Dual-Use
Material and the Weapons Search in Iraq
Alistair Millar
(Alistair
Millar is vice president and director of the Washington office
of the Fourth Freedom Forum.)
May 2, 2003
Before the
US-British invasion of Iraq, most skeptics did not argue that
Saddam Hussein's regime possessed no illicit weapons of mass destruction.
Rather, the majority of the international community doubted that
Iraqi non-conventional weapons capabilities posed a pressing threat
to the peace. Repeatedly presented with false, dated, improperly
cited and, in at least one case, plagiarized "intelligence"
of the Iraqi threat, the UN Security Council refused to authorize
war to enforce Resolution 1441, unanimously passed on November
8, 2002. On the streets, anti-war organizers' efforts culminated
in the largest worldwide demonstrations in history. The message
of anti-war dissent was clear: available evidence of Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction did not constitute a case for war.
George W.
Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his strongest ally,
sought to justify the invasion of Iraq with numerous claims that
the Hussein's regime sat on large volumes of chemical and biological
agents which could be delivered to targets outside Iraq's borders.
With the war over, as day after day goes by without evidence of
these vast weapons programs, it is interesting to observe the
Bush administration retreat from its pre-war positions. Unwittingly,
the White House now appears to be inching toward the pre-war stance
of chief UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei:
some of the ingredients to develop chemical and biological agents
may exist in Iraq, but there is no sign of deliverable weapons
of mass destruction.
National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who wrote a January 23, 2003
op-ed in the New York Times entitled "Why We Know Iraq Is
Lying" about having destroyed its weaponized chemical and
biological materials, sounded a little like the much-disparaged
Blix and ElBaradei on May 1, when she was quoted saying that "you
may find assembly lines, you may find pieces hidden here and there"
that could be precursors to lethal agents or chemicals with dual
uses. These scattered pieces, she continued, could be put together
"just in time" to make the proscribed armaments. While
weapons caches may still be discovered, for the time being, the
chemicals and "assembly lines" have clearly acquired
a second use for the Bush administration -- as it attempts to
lower the standard for what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction.
BELIEVING
THE HYPE
Before the
war, the US insisted, time and time again, that these weapons
existed in large numbers and posed a threat so urgent that military
action was required to "disarm" the deposed dictator.
In his January 2003 State of the Union speech, Bush laid out his
administration's case for war with Iraq by saying that US "intelligence
officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce
as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such
quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands."
Bush also presented allegations, later refuted by the International
Atomic Energy Agency, that Iraq had purchased enriched uranium
ore from the African nation of Niger.
The following
month, the White House sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to
make its case before the still unconvinced UN Security Council.
Using intercepted communications and satellite images, Powell
succeeded in convincing large sectors of the American public that
Iraq had the nerve agents and chemical shells it claimed not to
have. Outside US borders, however, Powell succeeded mainly in
raising serious questions about Washington's commitment to UN
weapons monitoring and the goal of disarming Iraq. Under the terms
of Resolution 1441, UN member states are required to provide full
cooperation in the weapons inspection process. Much of the information
in Powell's presentation had been collected before the resumption
of inspections in late November 2002. If the US was in possession
of evidence of Iraqi concealment or weapons activities, then its
first obligation was to share that information with UN inspectors,
who could ensure that the prohibited weapons were then destroyed
or rendered harmless. Defenders of Washington's apparent failure
to share crucial intelligence implied that Blix and ElBaradei
could not be trusted with such a sensitive mission.
Even facing
certain loss of power as US tanks rolled into Baghdad, the Iraqi
regime did not use the chemical or biological weapons whose "grave
and gathering danger" Rice, Bush and Powell had posited before
the war. Presaging Rice's new take on the situation, the British
government explained this fact by arguing that the regime was
not able to deploy its weapons because their components had been
dispersed. This argument directly contradicted London's claim
before the war, featured in the heavily hyped "British dossier"
of September 2002, that Iraq was capable of fielding an operational
battery of weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, and
that Hussein's commanders had standing orders to fire them. In
an introduction to the dossier, Blair opined: "I am in no
doubt that the threat is serious and current, that [Saddam] has
made progress on WMD, and that he has to be stopped.... Intelligence
reports make clear that he sees the building up of his WMD capability,
and the belief overseas that he would use these weapons, as vital
to his three strategic interests, and in particular his goal of
regional domination."
NOTHING CONCRETE
Since the
Iraq war began on March 19, US, British and allied forces have
checked out over a dozen suspect sites -- searching for chemical,
biological and nuclear arms materials. Special operations teams,
including so-called "mobile exploitation teams" composed
of specialized military officers, Defense Intelligence Agency
officials and CIA analysts, are trying to locate and test possible
weapons materials at as many as 36 sites.
To date,
the US-led "mobile exploitation teams" have provided
no conclusive evidence that chemical and biological agents exist
in weaponized form, though the media has done much to convince
the public to the contrary. There was a brief frenzy of speculation
-- fueled by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and later dampened
by Powell -- that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction may have been
moved to Syria. Embedded reporters have passed along dozens of
allegations of discoveries of chemical and biological weapons.
Cable news networks, in particular, have focused an inordinate
amount of broadcast time on repeated images of alleged mobile
labs, chemical munitions and biological weapons facilities, while
often neglecting to retract their stories when corroborating evidence
fails to emerge.
On April
11, for example, FOX News praised their own Rick Leventhal for
witnessing the discovery of a mobile weapons lab secreted inside
a larger truck resembling a surface-to-air missile support or
radar vehicle. FOX ran and reran pictures of the dilapidated truck,
while announcers speculated that anyone who doubted the existence
of mobile labs before the war would be now proven wrong. In a
second story about the discovery of high-grade weapons material,
later withdrawn by the US military, FOX quoted a former Iraqi
scientist saying that "the material definitely could have
been planned [sic]" for use in a bomb. The reporter then
added, "I think this demonstrates the failure of the UN weapons
inspections, and demonstrates that our guys are going to find
the weapons of mass destruction."
With no concrete
evidence of Iraqi chemical or biological weapons, the White House
has conceded that the Iraqi regime may have destroyed them before
the war started. The US and its few allies, under increasing international
pressure to prove that Iraq had such weapons, are raising further
suspicion by refusing to allow UN inspectors to help in the search.
The Pentagon has recruited its own inspectors, and begun negotiating
contracts for weapons disposal with US companies. It plans to
send around a thousand additional military personal and scientists
to assist with interviews and fact-finding in the coming weeks.
OF CREDIBILITY
AND CORROBORATION
If any weapons
were to be found by the US teams criss-crossing Iraq, would the
international community, already very suspicious of US and British
motives for the invasion, believe the news? Given the US and British
track record of faulty findings before the war, there are widespread
concerns that the Bush administration may manipulate evidence
to redress its sagging credibility. Empty-handed after conducting
site searches, US defense officials are now reported as saying
that they are counting on captured Iraqis to point them in the
right direction. According to the Associated Press, the US Central
Command, which ran the war and is now supervising post-war Iraq,
has caught "several alleged weapons scientists." Senior
regime figures in US custody, like former deputy prime minister
Tariq Aziz and former liaison to the UN inspectors Gen. Amir al-Saadi,
are also supposed to lead Central Command to Saddam Hussein's
illegal arsenals.
Are scientists
likely to provide accurate information to their captors? Before
the war, the White House repeatedly urged Hans Blix to conduct
interviews with Iraq scientists outside Iraq in order to protect
them from repression and retaliation. The Bush administration
is now threatening these scientists with imprisonment, and trial
that could lead to execution, if they fail to cough up useful
information on where the putative weapons of mass destruction
programs may be hidden.
The US-led
military inspections effort ostensibly draws its rationale from
the need to enforce UN disarmament resolutions, especially 687,
1284 and 1441. But the mandate of the inspections body produced
by Resolution 1284, UNMOVIC, applies to all governments of Iraq,
including the present "military administration" led
by Central Command and retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner. The fact also
remains that substantial amounts of the chemical and biological
agents produced by Iraq were accounted for and destroyed by Iraq
and UN inspectors during the 1990s. Given this record of accomplishment,
the Security Council should retain its authority and UNMOVIC should
be authorized to reenter Iraq to complete its mandate. Even British
Secretary of Defense Geoff Hoon recently agreed, "it's important
that there should be an independent element in verification,"
lest the world disbelieve the results of the Pentagon's inspections.
