Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 6, 1995 TAG: 9507060087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS LENGTH: Medium
The chairman, Rolf Ekeus, told the council that the Iraqis admitted in a meeting Saturday in Baghdad that they had produced ``large quantities'' of two deadly biological agents, the bacteria that cause botulism and anthrax. Iraqis maintain that the toxic agents were later destroyed.
The admission, which followed four years of denials that Iraq had a secret biological weapons program, will set back by a significant amount of time any hope Iraq may have of an early lifting of sanctions prohibiting the sale of oil.
The sanctions, which first went into effect after the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, were scheduled for a periodic review on July 11. As part of a cease-fire agreement in April 1991, after the war, Iraq agreed to destroy or account for all its weapons of mass destruction in return for a lifting of the oil embargo.
``It is important that Iraq has finally admitted what it was denying only a week ago: that it had an offensive biological weapons program,'' Madeleine Albright, the U.S. representative, said after the letter was circulated in the Security Council on Wednesday. ``This admission demonstrates again that the council can get results when it is firm and consistent in demanding Iraqi compliance.''
The Iraqis, who claimed to have destroyed the biological weapons they produced by October 1990, as Desert Storm approached, will have a month to give the U.N. Special Commission, headed by Ekeus, a Swedish diplomat, full details of the program from start to finish.
Diplomats and officials remain skeptical of assertions that all the toxic agents were destroyed.
When the Iraqi report is received, a process of verification will begin. U.N. officials could not guess Wednesday how long that might take.
For several years, the inspection commission has played a cat-and-mouse-game with Iraq, forcing admissions on nuclear, missile, chemical and now biological weapons by amassing evidence independently and confronting the Iraqis with it.
In April, the commission announced that 17 tons of an imported growth medium that could be used to produce biological agents were unaccounted for, and that the quantities imported were far too large for medicinal or pharmaceutical use.
Ekeus told the council that Iraqi officials told him Saturday in an oral briefing that research on germ warfare began in 1985 at Muthanna, where Iraq also produced chemical weapons.
Research was moved to Salman Pak in 1986 and, in mid-1988, it was decided to begin production of the two agents - Clostridium botulinum and Bacillus anthracis - at Al Hakam.
U.N. officials say that Iraq rigorously rejected suspicions that biological weapons were being produced, and even took reporters to Al Hakam to demonstrate their innocence.
by CNB