‘Serious problems’ with Iraqi weapons declaration

THERE are serious omissions and problems with Iraq’s weapons declaration, George W Bush’s spokesman said yesterday as the president met his foreign policy team to consider his next step.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer offered the first public condemnation of the declaration as Mr Bush himself seemed set on a course that would probably put off potential military conflict for several weeks.

At issue is a 12,000-page weapons declaration required under UN disarmament resolution, and President Saddam Hussein’s contention that he has no weapons of mass destruction. “We have learned much about the declaration, although the review is not complete,” Mr Fleischer said.

“The president is concerned about omissions in the declaration and about the problems in the declaration.”

He added: “The United States will continue to push the very deliberate approach in dealing with the issue and the potential consequences.”

Even as Mr Fleischer spoke, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw weighed in with a similar assessment, calling the assertion that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction an “obvious falsehood.”

Among the “obvious omissions” Mr Straw cited was Saddam’s failure to account for the weapons of mass destruction which were listed in the final report of the inspectors who left his country in 1998. Mr Straw said those inspectors had accused Saddam of possessing nerve agents and other “chemical precursors” and munitions.

However, the UN’s nuclear chief will tell the Security Council that Iraq is not in material breach of the latest resolution, but that further inspections are needed to verify Saddam Hussein’s claims that he has no weapons of mass destruction.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency leading the hunt for nuclear weaponry in Iraq, will make a case for more inspections when he briefs the council at UN headquarters in New York today.

“There’s nothing new in what we’ve seen. It’s largely what we’ve seen before,” an IAEA official said.

“That’s not a value judgment on the document” that Baghdad submitted to the United Nations earlier this month, the official said.

“It’s just saying we’ve got to get out there and verify it.”

Senior Bush administration officials said the president was not expected to declare Iraq in “material breach” of a UN resolution arms resolution, which would provide him what considers legal justification for war.

Instead, advisers expect Mr Bush to chart a slightly more patient course that would push the prospects for military action several weeks into the new year while he builds a public case against Iraq.

Mr Bush is expected to publicly make his case against the declaration tomorrow, probably during a speech in Washington, White House officials said.