ACCESSION NUMBER:00000

FILE ID:96021402.NNE

DATE:02/14/96

TITLE:14-02-96  UNSCOM DIRECTOR EKEUS CARNEGIE CONFERENCE REMARKS



TEXT:

(Outlines Latest Findings on Iraqi Weapons Programs) (350)

By Rick Marshall

USIA Staff Writer



Washington -- New evidence of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's many

weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs continues to come to light

five years after the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq for the

invasion of neighboring Kuwait, Rolf Ekeus says.



Ekeus heads UNSCOM, the special United Nations commission

investigating Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons

programs.



The importance of Saddam's WMD programs can be seen in the fact that

he has foregone more than $70,000 million in oil sales, rather than

abide by the UN resolutions and divulge the full extent to which Iraq

was working on them, Ekeus told a conference February 13 on

non-proliferation issues hosted by the Carnegie Endowment.



In the last six months, for example, UNSCOM has found that prior to

the Gulf War, Iraq was developing a missile with a range of two to

three thousand kilometers which was apparently designed to carry

chemical and biological weapons, Ekeus said. It is also clear now that

Iraq had biological weapons deployed at the time the war began, he

noted.



Nor is it clear that Iraq has put an end to its goal of developing a

long-range missile system. Despite the obvious hardships the Iraqi

people are enduring, Saddam spent "a considerable amount of money"

this year to purchase gyroscopes for use in a missile guidance system,

Ekeus said.



In November a shipment of these gyroscopes was intercepted in Jordan,

bound for Iraq. The following month, UNSCOM found a "large number" of

them in the Tigris River, where an earlier shipment had apparently

been dumped to avoid detection. "It now appears that it (the missile

program) was a large program indeed," Ekeus commented.



While reports have suggested the gyroscopes came from Russia, Ekeus

said only that they appear to have come from systems which were

dismantled under a recent arms control treaty.



On the other hand, Ekeus did note that just over a month ago, Saddam

instructed his people to cooperate with UNSCOM inspectors, apparently

the first time he has done so. "There is a certain momentum now," he

observed.

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