|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rice, Blix meet on Iraq inspectionsSource: U.S. security adviser urges focus on timetable
NEW YORK (CNN) -- National security adviser Condoleezza Rice met with U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Tuesday to try to persuade him to interview Iraqi scientists outside the country. Earlier, Blix had urged the United States and Britain to provide "actionable evidence" to help his team find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The exchange came on a day when President Bush made clear that he was losing patience with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Bush told reporters the burden of proof is on Iraq -- not the inspectors -- to produce any weapons of mass destruction it might have. "The world came together, and we have given him one last chance to disarm," Bush said. "So far I haven't seen any evidence that he is disarming. Time is running out on Saddam Hussein -- he must disarm. I'm sick and tired of games and deception." Rice and Blix met at the U.S. mission to the United Nations for more than an hour. One diplomat said much of the discussion centered on getting Blix to keep his focus on the inspection timetable set out in U.N. Resolution 1441. That timetable includes a weapons inspector report to the U.N. Security Council on January 27. Although the United States is trying to emphasize that date, other nations are not. Notably, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced this week that he does not regard that report as a deadline that could trigger a conflict. Blix acknowledged that January 27 is an "important day," but he made clear that it was not a deadline for the inspection process to be completed. Also Tuesday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he favored holding a second Security Council vote on Iraq before any military action is taken. (Full story) "It is likely that the European partners and also others will work towards a second decision, and I also think that is sensible," Schroeder told reporters. Germany is due to assume temporary chairmanship of the Security Council in February. Blix's call for evidence from Washington and London came after Blair warned it would be "absolutely disastrous" for world security if Saddam were not stripped of weapons of mass destruction. (Full story) Despite growing unrest in his own party at the prospect of war, Blair made it clear that Britain would join the U.S. in disarming Iraq if Baghdad did not give up its weapons voluntarily -- even if no other nation joined in. The United States and United Kingdom would go it alone, he said, warning that opponents of military action within the United Nations must not be allowed to impose an "unreasonable or unilateral block" on the use of force. Blix said inspectors had gotten "fairly good co-operation" from U.S., British and other sources of intelligence. "But we need what my friend Mohamed ElBaradei [director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency] called 'actionable evidence,'" he said. "That is, indications of where we can go, places we can inspect." If the council takes no action January 27, Blix told Associated Press television, inspectors would go ahead with plans to identify by late March the key disarmament tasks that Iraq must fulfill before sanctions imposed after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990 can be suspended. Blix and ElBaradei said that though Iraq has provided access to inspection sites, it has not provided the information inspectors need to verify its claim that it has no banned weapons and long-range missiles to deliver them. They reiterated that Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration contained no new evidence. -- CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash and U.N. correspondent Richard Roth contributed to this report. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
