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Chief U.N. Arms Inspector Disturbed by Criticism of Ex-Inspector

By BARBARA CROSSETTE
Published: September 9, 1998

Richard Butler, chief United Nations arms inspector for Iraq, said today that he was disturbed by the Senate testimony of a former American inspector who resigned last month.

The inspector, William Scott Ritter Jr., said the Administration and the United Nations had been too conciliatory toward Iraq and had undermined the inspection system.

In the chief inspector's first critical comments on Mr. Ritter's statements since he resigned on Aug. 26, Mr. Butler said in an interview that Mr. Ritter's testimony was often inaccurate in chronology and detail and had damaged the commission.

Mr. Butler said Mr. Ritter had also inflated his role and made misleading statements about Mr. Butler's dealings with Security Council officials, and particularly with Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.

Mr. Butler spoke as the Council appeared to near agreement on an American-sponsored resolution to keep sanctions on Iraq indefinitely, without hope of a review, until Baghdad reverses its decision of Aug. 5 to end intrusive searches for arms, weapons parts and documents.

Achieving the unanimity of the Council for the resolution ''is not going to be an extremely difficult process,'' said the Council president for September, Hans Dahlgren of Sweden. This is expected to be a critical month for American and other diplomats as they try to rebuild a shattered consensus for stronger action against Iraq if all else fails.

Some diplomats have begun to talk of possible military action, but the Council is a long way from that moment.

In that context the American policy has been to avoid frequent confrontations with Iraq, which has for the last year gained something from each periodic blowup, and choose instead a solid front of resistance when diplomatic efforts have run their course.

Against that background Mr. Butler said Mr. Ritter's portrayal of the United Nations Special Commission was rife with misconceptions.

In interviews and at a Senate hearing last week, Mr. Ritter said the Administration, the Security Council and Secretary General Kofi Annan had undermined the efforts of the commission to find and destroy Iraq's clandestine biological, chemical, nuclear and certain prohibited missile systems.

Mr. Butler said that the commission had many tasks to perform and that Mr. Ritter was involved in only one.

''The aspect for which Scott Ritter held a key responsibility, mainly Iraq's policy and practice of concealment, is only one of several things that we do,'' Mr. Butler said. ''Unscom was and is far more than the concealment issue,'' he added, using the acronym for the commission.

''Unscom has a dedicated team of men and women, and they are continuing to do its work. Scott Ritter was a member of that team, and as I made clear when he resigned, he was a very valuable member of it. But the idea that somehow his departure means a breakdown in the work of all those other good women and men is a misconception.''

Mr. Butler has been most disturbed by Mr. Ritter's accusations that the agency canceled investigations as a direct result of pressure from Ms. Albright.

''Unfortunately, Scott Ritter's chronology of events is not accurate,'' Mr. Butler said.

''You can't go about making claims like this about who did what with which and to whom on dates and times and places unless you get the story right, or otherwise it's misleading,'' he added.