Bush, “Iraq, Not Co-operative with Weapons Inspections”

U.N. weapons inspectors started inspecting Iraqi president’s palace on 2nd 09:00A.M (local time), which is the 6th day, however, U.S president George.W.Bush complained that co-operation of Iraq is not sufficient.

Inspectors started inspecting President Saddam Hussein’s palace from palace Alsojud, which is located in Kark, Baghdad. Iraq didn’t allow inspection of President’s Palace in 1998 and inspectors were asked to leave due to it.

▽ Threat of Bush; President Bush warned if Iraq doesn`t submit perfect list of WMD and ballistic missiles until 8th, which is the last day for submission, it would face ‘serious results’, saying, “Attitude of Iraq is not ‘encouraging’ so far. ” This was the first mention which President Bush made on the attitude of Iraq since weapons inspection started.

President Bush said, at the speech in U.S defense ministry, “U.S will judge only one thing during inspection.” and added “We will see if Hussein co-operates fully, changing his attitude of 11 years, however he is not encouraging so far.”

He emphasized related to ‘serous result’, “It would be prelude of enlarged war.” and added “U.S will confront increasing risk before the choice becomes limited.”

On this, Iraqi ambassador in U.N, Mohammad Alduri, mentioned, “Iraq is co-operating fully.” And added “When inspection gets over, only the lie that the U.S made to wage a war will be revealed.”

With President Bush’s statement on Iraq, 600 U.S soldiers who are in the Middle East will carry out mimic battle exercises called ‘internal look’ at Qatar from next week.

▽ Hide-and-seek for seeking weapons; Inspectors stated that some facilities which U.S. installed in 1998 at a missile factory disappeared. In missile factory of Alwaziriya, north of Baghdad, there were some devices like supervisory camera of UNSCOM till 1998.

Alwaziriya factory used to develop 650km missile and has been a targeted for inspection. However, chief of factory, Iraqi general, Mohammad Sale Mohammad, said, “ we manufacture missiles targeting less than 150 kms that U.N. allowed. ”

On the other hand, U.S. CNN reported, “Iraq admitted that it tried to get aluminum tube 6 times, which is the core component for manufacturing nuclear weapon.” Ary Flisher, White House spokesperson, attacked, saying, “It shows that Iraq tried to manufacture nuclear weapons as U.S has raised the suspicion.”

Iraq insisted on this, “It was for manufacturing conventional missiles, however, we couldn’t import it.” However, trying importing is also against the rules of U.N that regulated not to import materials which is used for manufacturing weapons, therefore, it may cause criticism.

Seung-Jin Kim sarafina@donga.com