Only 300 Pages of Iraqi Dossier Are New

The United States and its allies have come to a tentative conclusion, after reviewing the dossier of Iraq, that many facts were omitted in the report. Although the international community has not agreed on whether or not these omissions constitute a material breach of such importance as to justify a war against Iraq, US and its allies are still preparing themselves for a possible war.

▽Big loophole enough for passage of tank = The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing Bush administration officials, that the United States and the U.N. have temporarily concluded that the dossier Iraq has submitted was almost identical with the one it submitted to the U.N. weapons inspection team in 1998.

One US official said that the loophole was big enough for a tank to go through, reported the paper. The official pointed out the Iraq`s report does not contain any information on some 550 napalms and 150 biochemical bombs that were not verified in the 1998 inspection; or on Iraqis efforts for the past years to buy uranium in Africa.

One British official defined the Iraqi report as haphazard and said, "The Iraq`s report did not mention the latest list of weapons of mass destruction. But our intelligence agency had already found them out and published reports on them in September," reported The Times.

IAEA`s Secretary General said on Dec. 13th that the Iraqis dossier contains 2,400 pages regarding its nuclear weapons program, but only 300 pages of them are new.

In response, the Bush administration has defined the omission as a material breach. But it is not determined whether or not the omission would serve as a justification for the military action against Iraq, analyzed The New York Times.

In the meanwhile, Hans Blix, the head of the U.N. Weapons Inspection Team, demanded Iraq on Saturday to hand over to the U.N. the list of scientists who have participated in Iraq`s weapons program. IAEA is considering investigating the scientists outside Iraqi territory.

▽War looming over = Britain will deploy an aircraft-carrier to the Gulp area as early as next month in preparation for a war against Iraq, reported Sunday Telegraph yesterday. This will be the first British participation in the war on Iraq. The paper also reported that the British government would announce within 2 weeks its decision to send in 20,000 ground troops.

A Russian paper, citing Russian government officials, reported on December 13 that Iraq`s recent termination of contracts with Russian oil companies has eliminated any reason for Russia`s opposition to a war on Iraq.

In the meanwhile, the United States has requested that the German government should join its navy as part of the NATO in the military operation against Iraq, reported a German newspaper on December 14.

In response to these moves, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister warned on December 14, "The US war against us will soon take on the whole Arabic world," and requested the support and preparation of Arabic countries.

Ki-Tae Kwon kkt@donga.com