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Excerpts from inspectors' reports to U.N.
(CNN) -- The following are excerpts from Monday's reports to the U.N. Security Council by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Hans BlixOverview "Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed the inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace. "It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of catch as catch can. Rather, it is a process of verification for the purpose of building confidence." On Iraqi cooperation "Cooperation might be said to relate to both substance and process. It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access. "A similar decision is indispensable to provide cooperation on substance in order to bring the disarmament task to completion through the peaceful process of inspection and to bring the monitoring task on a firm course." On Iraq's 12,000-page report "Regrettably, the 12,000-page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that will eliminate the questions or reduce their number." On chemical bombs "The [Iraqi weapons report] document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi air force between 1983 and 1998, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for." On chemical rockets "The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousand of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for. The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate." On biological weapons "There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared and that at least some of this was retained over the declared destruction date. It might still exist. "Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC [U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission] supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was indeed destroyed in 1991. "As I reported to the council on the 19th of December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kilos, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. "In the letter of 24th of January this year to the president of the Security Council, Iraq's foreign minister stated that, I quote, 'All imported quantities of growth media were declared.' This is not evident. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 liters of concentrated anthrax." On missiles "There remain significant questions as to whether Iraq retained Scud-type missiles after the Gulf War. Iraq declared the consumption of a number of Scud missiles as targets in the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense system during the 1980s, yet no technical information has been produced about that program or data on the consumption of the missiles." On recently discovered documents "The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the lacing enrichment of uranium, support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side, which claims that research staff sometimes may bring papers from their workplaces. "On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes." On scientist interviews "Today, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have been that the individual would only speak at Iraq's Monitoring Directorate or at any rate in the presence of an Iraq official. "This could be due to a wish on the part of the invited to have evidence that they have not said anything that the authorities did not wish them to say. At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews in private, that is to say alone with us. Despite this, the pattern has not changed. "However, we hope that with further encouragement from the authorities, knowledgeable individuals will accept private interviews in Baghdad or abroad." Mohamed ElBaradeiOn Iraqi weapons report
"The Iraqi declaration was consistent with our existing understanding of Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear program. However, it did not provide any new information relevant to certain questions that have been outstanding since 1998, in particular, regarding Iraq progress prior to 1991 related to weapons design and centrifuge development. "While these questions do not constitute unresolved disarmament issues, they nevertheless need further clarification." On reports of attempted Iraqi procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes "From our analysis to date, it appears that the aluminum tubes would be consistent with the purpose stated by Iraq and unless modified would not be suitable for manufacture centrifuges. However, we are still investigating this issue. "It is clear, however, that the attempt to acquire such tubes is prohibited under Security Council Resolution 687." On reports of Iraqi efforts to import uranium "The Iraqi authorities have denied any such attempts. The IAEA will continue to pursue this issue. At this stage, however, we do not have enough information, and we would appreciate receiving more." On Iraqi cooperation "The international community will not be satisfied when questions remain open with regard to Iraq weapons of mass destruction. The world is asking for a high level of assurance that Iraq is completely free from all such weapons and is already impatient to receive it. "The sooner such assurance can be provided by the inspecting organizations, the sooner the prospects of a peaceful resolution will translate into a plausible reality." On more time for inspectors "Mr. President, to conclude, we have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapon program since the elimination of the program in the 1990s. However, our work is steadily progressing and should be allowed to run its natural course. With our verification system now in place, barring exceptional circumstances and provided there is sustained, proactive cooperation by Iraq, we should be able within the next few months to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapon program. "These few months, in my view, would be a valuable investment in peace because they could help us avoid a war. We trust that we will continue to have your support as we make every effort to verify Iraq's nuclear disarmament through peaceful means and to demonstrate that the inspection process can and does work as a central feature of the international nuclear arms control regime."
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