Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995 TAG: 9503060070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
They said the Clinton administration had shared intelligence data, including satellite photos, with other Security Council members to show that President Saddam Hussein has been rebuilding factories that could produce chemical weapons or missiles as well as integrating stolen Kuwaiti missiles and armored vehicles into the Iraqi army.
The photos also show that the Iraqi leader has spent billions on new presidential palace while pleading poverty as a reason for allowing Iraq to resume oil sales, as France and Russia have urged.
The officials said that Madeleine Albright, Washington's delegate to the United Nations, returned Friday from a weeklong mission to seven countries certain that the United States had 10 votes, enough to maintain the current sanctions.
France and Russia, Iraq's closest diplomatic partners before its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, supported quietly by China, have argued for nearly a year that Iraq is on the verge of complying with Security Council demands to eliminate key weapons programs and therefore should have the legal right to export its oil on the open market.
The United States and Britain have disagreed strongly, insisting on maximum Iraqi compliance with U.N. demands without spelling out exactly what Saddam must do if he wants to sell oil.
But over the past few months, support for the U.S.-British position has waned. A number of Security Council members, eager to do business with Iraq and to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people, have become convinced that the Security Council should consider easing the ban on oil sales.
In anticipation of a French-Russian initiative in the Security Council within the next several weeks, Albright held face-to-face meetings or telephone conversations with nine Security Council members.
She was accompanied by a U.S. intelligence official who dazzled foreign officials with satellite photos showing that Saddam has poured billions of dollars into rebuilding Iraq's military and governmental infrastructure, administration officials said.
Albright said that if Iraq received large amounts of money from selling oil, and if international inspectors were not in Iraq to monitor weapons programs, the country would be able to resume full-scale chemical weapons production within two years and ballistic missile production within one year.
by CNB