UN and Iraqi negotiators agreed Tuesday on the details of the impending weapons inspections. The US announced that, as predicted by Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday, the inspections are not sufficient and that the US-Britain resolution in the Security Council will change the terms of the inspections. Iraq immediately announced that it will not cooperate with any new changes to the inspection regime. US objections notwithstanding, the inspections could begin in two weeks.
The most specific details on the agreement come from the Washington Post and the LA Times:
- Unrestricted access to any site for surprise inspections, “presidential” sites still require appointments
- No limit on size of inspection team, and no requirement to have an Iraqi minister on-site for inspections in “sensitive areas.” Both conditions were sources of manufactured delays in the past
- Inspection aircraft may now use Saddam Hussein airport, instead of another 50 miles away
- Iraq will resume reporting “dual-use” technology, which it stopped since the 1998 bombing
WaPo was also alone in mentioning the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official who hosted the talks. This official pointed out that more weapons of mass destruction were destroyed under the previous inspection regime than during the entire Gulf War. He also reminded reporters that the IAEA was able to get full cooperation during nuclear inspections four years ago, and the IAEA was able to pronounce Iraq free of nuclear weapons programs in 1998.
The AP has US State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher saying that even though the US has more stringent demands in its new resolution, it had no objections to the weapons inspectors making arragements ahead of time. The AP also says that the four years of Iraqi information on weapons programs was given to the UNMOVIC team.
The LA Times also points out that an agreement between the UN and Iraq is exactly what Russia, China and France need to convince the Security Council that attacking Iraq is unnecessary.
Shame on the Boston Globe for describing the “presidential” locations as off-limits. The coverage leaves the distinct impression that the sites will not be available to inspectors. They seem to have picked this up from White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer:
”These are places that Saddam Hussein doesn’t even go to,” Fleischer told reporters yesterday. ”These are government facilities, government property, where who knows what is going on, and there’s a good reason Saddam Hussein does not want people to go there.”
a technology job is no excuse 