US: Possibly the most significant comment made in the hallways of UN headquarters in New York after yesterday's Security Council meeting on Iraq came from the US ambassador, Mr John Negroponte.
Asked by a reporter as he wrapped up a press briefing what would happen if there was no change of attitude by Iraq towards inspections before January 27th, the day the UN weapons inspectors are due to make their first formal progress report to the council, Mr Negroponte replied: "That would be a very serious matter" and Iraq should reflect very seriously on the consequences.
This warning contrasted sharply with comments from Dr Hans Blix, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).
"We have not found any smoking gun," Dr Blix said. The inspectors were getting prompt access from the Iraqis. January 27th would be a "work in progress, not a final report; we will continue our work afterwards". His sentiments were echoed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Gen Mohamed ElBaradei, who said "we still have a lot to do". Other council members, including the French and Germans, played down the significance of January 27th, and emphasised that without a serious incident of obstruction before then, the inspections should continue for many months if necessary.
British ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock, like his American counterpart, also warned that "as days go by the failure of Iraq to co-operate will be a very serious matter", but advised reporters to "calm down on the 27th January \, as the inspectors need time to do their business". His remarks came against the background of reports from London that the British government would like to see a decision on military action postponed until the autumn.
Mr Negroponte stated, however, that there must be a change of attitude by Iraq towards inspectors before January 27th, and that "just providing access is not sufficient to constitute active co-operation". He called the 12,000-page weapons declaration Iraq made in December a "deliberate attempt to deceive by deliberate omissions", and said Saddam Hussein's recent statements signalled "he believes the inspections are illegitimate and must be subverted". Dr Blix himself later outlined some of the problems which the Americans have seized upon regarding Baghdad's attitude towards inspections.
There was some evidence that the Iraqis were not giving "proactive" support, he told reporters. The Iraqi document "regrettably has not done very much to clarify questions" about pre-1999 inventories of chemical and biological weapons. They had not been able to interview Iraqi scientists without "minders" being present, and the list of 500 scientists given by the Iraqis to UNMOVIC had failed to include some names that UN inspectors knew were associated with weapons research.
The Iraqis had said they had no documentation about the destruction of banned weapons stocks but had failed to produce any witnesses to confirm their destruction or any residue. "We can't take their word for it." Dr Blix and Mr ElBaradei will go to Baghdad next week to raise these questions with the Iraqi authorities. Presumably if they get no satisfactory answers before reporting again to the Security Council on January 27th, the US will spell out what Mr Negroponte meant by this being "a very serious matter".
At the White House yesterday, spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer dismissed the failure to find a "smoking gun" as evidence of Iraqi good faith. "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
Several diplomats at the UN expressed frustration, known to be shared by Dr Blix, that such remarks were not accompanied by a flow of US intelligence to the weapons inspectors. The US is in fact now providing UN inspectors with "significant" intelligence on Iraqi weapons programmes that has enabled inspectors to become "more aggressive", US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell told the Washington Post yesterday.
The January 27th assessment by the inspectors has been projected in Washington for many weeks as the point where a decision might be made by President Bush to take military action against Iraq.
The US has already stated that Iraq is in material breach of Resolution No 1441 for providing an inadequate inventory of banned weapons - a US position which no other important council member has endorsed, and which Mr Negroponte repeated yesterday.
"The deadline we have before us right now is on the 27th of January, \ we will all receive a report from Dr Blix and Dr ElBaradei and we will see what the inspectors have found or not found and what Dr Blix and Dr ElBaradei think with respect to the presence or absence, or 'we don't know yet', of weapons of mass destruction," Mr Powell said.