Word: unscom
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...willing to go along with the suggestion of soothing Saddam's offended sense of sovereignty by sending Security Council diplomats along with the inspectors, but not if the diplomats get in the way or try to limit inspections anywhere and everywhere. "If a few diplomats were to accompany UNSCOM under certain conditions," says State Department spokesman James Rubin, "we don't have a problem with that." But the commission must have "operational control and access to sites it does not now have access...
...Lott might grudgingly admit, calling Mideast shots these days is no mean feat. Annan even got the unqualified support of Richard Butler, the UNSCOM chief who was recently hauled up before the secretary general for impolitic comments. The accord should help complete weapons inspections within the year, said Butler: "If [the Iraqis] follow what is in Kofi Annan's document and really cooperate with us... we are talking a relatively good, short time." So it'll all be over by Christmas...
...Naturally, the U.S. remains skeptical. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger had just three words: ?Wait and see.? But Annan, a wily diplomat who was Washington?s pick for the top job, is unlikely to disappoint. He knows a deal that ties UNSCOM?s hands is not worth coming back to New York with. His spokesman Fred Eckhard indicated that one of the major hurdles in previous Iraqi offers -- time limits on weapons inspections -- was not present in this deal. So how did Annan do it? The so-called ?white glove? solution, diplomats accompanying inspectors, is one possibility, but that...
...that a giant fermentation tank, which Iraq sought ostensibly to produce animal feed, may have been sold to a facility known to manufacture anthrax and botulinum. "The issue is not whether or not the sale took place, but how the equipment is being used," says Thompson. "That's for UNSCOM to determine." The latter, of course, will have to wait until the present standoff is resolved -- if, indeed, the fermentation tank still exists by then...
...tough talk? Analysts see three explanations: Yeltsin, whose administration brokered the November deal that brought UNSCOM inspectors back to Iraq, could be frustrated by his envoys' lack of success this time. Then there's the Duma, which adopted a strongly-worded pro-Iraq resolution Wednesday. Finally, the Russian president has form for such bluff and bluster. Remember his promise to slash Russia's nuclear forces by a third, later dismissed as "tiredness"? Still, in the slide toward crisis, this is one threat Clinton can't afford to ignore...