ACCESSION NUMBER:00000 FILE ID:96031802.NNE DATE:03/18/96 TITLE:18-03-96 IRAQ CONTINUES TO BLOCK U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTORS, UNSCOM REPORTS TEXT: (UNSCOM head sees new pattern emerging) (630) By Judy Aita USIA United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- Telling the Security Council that Baghdad has been systematically denying U.N. weapons inspectors access to Iraqi facilities, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus said March 18 that his inspectors still cannot be sure that Iraq has destroyed all prohibited weapons. Ekeus, chairman of the Special Commission overseeing the destruction of Iraqi weapons (UNSCOM), said "we are concerned about biological warheads, biological warfare agents in missile warheads, and chemical warhead agents also filed into missile warheads. We have not accounted for these." "So if we combine the missiles and biological warheads you have a strategic (ability) which could influence the whole region," Ekeus said. "Our concerns are still such that we have not cleared up completely that Iraq is free from prohibited missiles," Ekeus said. Ekeus held a private session with the Security Council March 18 to discuss Iraq's denying access to UNSCOM inspectors five times during a ten-day period. This latest series of inspections are the result of UNSCOM's analysis of the information it received in August and September 1995, both from a cache of documents from Iraq officials and from Iraqi defector General Hussein Kamal, who was killed after returning to Iraq earlier this year. The large UNSCOM team of weapons experts from several countries had been searching "for weapons, first of all missiles, missile components, and documentation relevant to missiles," Ekeus told journalists after his meeting with the council. "We did not find immediately any missile launchers (or) missile components, but the final conclusion of the inspection is too early to make," he said. Team members are now at UNSCOM's regional headquarters in Bahrain making their first broad assessment. The chief inspector and some team members will then return to UNSCOM headquarters in New York for the final assessment. Ekeus said that UNSCOM "has been questioned relentlessly" by states in the region, members of the Security Council, and by the international community at large about what it is doing to find the banned chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic weapons and their production sites and to prevent Iraq from using such weapons. "This is the basis for our activities," the chairman said. The problem began on March 8 when inspectors were stopped from entering a building operated by the Iraqi Irrigation Ministry. After negotiations between Iraqi officials and Ekeus, the inspectors were allowed access. Then on the morning of March 11, forty inspectors were stopped from entering a site about 50 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, said to be a training facility for the Republican Guard. After several hours of negotiations, the team was allowed onto the site. Even after the Security Council sent a letter to Ekeus March 12 reconfirming UNSCOM's right to immediate, unrestricted, and unconditional access to sites in Iraq, the denials continued. UNSCOM inspectors went through similar negotiations twice on March 14 and again on March 15 at other Republican Guard facilities. "Altogether, on five occasions the team was blocked entry into facilities we wanted to inspect," Ekeus said. He finally personally went to the council after he saw a pattern emerging over time. "I have seen five blockages now; it may not be a pattern, it may be a coincidence, but I don't think so," he said. "I think it was a pattern, yes. That was my judgment." Since Iraq "almost immediately thereafter (the March 12 letter) continued to block and defy" the U.N., Ekeus said he expects the council will have some official reaction. Council President Legwaila Legwaila said the council is preparing an official statement that would probably be issued March 19 after members have an opportunity to consult with their capitals. NNNN