DATE=1/31/2000 TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP TITLE=DEALING WITH IRAQ'S WEAPONS AGAIN NUMBER=6-11658 BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE DATELINE=WASHINGTON EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS TELEPHONE=619-3335 CONTENT= INTRO: Ever since the Gulf War at the beginning of this decade, the Western powers, as well as most of the countries in and around the Persian Gulf, have been worried about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Credible evidence has been amassed that Iraq has been developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, before, during and especially after its conflict with an alliance of Western and Arab neighbors. United Nations weapons inspectors have been absent from Iraq for more than a year now, and a new plan for a revised U-N weapons inspection agency is generating controversy in the United States government and in the U-S press. We get a sampling now from_____________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup. TEXT: It has been more than a year since the United States, accompanied by some of its allies, launched an aerial bombing campaign against Iraq due to weapons- control violations. That caused the formal end of UNSCOM, the United Nations agency headed by Richard Butler which had been inspecting, as best it could, Iraq's weapons plants and storage facilities. The United States has been pressing in the United Nations Security Council for a new agency to resume weapons inspection. After a deadlock in the U-N body, when France, Russia and China opposed the initial choice for leadership of the weapons team, a compromise agreement has been reached. But the U-S press is not happy, as we hear now, beginning with The Chicago Tribune. VOICE: The latest tragedy tormenting the Iraqi people is a dispute at the United Nations over who should lead a newly-constituted agency of arms inspectors to assure that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction. Like Nero fiddling as Rome burned, the U-N Security Council has fiddled away its time arguing over just how to reconstitute an arms monitoring organization that may never be allowed back into Iraq. Meanwhile, nine years after the Persian Gulf War, the only certainty in Iraq is the suffering of its people under Saddam Hussein's jackboot. By U-N estimates, more than one-million Iraqis have died, directly or indirectly, because of economic sanctions imposed by the international community a decade ago -- and Saddam's cruel indifference to their impact. ... After acquiescing to the U-N's call for new inspectors, France, Russia and China have joined to effectively block the implementation of that decision. They did so by rejecting Secretary General Kofi Annan's choice of Swedish arms control expert Rolf Ekeus to head the news arms inspection commission. ... Since when should the U-N, whose mission is to disarm Iraq, be giving Saddam a veto over their policy? He's the problem -- not the answer. ... One wise measure would be to break the link between economic sanctions and the military embargo, easing pressure on Iraq's people while keeping tight control of any arms going into Iraq. TEXT: On New York's Long Island, Newsday feels the U-N's ultimate choice is a disappointment, and calls him "the wrong man": VOICE: An unfortunate choice to oversee the new weapons-inspections agency on Iraq has emerged at the United Nations Security Council: Hans Blix of Sweden, the retired former head of the U-N nuclear agency. To choose Blix, 72, to ferret out Iraq's nuclear secrets is like hiring Inspector Clouseau [a fictional French police inspector, a character in the "Pink Panther" motion pictures, whose name has come to be a synonym for inept police work] to do the job. But unless the United States or Britain intervenes, it appears that [Mr.] Blix will win council approval as the consensus choice. If that happens, President ... Clinton will have wimped out [displayed unacceptable cowardice] on Iraqi arms inspections. TEXT: Another major daily that is unsettled with the result is the Los Angeles Times. VOICE: The U-N Security Council argued for more than a month and rejected more than 25 candidates before agreeing this week [1/27] on Hans Blix of Sweden, the former head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, to lead the commission charged with finding and destroying Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But Baghdad has already denounced the new body as a tool of American spying. If it holds to its defiance and refused to cooperate with further arms inspections, the Security Council's readiness to enforce its own resolutions will again be tested. ... Only unhindered on-the-ground inspections by experts can assure that. Richard Butler of Australia and Rolf Ekeus of Sweden, previous heads of the inspection program, insisted on that access in their time. Hans Blix must be similarly resolute in the face of Iraqi obstructionism. TEXT: "A disappointing choice on Iraq" is the headline over an editorial in The New York Times, indicating the degree of that paper's displeasure. VOICE: The United Nations Security Council's compromise choice of Hans Blix as the new chief weapons inspector for Iraq is a disturbing sign that the international community lacks the determination to rebuild an effective arms inspection system in Iraq. Mr. Blix is a man of unquestioned integrity and tact. But he seems unlikely to provide the forceful leadership needed to keep Saddam Hussein from cheating on his arms control obligations and building fearsome unconventional weapons. ... The two men who previously ran the Iraq inspection program, Rolf Ekeus and Richard Butler, rightly insisted that Baghdad would have to provide complete answers to all significant questions about missing weapons, ingredients and records before it could be considered in compliance. Washington should apply a similar standard before approving any move in the Security Council to end international sanctions on Iraq. TEXT: The Boston Globe takes special aim at Russia, saying Moscow's actions in the Security Council show "an ominous contempt" for the United Nations and its resolutions. VOICE: No good can come of the effective veto that Russia, France and China have given Saddam Hussein over U-N Security Council decisions. That is the meaning of their refusal to accept Secretary General Kofi Annan's choice of the highly-qualified Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus to lead a reconstituted U-N commission mandated, under U-N resolutions, to disclose and dismantle Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. ... Explaining his country's position, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov, said the Security Council would not only have to choose a chief weapons inspector who was acceptable to Saddam, but that the Iraqi dictator would also have to approve all members of the inspection team and even the disarmament questions the commission could address. This standoff represents a grave peril not only for arms control and regional stability but also for the credibility of the Security Council and the U-N generally. Russia and France, in their shameless efforts to obtain commercial favors from Saddam's regime, have permitted the tyrant who gassed to death thousands of Iraqi citizens to determine who will search for his hidden weapons of mass destruction. TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of comment on the latest United Nations effort to reconstitute a U-N arms control agency to monitor Iraq. NEB/ANG/WTW 31-Jan-2000 17:54 PM EDT (31-Jan-2000 2254 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .