THE SMOKING DRONE
In his report to the UNSC Friday, Hans Blix omitted verbally mentioning a serious Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations: the existence of a drone aircraft capable of dropping chemical weapons on US troops.US officials were outraged that Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, did not inform the Security Council about the drone, or remotely piloted vehicle, in his oral presentation to Foreign Ministers and tried to bury it in a 173-page single-spaced report distributed later in the day. The omission raised serious questions about Dr Blix’s objectivity.
I'll say. There's more:
In another section of the declassified report, the inspectors give warning that Iraq still has spraying devices and drop tanks that could be used in dispersing chemical and biological agents from aircraft. “A large number of drop tanks of various types, both imported and locally manufactured, are available and could be modified,” it says.
The paper, obtained by The Times, details the possible chemical and biological arsenal that British and US Forces could face in an invasion of Iraq. The paper suggests that Iraq has huge stockpiles of anthrax, may be developing long-range missiles and could possess chemical and biological R400 aerial bombs and Scud missiles, and even smallpox.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, told his fellow Security Council Foreign Ministers that the document was a“chilling read”.
General Powell resorted to reading passages from the paper out loud in the Council chamber. He pointed out that it chronicled nearly 30 times when Iraq had failed to provide credible evidence to substantiate its claims, and 17 instances when inspectors uncovered evidence that contradicted those claims. But his draft copy, dating from a meeting of the inspectors’ advisory board last week, did not contain the crucial passage about the new drone.
This is simply outrageous. The UNMOVIC system, never trustworthy due to Iraq's ability to hide banned weapons in a country the size of California, has taken another blow due to Blix and his lack of candor. Iraq is in material breach--that's plain enough. What's entirely mysterious is when the world will do anything about it.