The UN stands
at the ready to certify that the requirements of the disarmament
resolutions have been met. In a letter to the UN Security Council
on March 19, UNMOVIC chairman Hans Blix reminded the Council "that
it has in UNMOVIC staff a unique body of international experts
who owe their allegiance to the United Nations, and who are trained
as inspectors in the field of weapons of mass destruction. While
the International Atomic Energy Agency has a large department
of skilled nuclear inspectors and the Organization for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons has a large staff of skilled chemical weapons
inspectors, no other international organizations have trained
inspectors in the field of biological weapons and missiles."
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has recently made it clear that the
IAEA "is the sole body with legal authority to verify Iraq's
nuclear disarmament.... Our operation is interrupted because of
hostilities. We expect to go back with full authority after the
cessation of hostilities, to resume our inspection activities
in Iraq." According to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, "the
work of the inspectors has merely been suspended. If and when
they can resume their work, they should go back to Iraq. If anything
were to be found, they should go back to test it. I hope the time
will come when they will be able to do that." Aside from
the legal basis for the return of inspectors and the obvious role
they would play by corroborating and providing independent verification
of any weapons of mass destruction that may be found by the US,
UN inspections are vital to future monitoring efforts.
Bush has
called for economic sanctions on Iraq to be lifted quickly so
the country's oil revenue can be used to finance reconstruction.
The French and the Russians, with varying degrees of pique, reply
that the Security Council alone has the authority to suspend sanctions
on Iraq. Both nations urged that sanctions not be lifted until
UN inspectors verify that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons have been destroyed, along with the long-range missiles
to deliver them. Snubbing the UN in favor of a US team may reprise
the problems faced in the mid-1990s, when revelations of illegal
US covert operations in Iraq helped to erode international consensus
on sanctions, with France and Russia arguing for lifting the punitive
measures and the US and Britain adamant that they should stay.
This time, the players would exchange roles, but the cost to Iraqi
civilian life would be the same.
"BULLETPROOF"
INTELLIGENCE
But the imperatives
of verifying Iraq's disarmament and lifting sanctions may be eclipsed
by the prospect that failure to produce weapons in Iraq will highlight
a failure of US intelligence. Before the invasion of Iraq, a BBC
interviewer confronted Blix with the observation that "the
British government seems pretty sure that Saddam Hussein still
has chemical and biological weapons, has produced more recently
and is trying to get a nuclear bomb." Blix responded, "Well,
we are asked to provide facts to the Security Council and the
best way of doing that is through inspections, what we see....
I read the intelligence reports, but frequently they simply state
that intelligence tells us this, or intelligence shows that. Fine,
it may all be true.... But simply saying that 'intelligence shows...'
is not evidence."
A transcript
detailing the 1995 debriefing of a senior Iraqi scientist, Hussein
Kamel, by officials from the IAEA and UNSCOM was leaked to Newsweek
and reprinted in early March 2003. Kamel, who was Saddam Hussein's
son-in-law, told the inspectors eight years ago that he had overseen
and covered up the destruction of Iraq's chemical and biological
weapons programs. The claim was corroborated by a military aide
who defected with Kamel. Newsweek reported that the CIA and its
British equivalent MI6 were subsequently informed of the debriefing.
As specialized military units working with intelligence officers
come up empty in post-war Iraq, it is increasingly apparent that
the intelligence community did not have the actionable information
-- the "bulletproof" evidence -- that the White House
continually cited while making its case for a preemptive strike.
According to Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, quoted in Newsday on April 28, "You
either have the data or you don't. That's the problem here, that
we don't really have the data.... At a minimum, the situation
raises questions about both the quality of US intelligence on
Iraqi weapons and the assertions of administration officials in
the runup to the war."
During 12
years of sanctions on Iraq, the US and Britain blocked billions
of dollars in Iraqi purchase orders on the grounds that the sought-after
goods could have "dual uses," one entirely innocent
and the other military. Today, it appears that the most obvious
evidence of dual-use material can be found in US and British arguments
attempting to justify the invasion of Iraq.
