The United States on Wednesday upstaged talks between the UN and Iraq by releasing pictures allegedly showing that Iraq had diverted vehicles from a UN humanitarian program to its army.
The pictures, a mix of satellite photos, videoclips and Iraqi television footage, were shown to members of the Security Council committee that monitors UN sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
The committee met on the eve of discussions between UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.
According to AFP, these discussions are inclined to concentrate on the council's demand that UN inspectors be allowed to resume work to assess Iraq's assertion that it dismantled its weapons of mass destruction after being forced out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.
Robert Wood, a spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations, said the pictures showed hundreds of trucks, imported under the UN's oil-for-food program, which had been "diverted and converted to carry heavy artillery".
Some of the trucks appeared to have been stripped for spare parts, especially their hydraulic systems, which "can be used as part of a missile component," Wood told reporters outside the committee chamber.
Others, including "Ural-type vehicles", were filmed towing 150-millimeter howitzers in a military parade in Baghdad on December 31, he said. "All this is in violation of UN resolutions," he added.
However, other diplomats were less categorical. "We saw pictures of (the Iraqi Gulf port of) Umm Qasr and we saw pictures of trucks on the shore," said Fabrice Mauries, a diplomat at the French mission. "Then we saw pictures of trucks, other trucks or the same trucks, at a Republican Guard parade.
"Were these trucks imported under the oil-for-food program? The US says it is the case, other delegations say we don't know, we need more information."
Meanwhile, under a shadow of U.S. threats, a high-level delegation from Baghdad has conducted its first talks in a year with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on whether arms inspectors will ever return to Iraq.
According to Reuters, few expect a "yes" or "no" answer from the delegation led by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri on Thursday. At best, diplomats hope Sabri will express a readiness to implement key parts of U.N. resolutions governing banned weapons but then set up further meetings to discuss them in more detail.
"The broad subject is implementation of resolutions. The precise subject on everyone's mind is the return of the weapons inspectors," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "The secretary-general will do his part and then he will await their reaction," Eckhard added. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
