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UN's Blix orders Iraq to destroy illegal missiles

Iraq faced a new test of its willingness to disarm after UN inspectors ordered Baghdad to begin destroying dozens of illegal missiles and their components by Saturday.

Saddam Hussein's response will likely influence the US as it struggles to win international support for a new UN resolution backing war with Iraq.

The Bush administration, searching for more evidence of Iraq's refusal to peacefully disarm, had pushed for the destruction of the missiles. US officials said they were reviewing the four-page order that chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix sent to the Iraqis late Friday.

In the letter, Blix ordered Baghdad to destroy, under UN supervision, all of its al-Samoud 2 missiles and warheads, the missile engines for them, and a host of other components, some of which Baghdad illegally imported.

He also ordered Iraq to destroy the launchers, testing equipment, software and documentation associated with the al-Samoud program, but not the factories where the missiles were built, as the US wanted.

"The appropriate arrangements should be made so that the destruction process can commence by March 1, 2003," Blix wrote to Iraqi General Amer al-Saadi, an adviser to Saddam. March 1 is the date Blix's next report on Iraqi compliance is due to the Security Council.

The deadline will be key for the Security Council which is bitterly divided over whether war is necessary in Iraq. Any indication of compliance by the Iraqis will likely bolster the position of France and others who claim inspections are working.

The US and Britain have already said time has run out for Saddam and are preparing to present a new draft resolution next week that would given them UN backing for war in Iraq.

Washington's goal is to achieve the minimum nine votes necessary to pass a council resolution, while avoiding a veto by France, Russia or China.

Blix's order to destroy the missiles, because they are capable of flying further than the Security Council permits, confronts the Iraqi government with a serious dilemma: whether to give up a valuable weapons system its military would almost certainly use against a US-led coalition, or refuse to comply and face accusations that it is not cooperating with UN inspectors.

Blix was very specific in his letter, telling the Iraqis the destruction would be carried out through a variety of methods chosen by inspectors, including "explosive demolition, crushing, melting, and other physical and chemical methods."

Mohammed Modhaffar al-Adhami, a member of Iraq's parliament, said he believed Iraq would destroy the missiles if so ordered.

"Iraq will do the maximum in its cooperation to avoid any aggression ... even [destroying] the missiles," al-Adhami said.

Blix's letter came a week after a panel of international experts determined that the al-Samoud 2 missiles exceeded the 150km limit set by UN resolutions at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Iraq declared the al-Samoud and other new missile systems to UN inspectors in October, and again in its 12,000-page weapons declaration in December and noted that in 13 of 40 tests, the missiles flew slightly beyond the limit. But Iraq said the additional distance was a result of tests conducted on missiles that weren't outfitted with warheads or guidance systems, which would have slowed them down.

Some former inspectors however suggested that Iraq purposely chose technology that would support missile systems with longer ranges.

"The Iraqis understood that if the payload were lighter it would go further," said David Kay, a former nuclear weapons inspector. "They played the game from very early on."

According to diplomats, Iraq declared 76 al-Samouds in June 2002 and said some had been used for tests and component parts. But the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iraq has continued to produce the missiles, and UN inspectors now estimate they have between 100 and 120 missiles.
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