Abdul Meguid: Butler exceeded his authority in Iraq
Iraq-Regional-UN, Politics, 8/10/1998

Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdul Meguid made a phone call to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that tackled the developments in the latest Iraqi standoff with UNSCOM and finding a way of easing the Iraqi people's sufferings.

Abdul Meguid said that he is making communications on the regional and international levels to close the Gulf file, gain back full Arab solidarity, resolve the issue of captives (Kuwait - Iraq prisoners of war) who have been held since the Gulf War and distribution of monetary compensation.

Abdul Meguid described UNSCOM chief Richard Butler as having exceeded the mission for which he is authorized.

Iraq in its explanation of its suspension to the UN Security Council said last week that the work of the UN special commission has become "tendentious and political and had nothing to do with disarmament," adding that Richard Butler has refused Iraq's requests to review what has been accomplished so far by Iraq in terms of compliance, with Butler insisting on focusing on issues that are "non-essential."

Iraq further said that during the July 98 meeting to examine the biological file, Butler raised questions "which bore no relation to the fundamental questions concerning disarmament," adding "little attention was paid to the experts, who were present to give a scientific and technical evaluation of what Iraq had produced in terms of biological weapons and the effectiveness of such weapons in the event that the material balance of some of them showed a slight deficit."

Previously, Butler had refused to acknowledge the progress made by Iraq, but in his latest report, he did acknowledge progress in some areas. Butler said in his report that, "Considerable progress had been achieved in the development of a rough material balance of components for engine production." But Butler added that "in order to be able to state confidently that all proscribed weapons produced or acquired by Iraq have been destroyed, the Commission needed to be able to verify relevant elements of Iraq's declarations. In this context, the unilateral destruction activities, as declared by Iraq, do not match, in all cases, the evidence available to the commission. This applies to special warheads and some elements of indigenous production."

Butler's report added that, "A promising effort to clarify some of the problems related to Iraq's actions in 1991 to hide proscribed warheads was terminated by the Iraqi side, through refusal to discuss the issue further, just prior to the Executive Chairman's visit."

Butler has claimed that Iraqi recent action of suspending cooperation indicates that Iraq has something to hide with regard to its biological program, a claim that is unsubstantiated by any evidence presented in his report to the UN Security Council.

Butler stated in his report that no verification can be made on the biological weapons programs accusing the Iraqis of lack of full disclosure while acknowledging the Iraqi reply that the facility of "Al-Hakam" was destroyed by the special commission itself.

Replying to the Iraqi allegation that all that Butler is doing with his irrelevant and minor concerns that he keeps bringing up just to keep the sanctions on Iraq, Butler said, "Iraq had no right to determine what was major and what was minor," adding that the Security Council had always intended that Iraq declare all its proscribed weapons and programs, so that the Commission could verify them and then supervise their disposal. All this was supposed to take 90 days," said the Butler report, adding that from the beginning, Iraq had made a fundamental decision not to comply with the Council's requirements.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told the UN Security Council in his letter on August 5 after this latest suspension of cooperation with the UN team that the Iraqi leadership had warned on May 1 that its patience is limited, as announced by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein recently. All these factors along with the fact that "the United States of America and the United Kingdom have political objectives which are hostile to Iraq and are unrelated to the Security Council resolutions, the domination by these countries of the work of the Special Commission raises a fundamental questions," Aziz said.

But the UN Security Council did not approve of the Iraqi request to change the composition or the headquarters of the Special Commission to Geneva, and further called the Iraqi suspension of cooperation with the UN special team "unacceptable." However, the Security Council did agree to consider a proposal by UN Secretary General Annan to "more closely engage Iraq" regarding its concerns.

Arab League Secretary-General Abdul Meguid said that Butler's excesses cannot be tolerated, adding that the procedures taken by Iraq come within implementing its commitments according to Security Council resolutions

Previous Stories:
  Iraq: We have no more patience with the sanctions   (8/6/1998)
  Iraq to cut-off Butler talks   (8/5/1998)
  Butler ends Iraqi visit   (8/4/1998)

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