TIMES UK -- Iraq inspectors find banned missile system -- Press Clips

[quade 4]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-576127,00.html

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World News



February 13, 2003

Iraq inspectors find banned missile system
From James Bone in New York

Western pressure grows on Saddam Hussain to flee Baghdad




THE chief United Nations weapons inspector will report tomorrow that Iraq has been developing a ballistic missile that is in clear violation of UN restrictions.
The discovery of a banned weapons system on the eve of Hans Blix’s crucial presentation is tantamount to the inspectors finding a “smoking gun” — even though it was declared by Iraq to the UN as a legal programme.

Diplomats said the announcement would strengthen London and Washington’s case that Iraq was in “material breach” of UN demands and help the two allies to win support within the Security Council for a new resolution authorising the use of force.

The finding is also certain to provoke a confrontation when inspectors ask the Iraqi armed forces to surrender the banned missiles for destruction just as the country is preparing for an American attack.

A panel of independent experts ruled that the Iraqi missiles could fly beyond that range and Dr Blix will declare the al-Samoud 2 missile a proscribed programme. “The verdict on the missiles was that the al-Samoud falls in the prohibited zone and its engines should probably be destroyed,” one Security Council diplomat said. But Mohammed Aldouri, Iraq’s UN Ambassador, insisted that the al-Samoud 2 missile system flew within the permitted range of 150km.

Any indication in Dr Blix’s report that Iraq is in breach of its obligations under the Security Council’s Resolution 1441 will almost certainly prompt Britain and the US to bring a war resolution to the Council in the coming days. Washington hopes that Dr Blix’s report will be sufficiently damning to stop France, Germany and other reluctant Council members blocking such a resolution.

At the same time, however, America is canvassing the possibility of President Saddam Hussein and his top lieutenants being granted asylum outside Iraq. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said that such an option would “avoid a lot of problems”.

American officials have long encouraged Saddam to step down to avert war, but General Powell’s remarks yesterday were the clearest sign that Washington was actively pressing the matter. “We are not only discussing it, we are in touch with a number of countries that have expressed an interest in conveying this message to the Iraqi regime that time’s up and one way to avoid a lot of suffering is for the regime to step down,” General Powell said. “It would ultimately require some kind of United Nations participation in order to make sure that we can do it in a way that would actually entice him to seek asylum.”

In a sign of the frantic diplomacy in the face of war, at least six foreign ministers, including General Powell and Jack Straw, will attend Dr Blix's report tomorrow — the Security Council’s third ministerial meeting in three weeks. Dominique de Villepin of France, Igor Ivanov of Russia and Joschka Fischer of Germany are expected to argue in favour of bolstering inspections as an alternative for war.

Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security Adviser, has also visited New York for private talks with Dr Blix in an effort to toughen up his report. Dr Blix spent yesterday afternoon in a private meeting with the UN inspectorate’s advisory board, which has representatives of all the major powers.

Dr Blix sounded the alarm about Iraq’s al-Samoud 2 and al-Fatah missiles in his report to the Security Council on January 27, when he said that they “might well represent prima facie cases of proscribed systems”.

He revealed that the liquid-fuel al-Samoud 2 had been test-fired to a distance of 183 km and the solid-propellant al-Fatah to a range of 161 km — both beyond the UN limit. He also noted that the al-Samoud’s 760mm diameter was increased from the earlier version, in spite of a directive from the former UN inspector Rolf Ekeus in 1994 that Iraq limit diameters to 600mm. Dr Blix suggested that the missiles also violated a second letter from Dr Ekeus in 1997, which banned the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles in ballistic missiles.

Since then Dr Blix has provided more damning details in answer to Council members’ questions. Inspectors discovered that the al-Samoud 2 has exceeded the 150km limit in 13 of 40 tests and the al-Fatah has gone beyond that distance in at least eight test-firings.

Before making a final decision on whether the missiles contravened UN rules, Dr Blix convened a meeting of outside missile experts from Britain, China, France, Ukraine, Germany and the US on Monday and Tuesday. Diplomatic sources said that those experts determined that the al-Samoud 2 exceeded the 150 km range, but that the capability of the al-Fatah remained an “open question”.

The outside experts also judged Iraq to be in violation of UN rules for repairing banned casting chambers for making illegal missiles and for building a new test stand that can test missile engines five times above the permitted thrust.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[skycop 0]

Gee..............what a surprise........

"Just 'cause I'm simple, don't mean I'm stewpid!"

[billvon 3,116]

>The discovery of a banned weapons system on the eve of Hans Blix’s
> crucial presentation is tantamount to the inspectors finding
> a “smoking gun” — even though it was declared by Iraq to the UN
> as a legal programme.

Not sure what this means. Didn't we say he has to declare his weapons programs or he would face serious consequences? The above suggests that he did in fact declare it, and as a legal defensive program. Is the issue that the UN and Iraq disagree on whether it's legal or not?

