Blix: Iraq has not accepted demand to disarm

Iraq has not genuinely accepted a UN resolution demanding that it disarm and while Baghdad is co-operating on access, it needs to do more on substance, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council today.

“Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it,” Blix said at the beginning of a crucial assessment on 60 days of weapons inspections.

Blix, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said it was not enough for the Iraqis to “open doors.”

“It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide co-operation on process, notably access," he said.

"A similar decision is indispensable to provide co-operation on substance in order to bring the disarmament task to completion, through the peaceful process of inspection, and to bring the monitoring task on a firm course.”

Touching on the question of how much time inspectors need, Blix said he shared “the sense of urgency” to achieve disarmament within “a reasonable period of time.”

Blix said three questions remain unanswered:

* How much illicit weapons material might remain undeclared and intact from before the Gulf War in 1991 and possible thereafter?

*What, if anything, was illegally procured or produced?

* How the world can prevent any weapons of mass destruction from being produced or procured in the future?