Prime Minister hears strong message about Iraq

By SIMON HENDERY in NEW YORK

United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix yesterday praised New Zealand's contribution in Iraq and used a visit by Prime Minister Helen Clark to launch one of his strongest warnings to Iraq to come clean with his staff.

Helen Clark spend half an hour with Dr Blix at his 31st-floor office at the UN in New York yesterday, during a whirlwind visit where she has also been promoting a Discovery Channel documentary on New Zealand.

After the meeting, Dr Blix said the New Zealand personnel with the UN inspection team in Iraq were "vital for our work and are much appreciated".

Eight New Zealand Defence Force staff are in Iraq: a doctor, three medical staff and four communications specialists. The Prime Minister later indicated that another two were likely to join the team.

Dr Blix also mentioned the work for the inspection programme of Don McIver, former Army chief and head of the Security Intelligence Service.

"I also had an intelligence man here in the first two years, a New Zealander, and one day if we get a lot more work we might even ask him to come back."

Dr Blix said time was running out for Iraq to demonstrate that it did not have weapons of mass destruction.

In one of his strongest indications of growing impatience over the inspection process, he said that while 10,000 documents handed over to the UN by Iraq had yet to be analysed "if there is some [uncertainty] that remains after this then I think the time is rapidly running out for them.

"The [UN] resolution talks about [this being] the last opportunity and I hope that the Iraqi Government is reading that very carefully."

Helen Clark was asked if New Zealand would support any US initiative to use nuclear weapons against a non-compliant Iraq.

"We're quite a long way from that and there are a lot of 'ifs' and 'buts' and 'maybes' and hypothetical questions in that."

In a reference to the trouble Australian Prime Minister John Howard faced after he raised the prospect of Canberra ordering pre-emptive strikes on terror targets in Asian, Helen Clark went on: "The lesson I've taken from recent experience from a colleague in Australia is don't answer hypothetical questions."

Earlier yesterday, speaking to 100 business people and officials at an Asia Society lunch at the exclusive Union Club just off Park Ave, the Prime Minister said the Government would continue pushing its case for a free-trade agreement with the United States.

Helen Clark spent her morning closeted in a Times Square broadcasting studio conducting 18 television and four radio interviews to promote the Discovery Channel documentary New Zealand: The Royal Tour, which premieres on Sunday night, US time.

In the documentary, the Prime Minister and a journalist spend five days sampling tourism activities.

Herald feature: Iraq