Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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'Intrusive' Iraq Check Proposed 'Intrusive' Iraq Check Proposed
By Judith Miller New York Times February 10, 1999 The International Atomic Energy Agency has submitted plans for long-term monitoring of Iraq that call for "intrusive" inspections and assume that Baghdad might try again to produce nuclear weapons.
In a report to the Security Council on Monday, the agency director, Mohammed el-Baradei, said the monitoring would cost at least $10 million a year. The report concludes once again that Iraq is denying the agency documents and material it has requested, including, for instance, documentary evidence that Iraq has abandoned its nuclear weapons program. And the agency said it could not verify that Iraq had not hidden away banned nuclear equipment or materials. The agency has therefore concluded that any long-term monitoring must be "comprehensive, rigorous, and, as a result, intrusive."
Specifically, the agency says it would use such measures as "unannounced inspections of previously uninspected locations." It would examine "records, equipment, materials and products," as well as conduct interviews, environmental monitoring and radiation surveys, and test samples of water, vegetation, air and soil.
Most problematic from Iraq's standpoint, the agency said it would need to conduct "unannounced inspections at new sites" to detect signs of banned activities. Such inspections infuriated Iraq when they were conducted by the U.N. Special Commission charged with disarming Iraq of unconventional weapons. While the Special Commission inspects for biological and chemical weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency monitors nuclear activities.
A U.N. official said Tuesday that he hoped such an intrusive monitoring system would deter Iraq from reviving its unconventional-weapons programs, but added that there was no indication that Iraq would ever agree to such an inspection system.
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