If the vehicle wasn't banned, why did the Iraqis try dismantling it before
the inspectors arrived? Is this "full cooperation"?
JDG
Iraq Drone Scrapped After U.N. Inspection
Chemical-Delivery Aircraft Not Divulged
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 11, 2003; Page A16
Iraq tried to dismantle an undeclared new drone aircraft last week after it
was discovered by inspectors from the United Nations, according to U.N. and
U.S. officials.
Inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
(UNMOVIC) first discovered the remote piloted vehicle, or RPV, at the
Samarra East flight-test facility north of Baghdad in mid-February,
officials said. With a wingspan of almost 25 feet, the RPV could have a
range far in excess of the 150 kilometers (93 miles) allowed by U.N.
regulations.
The inspectors raised questions about the drone last Tuesday when they
visited the Ibn Fernas Center in northern Baghdad, where RPVs and other
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are developed and produced. When they
returned to the flight-test site the next day for another look at the large
drone, they found two such RPVs -- and found the Iraqis dismantling one of
them, as well as two smaller RPVs, according to a senior administration
official. "They apparently did not expect the inspectors," the official said.
Under the November U.N. resolution, Iraq was required to declare UAV and
RPV aircraft because Baghdad had experimented with them in the 1980s and
1990s as delivery vehicles for chemical or biological agents. The RPV being
dismantled had been fabricated from the fuel tank of one of those vehicles,
an L-29 Czech-made small airplane. Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons
inspector, reported Friday to the Security Council that his inspectors had
raised questions with Iraq about its unmanned aircraft. But U.S. officials
yesterday took public issue with his failure to disclose the problem
encountered last week, calling it an example of Iraq's refusal to cooperate
and disarm.
In a closed Security Council meeting yesterday, Blix defended his handling
of the issue, saying he does not report on all new findings by inspectors.
Although the newly designed RPV should have been declared, he said, it was
not certain it would be proscribed since it still may be just a "prototype."
The first public indication of the new RPV came yesterday when UNMOVIC put
on its Web site the 173-page document Blix gave privately to Security
Council members last Friday, which was entitled "Unresolved Disarmament
Issues, Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programs."
In that document, Blix outlined dozens of other unresolved issues involving
Iraq's weapons, and possible ways the Baghdad government could solve
outstanding issues.
Iraq considered RPVs as potential delivery vehicles for biological warfare
agents as early as 1988, but the idea was rejected at the time because it
was believed the drones could not carry enough of the agent to be
effective. Hussein Kamal, the son-in-law of Saddam Hussein who defected
from Baghdad in 1995, told U.N. inspectors and U.S. interrogators that he
had looked at long-range RPVs as a way to slowly distribute chemical or
biological agents on Israel.
In its Dec. 7 declaration to the U.N. of its weapons of mass destruction,
Iraq reported it had developed two RPVs that could fly only up to an hour.
More recently, it discovered another RPV that was not declared with a
25-foot wingspan, which inspectors were told had been test-flown.
In its recent document, UNMOVIC said Iraq should provide "credible
evidence" for the purposes of the RPVs. That includes names of the Iraqis
who worked on them and foreign suppliers involved in the project, along
with details of importation of the engines, guidance systems and airframes.
That information, the document says, could assist in determining whether
Iraq plans to make the RPVs "capable of carrying chemical or biological
agents."
Iraq declared in its December statement that it had done test work on a
drop tank -- an external fuel tank -- that could be used for spraying
chemical or biological agents in early 1990 and 1991. In its declarations
to previous U.N. inspectors, Baghdad asserted it destroyed the tanks after
the Persian Gulf War, stating they were never deployed or used.
In 1998, Iraq admitted to the previous U.N. inspectors it earlier had
attempted to use a drop tank with a remotely piloted fighter plane, either
a Russian-made MIG or a French Mirage. UNMOVIC in its new report said
spraying devices modified for chemical weapons "may still exist in Iraq,"
along with a large number of drop tanks. In addition, Iraq has many
agricultural aircraft spray systems identical to those modified in the
1990s to dispense biological agents.
UNMOVIC is calling upon Iraq to provide documentation on spray devices for
use with the RPVs, along with all procurement records for such devices.
During yesterday's closed council session, John D. Negroponte, the U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, called the new-design drone a "linear
development" in Baghdad's pursuit of chemical and biological weapons, and a
potential "serious violation" of the U.N. resolution.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
