-Caveat Lector-
"One question proposed by France asked whether US equipment in the
Baghdad laboratory was used to analyze the Iraqi warheads BEFORE they were
sent to the American lab which found the VX traces.
"Another French question asked ``why the entry code of the chemical lab
and the biological room happened to be not operational.''
U.S. Blocks Questions About VX Gas
By EDITH M. LEDERER
.c The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States on Thursday blocked China and France
from asking U.N. weapons inspectors to prove that VX nerve gas left in a
Baghdad laboratory wasn't used improperly to contaminate Iraqi missile
warheads.
Hasmy Agam, Security Council president and Malaysia's U.N. ambassador, had
circulated a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan with questions to the
U.N. inspectors from France and China.
But the United States objected to France's questions, added late Wednesday,
which U.S. officials felt trivialized the serious issue of disarming Iraq and
focused unfairly on U.N. weapons inspectors from the U.N. Special Commission,
or UNSCOM. So the letter has not been sent.
The issue of VX became a flashpoint for the Security Council last year when
the United States found traces of the nerve agent on fragments of Iraqi
missile warheads. Iraq has admitted producing 3.9 tons of VX agent, but has
denied loading the deadly agent into missile warheads.
Seven vials containing tiny quantities of VX were among the chemical and
biological material left in UNSCOM's Baghdad laboratory when inspectors
pulled out of Iraq in mid-December on the eve of U.S. and British airstrikes.
Iraq barred them from returning.
France, China and Russia - Iraq's closest allies on the Security Council -
urged the council to have the samples analyzed, intimating inspectors may
have laced Iraqi warheads with the agent.
But the majority of the 15-member council agreed with the weapons inspectors
who said the VX could only be used to calibrate equipment used to test for
the nerve agent, posed no danger, and should be destroyed.
A team of independent chemical experts sent to Baghdad to make the laboratory
safe went ahead and destroyed the VX samples on Tuesday. But China and France
wanted UNSCOM to answer questions about why VX was in the lab and why most of
it wasn't destroyed if it degrades after about a year.
One question proposed by France asked whether equipment in the Baghdad
laboratory was used to analyze the Iraqi warheads before they were sent to
the American lab which found the VX traces. ``If that is not the case, for
what reason?''
Another French question asked ``why the entry code of the chemical lab and
the biological room happened to be not operational.''
A U.S. official retorted: ``While most of the council is concerned about more
than three tons of one of the most toxic substances known to man, they're
worried about the front door key.''
Iraq's Vice-President Taha Yassin accused the Security Council of ordering
the destruction because it knew that UNSCOM inspectors had used the VX to
contaminate the warheads. And an unnamed Iraqi weapons official was quoted by
the official Iraqi News Agency as saying the VX was destroyed under U.S.
pressure ``to erase evidence'' of UNSCOM involvement.
The issue of UNSCOM's lab in Baghdad comes as the Security Council is
debating a new policy toward Iraq. By drawing out the debate over a seemingly
clear-cut technical issue for several days, France, Russia and China put the
council on notice that they will closely scrutinize Iraq's outstanding
disarmament obligations - and that reaching consensus will not be easy.
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