Vol. 559 No. 5
32 Mr. Boyle asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the progress made in the Security Council's consideration of the Iraqi arms dossier; if, as members of the UN Security Council, Ireland has received a copy of the dossier; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26482/02]
The declaration required under Security Council Resolution 1441 was presented by the Iraqi Government to the weapons inspections teams in Baghdad on 7 December. We are pleased that the Iraqi Government has complied with the requirement to make a declaration by 8 December. This has now to be examined. The declaration and annexed material is some 12,000 pages long, a large number of which are in Arabic.
The declaration is currently being studied by the inspections teams, as well as by experts among the permanent five members of the Security Council. The head of the inspections teams, Dr. Blix, will provide a preliminary assessment of the declaration later this week. Ireland and the other members of the Security Council expect to see an abridged version, with any sensitive material removed, in the next 24 to 48 hours.
Would the Minister agree that this move completely undermines the credibility of the UN? The ostensible reason for having this abridged version – that sensitive material could fall into the wrong hands and be used by rogue states – is nonsense. The real reason, as given by a UN official himself, is that there is trepidation among the major powers about revealing the names of Baghdad's former weapons suppliers. This is about censorship. What does the Minister, as someone who lobbied very hard to gain us membership of the Security Council, have to say about this? I am not satisfied with the answer he gave to Deputy Higgins earlier. I want a more positive response from the Minister that admits this has been a very bad day indeed for the UN.
I replied in detail to this on Priority Questions. I do not accept that the permanent members of the Security Council have sought to undermine the credibility of the Security Council. We are non-proliferators of this type of information. How to make an atomic weapon is not the type of information that should be available to everybody and anybody whenever they want it.
We rely on the inspection teams to issue a report to the Security Council. Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baradei will provide us with an independent and fair assessment of the situation on behalf of the UN secretariat and Security Council. That is their mandate. They will also be able inform us on the nature and extent of the abridged information not already brought to our attention for the reasons I have given. Whatever about the detail of how to make a nuclear weapon, if the Iraqis have one we will know about it. This does not undermine the credibility of the UN.
The UN inspection teams are beginning to inspect this voluminous report, much of which is in Arabic. They must be given time to assess it. There will be a preliminary assessment next week, and I am sure further meetings will follow next month when the inspectors have got through the whole dossier.
It is incorrect to suggest that the UN Security Council is not doing its job. The inspection teams have my full confidence. They are going through the dossier methodically and when they report I will listen very carefully to what they have to say. We will put any questions we may have and obtain any other information we may seek as a result of the inspectors' assessment. Let us take this step by step.
By whom and with whose authority has the abridgement of the report been done, and is the Minister satisfied that these judgments are being made with absolute independence? Will the Minister comment on the fact that British and American sources stated that the report was inadequate within a day or two of having received it, when it is possible they may not have been able to read it properly? They were already indicating a prejudice not to accept the report's adequacy. Does the Minister consider such apparently premature comments helpful or does he agree they are not and that everybody, including the British and the Americans, should forbear from any comment on the report until they have thoroughly studied it?
I cannot understand the logic of the Minister's last answer. He said the Security Council, of which Ireland is a member, is willing to wait for the report of the inspector's team. He has my support on that. Why can everybody not wait? On what basis was the report given to one permanent member of the council? I do not understand the continual reference to the report being in Arabic. In what other language would it have been written? Will the Minister answer the point made by Deputy Gormley? Is it not the case that many of the members of the Security Council, some permanent members, supplied Iraq until 1991 with materials that would be in violation of the current resolution? That is the reason the public sees this as, in effect, censorship of the report. I want the report to go to everybody and I want everybody to wait.
The Minister said he is happy with the actions of the inspectors. Is he equally happy with the response of the Iraqis, who appear to have been co-operative until now? Does he agree with the assessment of the Iraqis that this represents an unprecedented extortion in the history of the UN? That is how they described it.
My assessments will not be based on the views of interested parties. The UN inspection teams will influence me more directly than anybody in Iraq, for obvious reasons. People cannot have it both ways. One either has confidence in the inspection teams or one does not. The inspection teams will report to the Security Council and I await their report.
The report was not given to only one of the permanent five members, all five permanent members obtained it, and they have the capacity to examine and evaluate it in so far as they wish to do so. The elected ten will await the inspection teams' report. That was agreed as the way this would be done. I agree with Deputy Bruton that there should not be a premature assessment of what is clearly a voluminous amount of documentation. Everybody knows there are elements in the administrations who have a certain view on this, regardless of what efforts are made by the United Nations. That will not deflect me or the Government from upholding our position, which is to await the considered assessment by the inspection teams of these matters. We await their preliminary assessment next week and will proceed from there.
