Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 13. februar 2003 / Time Line February 13, 2003
Version 3.512. Februar 2003, 14. Februar 2003
02/13/2003
Weapons declaration
From Professor Ken Coates
Sir, Jack Straw claims that Iraq's declaration about its weapons of
mass destruction, submitted to the United Nations in December, "was
neither full, accurate, nor complete" (Comment, February 5).
The elected members of the United Nations Security Council will
have to take Mr Straw's word for it, since we understand that more
than 8,000 of the declaration's 11,800 pages were omitted when it
was circulated to them.
The full dossier was given to the United Nations and transported to
New York, where by some mechanism it came into the hands of the
United States Administration, which promised to copy it for members
of the Security Council. In the event, two thirds of the
declaration were withheld from the ten non-permanent members.
I wrote to these members asking whether British press reports on
these matters were true (an inquiry to the office of the
Secretary-General had produced no response).
The current President of the Security Council, Joschka Fischer,
confirmed these facts. In a letter dated Monday, February 3, his
office writes:
"The facts of the case as you present them are correct. In fact the
Iraqi statement of around 12,000 pages of 8th December was given in
full only to the five permanent members of the Security
Council."
Who authorised this substantial deletion?
Yours sincerely,
KEN COATES
(Chairman),
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation,
Russell House,
Bulwell Lane, Nottingham NG6 0BT.
February 11
phone 00 44 (0) 1159 784 504
e-mail elfeuro@compuserve.com
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