sites have been inspected, with data being collected to assess the range and other capabilities of the various models found. Inspections are continuing in this area."
A US official told the New York Times that the new variety of rocket detailed in the report had been discovered since the return of the weapons inspectors to Iraq in November.
Iraq at first said it was a conventional cluster bomb and not a chemical weapon, but shortly afterwards conceded that some might have been configured as chemical weapons, he said.
Mr Powell used this inconsistency to argue that the Iraqis could not be trusted to co-operate with the inspectors. "When you look at page after page of what the Iraqis have done over the years to hide, to decieve, to cheat, to keep information away from the inspectors, to change facts to face the latest issue, and once they put that set of facts before you, when you find those facts are false, they come up with a new set of facts," Mr Powell said.
Mr Fleischer told reporters that the issue was being raised with Dr Blix at a closed meeting of the Security Council in New York yesterday afternoon which was being attended by the US ambassador to the UN, Mr John Negroponte.
A frequent critic of the weapons inspectors, Mr Paul Leventhal, of the independent Nuclear Control Institute in New York, accused Dr Blix of "crafting his words to appeal to the operating majority on the council". A western diplomat commented that, by querying Dr Blix's credibility, the Americans were "shooting the messenger because they didn't like the message".
While seeking to make a "smoking gun" out of the weapons issue, the US is also raising the rhetotical bar with Security Council members to lobby for their support.
President George Bush was telling world leaders that, by failing to vote for the resolution, countries were missing an opportunity to take a moral stand on behalf of the people of Iraq, Mr Fleischer said. And, by failing to act, the UN would put itself on the sidelines.
"From a moral point of view, as in Rwanda, as in Kosovo, the United Nations will have failed to act again," he said, referring to the fact that the UN did not act to stop the genocide in Rwanda or the killing of Muslims in Kosovo. The moral issue was freeing the people of Iraq from a "brutal dictator".