Iraq in "material breach" on arms dossier - US

The United States told the UN Security Council yesterday that it considered Iraq in "material breach" of a UN resolution over its arms declaration, a term that could ultimately trigger war against the Arab nation.

Chief UN inspector Hans Blix, speaking after the Security Council met, agreed there were inconsistencies in the document and little new information but neither he nor any other Security Council member called Iraq's declaration a material breach or a violation of a November 8 UN resolution.

Iraq said the United States was looking for a pretext to launch an attack.

Although the phrase, contained in the tough new UN resolution aimed at disarming Baghdad of any weapons of mass destruction, could be used by Washington to justify war against Iraq, US officials have said that using the words "material breach" at this stage did not mean an attack was imminent.

Oil prices leapt towards their highest level in two years yesterday and US stocks headed down over fears of war with Iraq.

"These are material omissions which in our view constitute another material breach," US Ambassador John Negroponte told reporters after the meeting.

The declaration "clearly shows Iraq has spurned its last opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations," he added.

Blix told the Security Council in an initial assessment of the declaration that inconsistencies did not create "confidence that no weapons of mass destruction programmes remain."

He said "the overall impression is that not much new, significant information has been provided in Iraq's declaration" and France agreed with his assessment.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said there were "some gray areas" in the declaration submitted by Iraq on December 7 as required under the new UN resolution, but was confident UN inspections would fill in the gaps.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was not in material breach "so far" but that his arms declaration appeared incomplete. Britain's UN ambassador said Iraq could in the future be in material breach if it did not "clear up questions not answered in the declaration."

Straw said while Iraq had failed to meet the obligations imposed on it, war with Iraq not inevitable.

The UN resolution has two requirements before the council can declare a material breach. It says that false statements or omissions in the Iraqi declaration had to be coupled with a failure to comply with inspections.

Russia's UN ambassador Sergei Lavrov said it was not up to one member to declare a material breach.

Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan, speaking from Paris, issued a blunt denouncement of Washington's assessment, denying Baghdad has any weapons of mass destruction.

"I think the United States is well placed to know this in the first place but the United States is looking for a pretext for an attack," he told French RFI radio in a recorded interview.

US President George W. Bush has threatened to disarm Iraq by force if it does not come clean on whether it has weapons of mass destruction or is trying to acquire them.

Negroponte said Washington would continue to analyse the Iraqi dossier, consult with allies and ask the weapons inspectors and International Atomic Energy Agency to make more regular reports on their inspections.

Although Washington had insisted the omissions would not be an immediate trigger for war, by saying that gaps in Baghdad's document constituted a material breach, Negroponte has fired the opening salvo in piling up charges of serious violations against Iraq.

In Baghdad, presidential adviser Amir al-Saadi told a news conference that Iraq was not worried by accusations that its weapons declaration contained little new.

"We are not worried. It's the other side that is worried because there is nothing they can pin on us," Saadi said before Blix gave his report.

The UN resolution was aimed at forcing Baghdad to disclose and eliminate any programmes it has to make biological, chemical or nuclear weapons or long-range missiles.

Blix said cooperation with his inspectors, who returned to Iraq last month to search for banned weapons, had been good.

Factfile

The State Department fact sheet, issued after US Secretary of State Colin Powell accused Iraq of deception, said the declaration fell short on the following counts:

¤ It does not account for at least 2,160 kg of biological growth media identified by UNSCOM, the UN inspection commission which worked in Iraq until 1998.

The fact sheet said this growth media could have produced 26,000 litres of anthrax, three times the amount Iraq declared, 1,200 litres of botulinum toxin and 5,500 litres of clostridium perfrigens, 16 times the amount Iraq declared.

But the fact sheet did not say the United States had evidence Iraq ever used the growth media in this way.

¤ Iraq has disclosed manufacturing new fuels suited only to a class of missile to which it does not admit.

¤ The United States does not believe that a "larger diameter missile" which Iraq has flight-tested falls within the range limit of 150 km set by the United Nations.

¤ The declaration ignores alleged Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Niger.

¤ It does not provide additional and credible information about production of the nerve agent VX, as UNSCOM and international inspectors requested in 1999.

¤ It does not provide credible evidence that 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas and 400 aerial bombs capable of delivering biological weapons had been lost or destroyed.

¤ It does not adequately account for hundreds, possibly thousands, of tons of chemical precursors.

¤ It does not adequately account for nearly 30,000 empty munitions that could be filled with chemical agents.

¤ Iraq denies any connection between programmes to make unmanned aerial vehicles and chemical or biological agent dispersal. But Iraq admitted in 1995 that a MIG-21 remote-piloted vehicle tested in 1991 was to carry a biological weapon spray system.

¤ The declaration provides no information about Iraq's mobile biological weapon agent facilities. Instead it insists that these are "refrigeration vehicles and food testing laboratories."

"None of these holes and gaps in Iraq's declaration are mere accidents, editing oversights or technical mistakes: they are material omissions," the fact sheet said.