MoD Information

UN - 'No Smoking Guns' in Iraq

Thu, January 09, 2003

Source: Ananova News

UN weapons inspectors have not found any evidence of weapons of mass destruction during their search of Iraq

UN weapons inspectors have not found any evidence of weapons of mass destruction during their search of Iraq.

Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, are due to brief the Security Council on their assessments of Iraq's 12,000 weapons declaration.

Mr Blix, the UN's chief weapons inspector said:"We have now been there for some two months and been covering the country in ever wider sweeps and we haven't found any smoking guns."

France has asked governments to give UN inspectors any evidence they have on suspected Iraqi weapons programmes, in a request directed at the US and Britain ahead of the key Security Council meeting.

The United States has promised to share information with inspectors, as long as intelligence sources are not compromised.

"We have and will continue to provide information to the inspectors," a US official said.

Mr Blix said Iraq's weapons declaration was incomplete adding: "We think that the declaration failed to answer a great many questions."

He added his inspectors need intelligence from other nations because Iraq's weapons declaration leaves so many unanswered questions that it's impossible to verify its claim of having no weapons of mass destruction.

Earlier US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington has begun giving inspectors "significant intelligence" that has enabled them to become "more aggressive and to be more comprehensive in the work they're doing."

But Washington is holding back some information to see if inspectors "are able to handle it and exploit it," Powell said. "It is not a matter of opening up every door we have."