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Sources: Blix to ask Iraq to destroy missiles
From Ronni Berke
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix is expected to call on Iraq to destroy its al-Samoud 2 missiles, diplomats and U.N. sources said Wednesday. Weapons experts have determined the missiles violate the range limit imposed by U.N. Security Council resolutions. The missiles would have to be destroyed by the Iraqis under the supervision of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), a U.N. source said. Diplomats said Blix is likely to send a letter either late Wednesday or early Thursday. A U.S. official said the United States will closely monitor the content of that letter and how Iraq complies. Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, continued to deny that the missiles are in violation of U.N. resolutions, which prohibit Iraq from having a missile that can go farther than 150 km (93 miles). A U.N. commissioned report found the missiles traveled about 18 miles [30 kilometers] farther during testing, which Iraq attributed to the missiles' lack of a guidance system. Aldouri said Wednesday he had not yet seen any letter from Blix on the missiles. "These missiles in any case cannot exceed more than 150 kilometers, so we are within the resolution of the Security Council," Aldouri said. The six missile experts -- from France, Germany, Britain, the United States, China and Ukraine -- were commissioned by Blix to examine the range of two types of missiles: the al-Samoud 2 and the al-Fatah. A diplomatic source said Blix brought in the experts to give a "third voice" on the issue of a possible Iraqi arms violation. The experts' report found that Iraq's al-Samoud 2 "went beyond" that 150-kilometer range, and the al-Fatah needed further study, diplomats said. UNMOVIC had previously said 13 out of 40 recent tests of the al-Samoud 2 missile went beyond the permitted range. UNMOVIC told Iraq to stop testing the two missile systems until the U.N. analysis was completed.
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