War with Iraq ‘will be a human calamity’

WAR with Iraq, with biological or chemical agents possibly unleashed, will be a human calamity, the UN refugee chief has warned — exactly a month before a final arms inspectors’ report might trigger a conflict.

"Believe me, it will be a disaster from a humanitarian perspective," Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said.

He raised the spectre that bacteriological or chemical weapons for evidence of which UN inspectors are currently scouring Iraq could be used in a conflict.

He urged the international community to prevent war, and not to fight unless Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could not be disarmed if he still has such weapons, which Saddam denies.

"Only, only, when Saddam Hussein does not comply with both the inspections and the consequences of the inspections ... then there can be reason for a military intervention," said Lubbers.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and a UN mission toured the Modern Company for Brewery and other sites yesterday as the mission to scour Iraq for traces of atomic, biological or chemical weapons entered its second month.

Iraq said on Thursday the experts had found no evidence of banned weapons.

The inspectors are now starting to interview scientists who worked on now abandoned weapons programmes.

The 100-plus inspectors whose predecessors left the country in 1998 after Baghdad halted co-operation are due to issue their next report on January 9 and a final one on January 27, with speculation growing this could spark war.

World oil prices raced higher again yesterday as a Venezuelan strike lingered, with fears of a US attack on Iraq in the New Year also helping sustain crude prices, now $10 a barrel higher than at the start of 2002.