Press Encounter with Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of IAEA (unofficial transcript) 9 January
HB: Good afternoon. Mr. ElBaradei and I briefed the Council, and for my part, I said that we still get prompt access from the Iraqi side; that the inspections are covering ever-wider areas, and ever more sites in Iraq; that in the course of these inspections we have not found any smoking gun. However, we are getting more and more information, better knowledge about the situation, and that the Declaration regrettably has not helped very much to clarify any question marks of the past. Lastly I can tell you that the Council gave very good support, expressed confidence in our two organizations and that they look forward to the briefing that we will give on the 27th of this month.
MElB: I think, as Dr. Blix mentioned, it was a very good meeting with the Council today. We reported that we are inching forward with implementation of our tasks. We are getting access to all the sites, however both of us also indicated that we need more proactive support on the part of Iraq; to be able to move quickly to implement our mandate. We also indicated that we need more actionable information on the part of governments and we committed ourselves to intensify the process so we can achieve the results intended as soon as we can. We will provide an update report on the 27th of this month, however that report, we should emphasize, is an update report, it is not a final report, it is work in progress, and this simply would register where we are on the 27th of January, but we obviously [will] continue our work afterward and we still have a lot of work to do.
HB: Good afternoon. Mr. ElBaradei and I briefed the Council, and for my part, I said that we still get prompt access from the Iraqi side; that the inspections are covering ever-wider areas, and ever more sites in Iraq; that in the course of these inspections we have not found any smoking gun. However, we are getting more and more information, better knowledge about the situation, and that the Declaration regrettably has not helped very much to clarify any question marks of the past. Lastly I can tell you that the Council gave very good support, expressed confidence in our two organizations and that they look forward to the briefing that we will give on the 27th of this month.
MElB: I think, as Dr. Blix mentioned, it was a very good meeting with the Council today. We reported that we are inching forward with implementation of our tasks. We are getting access to all the sites, however both of us also indicated that we need more proactive support on the part of Iraq; to be able to move quickly to implement our mandate. We also indicated that we need more actionable information on the part of governments and we committed ourselves to intensify the process so we can achieve the results intended as soon as we can. We will provide an update report on the 27th of this month, however that report, we should emphasize, is an update report, it is not a final report, it is work in progress, and this simply would register where we are on the 27th of January, but we obviously [will] continue our work afterward and we still have a lot of work to do.