Saddam given two weeks to name scientists Daily Telegraph
December 12, 2002
By Julian Coman in Washington and David Blair in BaghdadHans Blix, the United Nations chief weapons inspector, has bowed to intense pressure from the United States and given Saddam Hussein two weeks to provide the names and location of Iraqi scientists linked to his arms programmes.
A letter sent by Mr Blix to the Iraqi presidential adviser, Amir al-Saadi, insists that Iraq "provide the names of personnel" involved in weapons programmes by the end of the month.
The ultimatum is the first step towards a likely showdown between Saddam and the UN. Inspectors have the right under last month's UN resolution on Iraq to fly scientists and their families out of the country for interview. Baghdad is widely expected to resist such a move, which would place it in material breach of the resolution.
The new deadline follows intense lobbying of Mr Blix by Washington, which is determined to head off a lengthy and inconclusive inspections process.
Mr Blix recently questioned the feasibility of taking scientists out of Iraq, insisting that weapons inspectors were not "serving as a defection agency".
Pentagon officials have insisted, however, that Washington is determined to test Saddam's willingness to comply fully with the toughest clauses of the UN resolution.
Fears of protracted investigation mounted yesterday when Mohammed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that the UN would need "a few months" to reach a conclusion on the 12,000-page Iraqi declaration on its weapons programme.
Washington, which would prefer any military action against Iraq to take place before the spring, intends to reach an assessment of Saddam's willingness to disarm in a far shorter time. On Thursday, a senior administration official pressed Mr Blix to begin interviews with scientists by early next month at the latest, preferably outside Iraq.
Baghdad is understood to have moved leading biological and chemical weapons scientists outside Iraq in recent weeks to put them beyond the inspectors' reach. Others are believed to have been switched to "safe" jobs with no involvement in Iraq's nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programmes.
Several of the likely interviewees trained in Britain, including Gen Amer al-Saadi, Saddam Hussein's chief weapons adviser.
Dr Rihab Taha, identified in the British Government dossier published earlier this year as a central figure in Iraq's biological weapons programme and nicknamed "Dr Germ", trained at the University of East Anglia.
She is married to Gen Amer Rashid, a former engineering student at Birmingham University who oversaw the production of Saddam's illegal arsenal.
Senior figures in the Bush administration, such as Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, and Vice-President Dick Cheney, believe that without inside information from Iraqi scientists, inspectors are unlikely to stumble across significant evidence.
"The hawks inside the administration are forcing the pace," said a former national security adviser who still has close links to the administration.
"They weren't too happy about getting involved in inspections. Now they're making sure we're not inspecting all the way to next summer."
Washington has poured scorn on the weapons declaration that Iraq handed over to UN officials last week, although it has yet to complete its examination of the report. President George W. Bush is expected to respond next week to Iraq's declaration.
Britain is also expected to give its "preliminary" assessment within the next few days after its experts have finished the dissection of the document. They are understood to share the view of their American counterparts that there was little new material in the declaration.
Meanwhile, UN inspectors returned to an infectious diseases centre yesterday to examine rooms they were locked out of a day before. A second team re-examined an Iraqi nuclear centre where almost two tons of low-grade enriched uranium are stored.
Additional reporting by David Wastell