Word: samouds
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...which to disarm itself. Nor were the Iraqis resisting the inspectors: on March 8, two weeks before the war began, Blix reported to the Security Council that the Iraqi regime had “started the process of destruction,” of its conventional Al Samoud missiles. Blix also noted the “significant Iraqi effort underway to clarify a major source of uncertainty as to the quantities of biological and chemical weapons which were unilaterally destroyed in 1991,” and reported that inspectors “faced relatively few difficulties” in accessing potential...
...Iraq took a hammering last Friday, after the U.N.'s chief weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, told the Security Council that Baghdad is now taking "pro-active" steps to cooperate with the inspectors' requests, demonstrated most dramatically by Iraq's destruction last week of 40 banned al-Samoud missiles. "We are not watching the breaking of toothpicks," Blix said. ElBaradei disputed the veracity of Western intelligence reports that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. Secretary of State Colin Powell could barely contain his exasperation with the inspectors' upbeat assessments. Privately, his aides trashed them--"Pathetically unaggressive, amateurish...
...nuclear programs. Inspectors have made clear to the Council that they have investigated a number of U.S. and British allegations and intelligence tips, which came to naught. The inspectors are not saying Iraq has disarmed, and they're setting specific disarmament targets such as the destruction of the al-Samoud 2 missiles whose range exceeds UN limits. But the inspections have done little to support the U.S. characterization of Saddam as a growing or imminent threat to Western and Arab security. For many the reluctant Council members, a war becomes permissible only if the threat posed by the regime...
...outside pressure, including U.S. forces," Blix said. He reminded his listeners that neither France nor the European Union as a whole had ruled out the use of military action to compel disarmament. And when questioned as to whether he would ask the Iraqis to dismantle or destroy their al-Samoud missiles, whose range, his experts had determined, breached permissible limits, Blix replied, "Of course." The next day, in a detailed letter, he instructed Baghdad to start the process of destroying those missiles--together with ancillary equipment and related software--by March...
...looks like war is near. What's less clear: whether a U.S.-led attack on Iraq will be authorized by the United Nations. Iraq's decision to comply with the UN inspectors' demand to destroy its al-Samoud 2 missiles has strengthened the resolve of those at the Security Council arguing that inspections be given more time. The U.S., Britain and Spain are lobbying for a resolution proclaiming Iraq in "material breach" of Resolution 1441, opening the way to war. But France, Germany, Russia and China are backing a counter proposal to give inspectors more time to pursue peaceful disarmament...