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100 questions on Iraqi weapons unanswered

Blix set to submit crucial report

REUTERS, AFP, United Nations, London
Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix was set to deliver yesterday a key report on Iraq to the Security Council, after President Bush vowed to force a vote within days on a resolution authorising war.
The report listed "more than 100" unanswered questions and confirm that stocks of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq are still unaccounted for, British Prime
Minister Tony Blair's office in London said.
The report shows "there are still more than 100 questions unanswered and only a handful of answers from (Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein) -- and we are only getting those because there are 200,000 troops parked on Saddam's borders", said a spokesman for Blair.
"Where is the anthrax, where is the sarin, where is the mustard gas, where is the botulinum, where are
the shells, Scud warheads, spray tanks, the chemical and biological weapon bombs, the VX?
"All unaccounted for, as the so-called cluster document, prepared by (chief UN weapons inspector Hans) Blix and which he is about to publish today, will confirm," the spokesman said.
The Times newspaper in London said Blix's report would come in the form of a 170-page document and contain 29 "clusters" of "unresolved disarmament
issues" that Iraq must address to satisfy inspectors. These included a full accounting of anthrax and VX nerve gas production.
But the daily also said that Blix would deliver his most positive verdict yet on Iraq's cooperation on disarmament -- harming Britain's campaign to win backing for a new UN resolution paving the way to war.
The British daily said Blix's report would boost the efforts of France, Germany and Russia to avoid conflict by launching a personal political initiative to give Iraq more time.
The chief arms inspector planned to tell the UN Security Council that Iraq has demonstrated substantive cooperation in a number of areas, such as destroying its al-Samoud 2 missiles and allowing private interviews with scientists, The Times said, without indicating its sources.
Blix would also publish a list of previously classified questions for Iraq that formed the basis of an alternative proposal by France, Germany and Russia to give inspections more time, the paper said.
Meanwhile, in a reminder of just how close Iraq could be to invasion, the head of the British armed forces said in Kuwait his troops were now ready to join any US-led attack.
US and British planes yesterday bombed a mobile radar system in southern Iraq, the US military said. UN observers on the Iraq-Kuwait
frontier said parts of a fence along the border had been cut down, in apparent preparation for war.
With opposition to war hardening among France, Russia, China and Germany, foreign ministers gather in the 15-member Security Council on Friday to hear reports from UN inspectors on Iraq's weapons likely to change few minds. The session opens at 10:30 a.m. EST.
Speeches from undecided members, including Chile, Mexico, Pakistan, Guinea, Angola and Cameroon, will be carefully watched for an indication of support or rejection of a draft US-British-Spanish resolution that declares Iraq has failed to take its last chance to disarm peacefully.
A resolution in the Security Council needs a minimum of nine votes and there must be no veto from its five permanent members -- which include France, Russia and China, who have declared they will not let a war resolution pass, as well as Britain and the United States.
So far the draft resolution sponsored by the United States, Britain
and Spain appears to fall short of the nine votes.
Bush dismissed Iraq's destruction of some banned missiles in recent days as a charade and reiterated he could launch a war without UN approval.
"When it comes to our security, we really don't need anybody's permission," he told a news conference on Thursday. "Yes we will call for a vote, no matter what the whip count is.
"If we need to act we will act and we really don't need United Nations approval to do so," he said. "It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam."
Asian and European stock markets fell as Bush's remarks were interpreted to mean war was virtually certain.
US and British diplomats expect a vote on the resolution next week. But reports from Blix and his colleague Mohamed ElBaradei, in charge of nuclear arms teams, are expected to be more positive than Washington would like.