ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 4, 1997 TAG: 9703040064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS
SOURCE: Associated Press
Iraq has acknowledged producing large amounts of one of the deadliest nerve agents but failed to convince U.N. experts it destroyed the supply after the Persian Gulf War, a U.N. official said Monday.
Rolf Ekeus, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, briefed the Security Council on Monday about his team's efforts to determine whether Iraq has complied with U.N. orders to scrap its high-tech weapons programs.
The council has refused to lift economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to the Gulf War, until it is satisfied with Iraqi compliance. Following Ekeus' briefing, the council agreed to extend the sanctions for another 60 days.
``Getting Iraq to comply'' with U.N. orders ``is like pulling teeth from somebody who doesn't want to open his mouth,'' U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson said.
Ekeus said the Iraqis admitted that in 1990 they produced up to 1,700 pounds of the nerve agent VX - considered far deadlier than sarin.
A small quantity of sarin killed 12 people and sickened more than 5,500 others in the March 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways. Last year, the Pentagon acknowledged that more than 20,000 U.S. troops may have been exposed to sarin during the 1991 Gulf War.
The Iraqis claimed they destroyed the VX supply secretly after the Gulf War, but Ekeus said U.N. inspectors could not verify Baghdad's claims when they were taken to sites in the desert where the destruction was said to have taken place.
``There are lingering worries about these special warheads associated with chemical weapons and biological weapons and Iraqis' efforts to acquire large quantities of chemical weapons nerve agents,'' British Ambassador John Weston said. ``We clearly have quite a long way to go'' before the council will lift the sanctions.
But Weston said Iraq had made some progress, noting its agreement to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Kuwaiti prisoners of war still held after the Gulf conflict.
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