United Nations: The United States and Russia have given their suggestions and
comments to chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on the sensitive material to be
deleted from the over 12,000-page dossier Iraq submitted on the status of its
weapons of mass destruction.
France and Britain plan to submit their suggestion before weekend. That would leave
out China from among the permanent members of the Security Council, who got
uncensored version of the dossier. Chinese diplomats were tight-lipped about the
dossier.
Blix had sought comments from all five permanent members of the Council.
Diplomats said the comments given by the permanent members of the Council to Blix
are confidential and would not be disclosed by the inspectors.
Indications were that Blix is likely to give his preliminary assessment to the
Council sometime next week, possibly on December 19, after studying the suggestions
and comments and analysing the dossier.
Current Council President Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso of Colombia, whose decision
to hand over the uncensored version of the dossier to Washington for copying for
other permanent members raised a storm of protest, said he expects to give the
sanitised version to the 10 non- permanent members of the Council by December 16 or
17 ahead of Blix's preliminary assessment. Part of that version is likely to be made
public.
The 15-member Security Council had on December 6 come to an understanding that all
members should get the sanitised version of the Iraqi dossier after inspectors had
deleted sensitive parts, which were expected to include any recipe for making
weapons of mass destruction and names of suppliers of the materials to Iraq.
But just as the dossier was being brought to New York for handing it over to Blix,
the US changed its mind and prevailed upon Valdivieso to allow uncensored version to
the five permanent members.
The US got the dossier within hours of its arrival in New York on December 8, flew
it to Washington to make copies for itself and four others permanent members and
returned the original to Blix.
Several non-permanent members, who are elected for a two-year term, have protested
Valdivieso's decision and objected to some nations being treated "B class".
PTI
