IRELAND: The abridged version of the Iraqi government declaration on weapons of mass destruction will be personally delivered to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin today by Ireland's Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Richard Ryan.
A group of "about half-a-dozen" experts from the State and academic sectors will study the report over the next few days. The document is entitled Currently Accurate, Full and Complete Declaration of All Aspects of Its Weapons of Mass Destruction Programmes and was prepared by Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate.
A Department spokesman said the group, assembled on a voluntary basis, would be "in a position to give us an assessment based on their own knowledge" . The Government would also be relying heavily on the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had a very wide range of expertise.
The document was delivered to Ireland's UN mission in New York late on Tuesday night. It was originally some 12,000 pages (A4 size) long but the version, described as a "working copy", obtained by Ireland is about 4,000 pages. Part of the reason for this is the removal of "proliferation-sensitive" information which might be used in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. This material was excised "on the responsibility of UNMOVIC and IAEA".
Supporting documents - "almost all in Arabic" - have also been removed. "It would be too voluminous and lengthy a task to supply us with those in the time available," senior diplomatic sources said.
Staff at the Irish UN mission were engaged in the "huge job" of photocopying the document yesterday, although it is understood Mr Ryan is bringing at least part of the declaration in the form of CD-Roms.
Ireland will be represented at a meeting of the Security Council today where the executive chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr Hans Blix, will give a briefing on the declaration.
The declaration was originally handed over in Baghdad on December 7th, a day ahead of the UN deadline. There was some initial controversy when each of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA) was given the full text. This was justified on the basis that it contained material on the building of weapons of mass destruction, which the "P5" already possessed.