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Blix 'hid devastating facts on weapons'
By Marcus Warren at the United Nations and David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 11/03/2003)

The White House yesterday demanded that Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, explain why he buried potentially devastating revelations about newly-discovered Iraqi weapons systems in his last written report.

United States officials told reporters that the UN had discovered a new variety of rocket warhead seemingly configured to scatter "bomblets" filled with biological or chemical agents.

Yet, to the apparent dismay of the Bush administration, Mr Blix chose not to raise the discoveries in his oral report.

The Bush administration has also seized on the discovery that Iraq has developed an unmanned aerial drone capable of dispensing chemical and biological weapons, and which may exceed the 93-mile range allowed under UN resolutions. Colin Powell, the secretary of state, said the revelation "should be of concern to everybody".

In what appeared to be a deliberate rebuke for Mr Blix, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, twice said the omission raised questions that the Swedish chief arms inspector needed to answer.

Asked if America feared that Dr Blix deliberately buried the incriminating data, Mr Fleischer said: "There are outstanding questions, and all members of the Security Council, I think it is safe to say, look forward to hearing the answers."

A Western diplomat at the UN even implied that the inspector's omission was not accidental. "This was an attempt, for whatever reason, to bury absolutely key information about Iraq's arsenal," he said. "We want answers from Iraq, but also from Mr Blix."

British and American officials were furious that Mr Blix had failed to mention Iraq's "Project 101" when he addressed the Security Council last Friday.

Details of the scheme suggested Iraq had sought to produce cluster munitions filled with biological and chemical agents to be scattered across battlefields. The project was referred to in the detail of the inspector's written report. The hollow metal balls, and fuses Iraq is known to possess, were ideally suited for dispersing agents across large areas, a US official told the New York Times.

"When these things come out from the main frame and they explode inward, chemical agents come out," he said. "These can be used for biological weapons too."

The UN report, entitled Unresolved Disarmament Issues: Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programmes, concluded that "Iraq's interest in cluster munitions and the developments it did make may have progressed well beyond what it declared". A munition component was discovered at the Al Noaman factory, well known as a centre of production of such weapons, last month, the report said.

It also suggested that gas gangrene was the preferred agent to be used in the device because the substance was most effective when in contact with open wounds. Iraq produced 340 litres of the concentrate in 1990.

The revelation was part of the huge amount of evidence that the United States and Britain now intend to deploy in the campaign to secure support from the Security Council for a new resolution effectively authorising war.

Mr Blix's written report does an eloquent job in indicating the difficulties in pursuing successful inspections, given the huge quantity of information still concealed from the UN by Iraq.

"Unmovic has credible information that the total quantity of BW [biological warfare] agents in bombs, warheads and in bulk at the time of the Gulf war was 7,000 litres more than declared," the report said. It dismisses Iraq's claims to have destroyed its stocks of the agent 10 years ago.