U.N.: Satellite shows Iraq stripped sites
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-05 12:59

Satellite imagery has revealed that approximately 90 sites in Iraq subject to U.N. inspection and monitoring have been stripped of equipment or razed, the chief U.N. weapons inspector said in a report Friday.

Demetrius Perricos said experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which he leads, also noted repairs and new construction at 10 sites.

The commission, known as UNMOVIC, previously reported the looting and razing of sites that contained equipment and materials that were subject to inspection because of their potential for use in chemical or biological weapons or the long-range missiles to deliver them. Friday's report to the U.N. Security Council was the first to provide information on the extent of the disappearance and destruction.

While the U.S.-led military is in Iraq and the chief U.S. arms hunter Charles Duelfer found no evidence of weapons programs, the insecurity in the country — and the disappearance of equipment and the reappearance of some pieces in scrapyards in Jordan and the Netherlands — has raised concerns.

U.N. inspectors checked 411 sites in the months before they left Iraq ahead of the U.S.-led war in March 2003. The U.S. government has barred the inspectors from returning, but UNMOVIC experts have acquired and analyzed post-war satellite imagery of 353 sites, "including those considered the most important," the report said.

Experts determined that 70 of the sites sustained bomb damage, the commission said, and about 90 of the 353 sites with sensitive equipment and materials were stripped or razed.

Perricos also referred to Duelfer's Oct. 6 report, which said his Iraq Survey Group found no weapons of mass destruction, discrediting US President Bush's stated rationale for invading Iraq.

Duelfer had also expressed concern about biological material that could be used in weapons and was unaccounted for — an issue that Perricos addressed again.

Perricos noted in Friday's report that the Iraqis had handed over 90 unopened vials of biological agents to U.N. weapons inspectors, but declared that 13 vials had been used, some in its biological weapons program.

Both Duelfer and Perricos raised the issue of what happened to residue in the used vials, which can be used to make more biological material. Perricos recommended addressing the issue by monitoring for "any possible future activity associated with biological weapon agent production or dsignificant related laboratory research work."

UNMOVIC's quarterly report, which will be discussed by the council on Tuesday, was released amid reports that the United States has quietly started low-key talks on ending the commission's work. Regardless of what happens to UNMOVIC, however, it is highly likely that the Security Council will insist that Iraq remain under some form of weapons monitoring.

American officials had said repeatedly that the United States would not formally discuss UNMOVIC's future until Duelfer finished his work.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov, a member of UNMOVIC's board of commissioners, has said Duelfer's report and the recent Iraqi elections are indications that it is time for the Security Council to discuss the future of U.N. inspections. Friday's report also noted that the commissioners recognized that UNMOVIC's mandate was an issue for the Security Council.

UNMOVIC is the outgrowth of a U.N. inspections process created after the 1991 Gulf War in which invading Iraqi forces were ousted from Kuwait. Its staff are considered the only weapons experts specifically trained in biological weapons and missile disarmament.

Separately, the report noted that the United Nations asked commission experts to create a set of enhanced images so that the Indian Ocean areas affected by the Dec. 26 tsunami could be mapped and analyzed.

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