[Gravitymaster 0]

It means Iraq made a little boo boo. oooops !!
They just forgot they had missiles that can fly beyond their own borders and strike countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia. You know kinda like what Colin Powell said they had. Damn, next thing you know the inspectors will start finding the VX nerve gas and Anthrax Powell said they had. But that too is probably just a little BOO BOO too.

[billvon 3,116]

>They just forgot they had missiles . . .

No they didn't, they told us they had them:

" . . . it was declared by Iraq to the UN as a legal programme. "

That's why I find this story odd. Sorta like having a banner headline saying "US intelligence authorities uncover that Iraq has oil reserves!"

[quade 4]

Well, what I got out of the article was something akin to there being a law that you can have a gun for personal defense as long as it is under a certain size and you declare it. He knows he has a -slightly- larger gun, but declares the gun as actually being legal. Later, he's busted by the cops for possession of a gun that's too large.

Back to reality.

I don't think there's any question about the ranges involved or the deliberate attempt by Iraq to hide the fact they can go farther than they had originally declared. It's a clear violation.

What I'm curious about is if this is a big enough deal to start killing people over or is it a small enough deal that we can just destroy the weapons and continue with the inspections.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Push 0]

Wasn't one of the points of the inspections to find these illegal weapons and oversee their destruction? Shouldn't the UN at least give Saddam a chance to get rid of them, under supervision?

-- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo
Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

[PhillyKev 0]

Bill, actually the problem isn't the missles themselves, it's their capability. They were limited by the UN resolutions to not have any missles that can travel futher than 60 miles, they declared these missles and said they mee that criteria. However, the inspectors found information about those missles that indicates they were designed to and are capable of a further reach.

I've been on your side all along regarding needing definite proof of violations before invading, well, seems like we may have it. Can't say for sure quite yet. They need to have some experts examine the missles to confirm their suspicions, but if it is true, I'll have to join the ranks of the hawks.

Listen up everyone that's been screaming for invastion. The majority of us in these forums and the majority of those in the US from what I've read aren't anti-american or opposed to supporting our country. But we have what we feel is good reason not to take what the current administration says at face value. What we've wanted was some independent corroboration of the unsubstantiated claims that the the US has been making. If that evidence is indeed available, I have no problem supporting our efforts to disarm by force if necessary. But lets see how this plays out first. It has not been proven, it is only suspected. When we do literally have "the smoking gun", then you'll see that the support will be there.

And for those of you outside the US, understand that we're not all sheep following the cries for war, most of us wanted the peaceful solution if possible. It's just that the bleats of the sheep are heard loudly in the media.

[quade 4]

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Wasn't one of the points of the inspections to find these illegal weapons and oversee their destruction?

Well, actualy, the point of the inspections was to have Iraq show us the proof that he had destroyed them already.

Technically, by finding them in working order and larger than stated, he's already blown it.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[PhillyKev 0]

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Wasn't one of the points of the inspections to find these illegal weapons and oversee their destruction? Shouldn't the UN at least give Saddam a chance to get rid of them, under supervision?

No actually it was the responsibility of Iraq to declare and destroy any illegal weapons on their own. It was the point of the inspectors to be sure they did that and didn't try to hide them. It appears from these preliminary reports that Iraq was attempting to hide these allegedly illegal weapons in plain sight. If that's the case then they are in material breach of the UN resolutions as they were written and agreed to by the security council.

[billvon 3,116]

>However, the inspectors found information about those missles that
>indicates they were designed to and are capable of a further reach.

OK, that makes more sense.

>I've been on your side all along regarding needing definite proof of
>violations before invading, well, seems like we may have it.

You may be right. I will be interested to hear what Blix says to the UN on Friday.

> But we have what we feel is good reason not to take what the
> current administration says at face value.

Yeah, I've been taking less and less of what they say at face value. That's one of the reasons I am glad to see the US going through the UN - they're playing the role of (somewhat) impartial forum where both sides are presented. We represent the US side, and it's skewed (of course) towards war since we've wanted that for a long time. Other countries get their say, no matter how dumb we think it is. At the end, whatever the vote is, at least we're not operating in a vacuum.

[Gravitymaster 0]

Sorry I didn't make what I was saying clear enough"

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They just forgot they had missiles that can fly beyond their own borders and strike countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia.

I'm not saying they didn't declare them. I'm saying they forgot they could fly beyond their own borders and strike countries like Israel.

[gemini 0]

Wonder what else they conveniently forgot? Wake up people. Liars never tell the complete truth about anything...it's part of the game. Unfortunately people die in this game, but they don't care.

Blue skies,

Jim

[Gravitymaster 0]

Well, theres still that pesky little problem about explaining what happened to all that VX nerve gas, the Anthrax, the long range missliles.

Oh, thats right we now know they have the missiles cause we got the "smoking gun" regarding them.

[PhillyKev 0]

The inspectors also found and destroyed 20 warheads loaded with mustard gas yesterday. They were previously identified and tagged for destruction before the inspectors were thrown out a few years ago. Iraq can't claim ignorance on this one. Looks like the proof is now there. Forgive me if I still don't get gung ho about us killing and being killed, but doesn't look like there's any choice now.