UNITED NATIONS — With the U.S. rallying the rest of the Security Council to take a hard line on what it calls Iraq's continued deception, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Monday that there would be "no second chance" for Iraq to correct its massive arms declaration and avoid a military intervention.
Even before the elected 10 members received an edited version of Iraq's arms declaration today, analysts from the U.S., Britain and France had already concluded that the weapons inventory is full of holes. Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix concedes it may leave unanswered questions.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday December 18, 2002 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 16 inches; 595 words Type of Material: Correction
Arms declaration -- In an article in Section A on Tuesday headlined " 'No Second Chance' for Baghdad," a comment made by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer that Iraq would have "no second chance" to disclose its weapons inventory to the U.N. was incorrectly attributed to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Fleischer said that Iraq would not have a second chance to amend its weapons declaration to avoid military intervention if U.N. members found it incomplete.
But while Blix might like to give Iraq a chance to clarify its report, Washington is taking a much tougher stance, reflecting frustration in the White House at the prospect that the U.N. inspection process will be too lengthy and inconclusive. After a week of intensive analysis, Powell said that U.S. doubts about Iraq's ability to fully disclose its weapons of mass destruction programs had proved "well founded."
"We said at the very beginning that we approached it with skepticism, and the information I have received so far is that that skepticism is well founded. There are problems with the declaration," Powell told a news conference after talks with visiting Japanese officials.
"We are sharing the problems we see with UNMOVIC and the IAEA, and we're in discussions with the permanent members of the Security Council.... Then statements will be forthcoming, I expect, toward the end of the week," Powell said, using first the initials of the U.N. inspection commission for Iraq and then those of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
While Blix has deflected questions about what he thinks should happen next, saying that he is "just a servant of the Security Council," council members aside from the U.S. rely heavily on his recommendations. At a recent news conference, the 74-year-old Swedish diplomat said cautiously that "we would not exclude that we would ask them questions" about gaps in the declaration.
But as U.S. intelligence continues to pore over the 11,807 pages of documents, the White House warned Iraq on Monday that Baghdad would not have a second chance to correct or add to the list to avoid military intervention. The Bush administration is planning how and when to share what it considers key intelligence to smoke out hidden caches of weapons and the scientists who worked on them.
