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The United Nations' nuclear chief told the Security Council on Thursday that Iraq's weapons dossier contains "no substantive differences" from past declarations, according to a copy of his remarks obtained by The Associated Press.
The text, made available to AP as International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei was briefing the council in a closed session at U.N. headquarters in New York, lays out a case for continued inspections as the only way to verify Iraq's weapons arsenal.
Amid a U.S.-led buildup of forces for possible war, ElBaradei was telling the council his preliminary assessment of Baghdad's arms declaration showed that it "does contain numerous clarifications, but does not include any additional documentation related to areas which were identified in previous IAEA reports as requiring further clarification, particularly weapons design or centrifuge development."
ElBaradei, whose Vienna-based IAEA is leading the hunt for nuclear weaponry in Iraq, was briefing the council along with Hans Blix, the chief inspector whose New York-based U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission is searching for biological and chemical agents.
ElBaradei and Blix have until Jan. 27 to complete their analysis of the Iraqi declaration and report their findings formally to the council.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
