PRESS BRIEFING BY EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF SPECIAL COMMISSION

4 September 1996

Press Briefing

19960904 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

At a Headquarters press briefing today, Rolf Ekeus, Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission set up under Security Council resolution 687 (1991) in connection with the disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, said the Commission had grounded all its air operations -- both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters -- for the time being. However, the Commission tried to keep its monitoring of Iraq's industrial, chemical and biological facilities on a normal footing.

He said there were 104 Commission specialists in Baghdad. Of the number, one team of 16 persons had just completed their tasks and were eager to leave. There was another team of monitoring specialists in Bahrain waiting to go into Iraq.

Yesterday, he had briefed the Security Council on his recent mission to Iraq. Both the Council and the Iraqis had agreed that the Baghdad talks in late August had been valuable. He recalled the frictions the Commission had had with the Iraqi authorities over access to sites which the Commission's inspectors needed to inspect. The Iraqis had not lived up to their promises. He said on 22 June 1996, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz had signed a joint statement which said that Iraq would ensure that the Commission's inspectors would be granted immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to all sites they wished to inspect. In June, July and August, the inspectors had been blocked. They could not visit the sites. However, during his recent Baghdad visit, agreement had been reached on the modalities for carrying out the aerial operations.

He said the Commission inspectors were in a "potentially risky situation" now with the Iraqis stating they would no longer recognize the "no-fly zones" which had been instituted after the 1991 Gulf war. The inspectors now had to wait until the situation had become a bit more settled.

A correspondent asked how dangerous the Commission personnel's situation was and the prospects for their being pulled out. Mr. Ekeus said the personnel had not been working in areas where the bombardment had taken place. Their relations with the Iraqi authorities were very normal and professional. They had tried to carry out their monitoring in normal fashion. He understood that the staff were in good spirits. They had, however, been instructed not to move outside radio range of the Commission's Baghdad monitoring centre. Each of the personnel had been obliged to remain in constant radio contact so that they could be reached at every moment from the monitoring centre. Arrangements were in place for any possible emergencies, he added.

Was there a concern that the Commission's helicopters could be struck by a United States cruise missile? What did he think could happen? a correspondent asked. Mr. Ekeus said that, theoretically, the cruise missiles, which were directed at stationary targets could not hit the helicopters. The problem was that the situation was full of tension, with one side (the Iraqis) stating that it did not recognize the no-fly zone which had been extended to just outside Baghdad. That meant those manning the air defence systems were "very alert and trigger happy". There was, therefore, a potential risk that the Commission's helicopters could inadvertently be shot down. He said that, previously, the helicopters had overflown the no-fly-zone areas as the Commission was in touch with both the Iraqi and United States authorities. "But these are not ordinary times", Mr. Ekeus said.

He told a correspondent that the Commission was in daily contact with the Iraqi authorities with its well-defined mandate. Was he concerned that the Iraqis would try to "move things around" during the period the Commission's planes were grounded? the correspondent further asked. Mr. Ekeus said the Commission's concern was that Iraq's industrial set-up could be producing banned items. In the chemical area, it had production lines set up which should be capable of producing such "primitive items like pesticides", but given the time frame, those could be changed for the manufacture of chemical weapons agents. That was a theoretical possibility, he added. It was also why the inspectors had been watching the chemical production facilities on a regular basis with the support of camera systems. The Commission tried to keep its monitoring team working all the time. However, the search for sensitive items with international inspection teams from outside Iraq had to be kept on hold for the time being.

A correspondent observed that Iraq, in recent weeks, had taken a more assertive stance against the Western Powers and wondered what affect that could have on the Commission's long-term monitoring plans. Mr. Ekeus said that during his talks in Baghdad he had felt that the Iraqi authorities did not seem to have difficulties with some aspects of the Commission's work, except perhaps the search for concealed items. The Commission had tried to get them to cooperate on this as much as possible. In principle, "certain very serious problems" had been settled, such as problems relating to access, interviewing persons with sensitive information. Those areas of the Commission's work which should have started next week were being held back until the current situation improved.

Mr. Ekeus said that, during his visit, the Iraqis had also made considerable effort to settle their problems with the Commission. They had had a very high-level delegation which had included the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. Everyone had been intensively involved in the talks, he said, adding "my feeling is that there was a certain commitment on their side".

Ekeus Press Briefing - 3 - 4 September 1996

He told a correspondent that he had always expressed concern that all the capabilities, which Iraq had acquired over the years and which should be eliminated, had not been accounted for. They included missiles, mobile launch capabilities, chemical weapons production facilities, nerve agents and mustard gas. There were some discrepancies in Iraq's accounting of biological weapons and capabilities to produce the agents for such weapons. The Commission suspected that documents on banned items still existed. He suspected that Iraq had "an active policy of concealment" of prohibited items. The Commission's two tasks were to find and destroy those prohibited items and to ensure that no new ones were produced.

Responding to further questions, he said intrusive inspections required helicopter back-up to ensure that the Iraqis did not move any vehicle out of a facility being inspected. Helicopters were also needed for back-up of surprise inspection of facilities. Although the helicopters could, in theory, fly anywhere, he said the imposition of the new no-fly zone in southern Iraq could complicate the inspectors' work in the many important and suspect areas there.

A correspondent asked whether the Commission's personnel had inspected air defence sites as had been claimed by Russian intelligence reports. He said the matter had first been raised at his meeting with Security Council members yesterday. He said that about a year ago Iraq had been found to be modifying its surface-to-air system into surface-to-surface long-range capability. The Commission had then started "a very ambitious programme" to prevent such development. It had entailed identifying every surface-to-air missile and tagging them. They were a "huge number", of which two thirds had been tagged. The Commission ensured that the tagged missiles were intact and not used for the production of banned long-range missiles. It was a cooperative effort of both the Iraqi and Commission sides. "The missiles are tagged and every physical contact with them takes place at sites determined by the Iraqis", he stressed. The Commission's inspectors did not go to air defence sites.

He told a questioner that the Commission's 104 personnel in Baghdad included 41 Chilean helicopter pilots. There were also five or six chemical scientists or process chemists; four biologists, about six nuclear specialists and a number of missile experts. They formed the "inspector core" and were supported by an aerial surveillance team, administrators as well as a medical unit.

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