Sir, - There are anomalies about the UN Security Council's sabre-rattling over Iraq's refusal to allow US inspectors further access and in the continuing embargo on Iraq ("UN teams turned back by Iraqis", The Irish Times, October 31st).
Countries on the Security Council (primarily the US, Britain and France) armed Iraq in the first place, so they must have an inventory of weaponry supplied. The Scott report also exhaustively lists such items. Surely recourse to such obvious research would be far cheaper and more practical than repeated travel to Iraq to seek needles in haystacks - or indeed missiles in deserts. (Ironically, only a few months ago, US State Department officials were asserting that they had such sophisticated monitoring in place that no armament of any size could elude them; not one radioactive bequerel could go undetected.)
It has also to be wondered whether the UN has a fiscal interest in the continuation of the embargo, since instead of being in its usual state of financial frailty, it is in the unusual position of having $100 million allocated every 90 days to cover the costs of implementing Security Council Resolution 986, the (for Iraq) woefully inadequate oil for food deal.
In 1995 the World Food Programme wrote that "time is running out for the children of Iraq". The latest embargo-related child mortality figures show that time ran out for 1,211,280 children between August 1990 - when sanctions were implemented - and August 1997. While Britain and the US bleat about the rights of United Nations inspectors, they might also reflect on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Perhaps Mary Robinson, in her new role as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, might seek to make this silent holocaust redundant.
- Yours, etc.,
Felicity Arbuthnot,
Homerton High Street, London €9.