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1/17/2003 04:03:00 PM | Brad Plumer

Iraq and previous inspections…

Mr. Sarma, I enjoy your posts greatly and find them informative. But I still think you have put far too much stock in the efficacy of both previous inspectors and current intelligence. Let me try to outline my case against both and reason out why we have good reason to believe that Iraq still has plenty of weapons, and still poses a credible threat.

In 1992, the UN ordered Iraq to make a full disclosure of all of its nuclear weapons. Iraq submitted a report declaring that it had destroyed its special warheads, a report continuously contradicted by inspector evidence. Of course, the inspectors didn’t immediately know that the Iraqis were lying, sometimes they uncovered discrepancies only several years later. In every instance, Iraq “updated” its information to reflect the new evidence. Even by 1998, the inspectors could not be sure that they had verified the destruction of its special warheads. You can find extensive documentation of these assertions here.

I make this point not to argue that Mr. Hussein has a storied past of lying and deceit (common knowledge by now), but to suggest that his deceit succeeded, and often took years to uncover. Mr. Sarma, you deny that Iraq could hide anything from inspectors, and yet he managed to achieve just that over a lengthy period. The evidence seems rather compelling. Let's just take a gander at what the inspectors had to say.

In their October 1998 report to the UN Security Council, the inspectors reported that all of Iraq’s special operational warheads were destroyed [see Section III, 25(a)]. Well, that’s interesting, because it seems like only yesterday that Blix and co. found special operational warheads! Now two things could account for this find. Either Iraq was successfully able to hide warheads from the previous inspection crew, or they have been smuggling chemical warheads into Iraq over the past four years, even with all that stalwart monitoring going on. Well, you choose, either the inspections didn’t work or the sanctions don’t work. In my opinion, it seems likely that the inspectors failed to verify that these newly-discovered missiles were destroyed, which means that even when the inspectors felt certain of their success, they were still prone to error.

Anyways, if you have the time, look through the rest of that October 1998 report. The report seems a lot less confident than Ritter and Butler apparently are. Here are some greatest hits:

“The Commission’s view is that Iraq was certainly able to produce VX, and probably produced it in quantity. However, the achieved level of verification of precisely how much VX was produced by Iraq is not satisfactory” [Section III, 29(b)].

“The development of the drop-tank for dissemination of BW [biological weapon] agents appears to have been pursued with the utmost vigour by Iraq. The team of international experts assessed that the account in the FFCD of the drop tank project could not be verified” [Section III, 34(a)].

“Growth Media. The material balance in this area as declared by Iraq is full of uncertainties. The acquisition of media by Iraq cannot be verified. The figures presented in the FFCD for media consumed in the production of BW agents have little or no supporting evidence. The international expert team assessed that the material balance for the growth media could not be verified” [Section III, 34(c)].

With all due respect to Ritter and Butler, if this is their idea of 95% disarmament, I’d sooner send in the Ringling brothers. Here was the stunning conclusion of the report:

“It is suggested that three central facts emerge from this report on the Commission’s work with Iraq during the last six months: the disarmament phase of the Security Council’s requirements is possibly near its end in the missile and chemical weapons areas but not in the biological weapons area” [Section VI, 67]

In other words, they were reasonably confident about chemical and missile weapons (even though they turned out to be wrong about missile weapons!), and had no clue on the biological weapons front. This was after six years of extensive inspections. Now, sure, you can blame Spertzel for all of this (though I still have a hard time understanding why the anti-war President Clinton would endorse monkey business going on during inspections). But the fact remains, Iraq most likely still has the ability to produce certain WMD, and they have not accounted for the destruction of these weapons in their latest report. Given Iraq’s past habits of faking destruction reports, why should we believe them now? We have every reason in the world to think that Mr. Hussein is lying, and that he get away with it (at least for a short while).

Oh, and as an added note, here’s a summary of an interview that Policy Watch conducted with Scott Ritter in 1998. My favorite quote: “Several thousand bombs and seven hundred tons of chemical agent that were listed as expended may well still be in Iraq's possession.” Seems like at one time Ritter thought Iraq had weapons. Tell me again why we should believe his current insistence that Iraq poses no threat? What new information has he gleaned between leaving Iraq in 1998 and today?

Now, you have also argued that Iraq lacks the capability to hide weapons from US, etc. intelligence. You consider “fear-mongering” the suggestion that Mr. Hussein might hide his weapons program from us. I think you have a far greater faith in US, etc. intelligence than I do. Let’s go through your assertions…

1. Creation and testing of both chemical and nuclear weapons is detectable via satellite.

Well, maybe, but here’s an item of interest: back in November, when the whole world was watching Afghanistan, Pakistan was easily able to smuggle weapons into Iraq, evading satellite detection (see the bottom of the article). So I suppose a few things can escape satellites. But you were talking about nukes n' stuff. Well, here's another item: Pakistan was berated recently for supplying North Korea with technology to conceal their nuclear weapons program from American satellite surveillance (again, see bottom of article). So apparently, the technology exists, and the concealment is possible.

2. Chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons often leave traces in labs after they are moved, which makes it hard for Iraq to simply "move stuff around".

The UCLA School of Public Health put out a recent report stating that inspectors in Iraq were looking for mobile weapons labs which can elude even sophisticated surveillance (this info is echoed all over the web). Now, I’m no expert on the production of weapons, and you seem to be sure that mobile labs can’t possibly exist. Explain why you are right and everyone else is wrong.

3. Chemical and biological weapons produced more than 5 years ago would have degraded and become useless.

Again, what are you basing this on? If you have some secret credentials that I don’t know about, please, share them, but otherwise I’ll refer to the above 1998 report by UN inspectors which claims:

A dozen mustard-filled shells were recovered at a former CW storage facility in the period 1997-1998. The chemical sampling of these munitions in April 1998 revealed that the mustard was still of the highest quality. After 7 years, the purity of mustard ranged between 94 and 97% [Section III, 29(a)].

Chemical weapons, apparently, do not degrade as quickly as you would have us believe.

I guess the time calls for a summary…The evidence and documents above seem to indicate a large gap in inspector efficacy, and you still have not produced convincing evidence that sanctions and embargoes can prevent Iraq from developing a weapons program. Despite all the strict measures previous, Blix and co. have discovered that Iraq has imported missile engines and smuggled in conventional weapons. The circus appears to go on without end, and however much diminished, Iraq continues to putter about, violating UN resolutions and arming itself.

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