Posted 12/22/2002 9:09 PM Updated 12/22/2002 11:20 PM
U.S. to give Iraq inspectors photos of 'sanitation activities'
By John Diamond, USA TODAY
URL:http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-12-22-iraq-photos_x.htm
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence has photographic evidence of Iraq hastily clearing and cleaning suspected weapons sites, raising suspicion the activity is intended to avoid detection of prohibited arms by United Nations inspectors.
The satellite imagery is part of what the United States will present to U.N. inspectors this week in an effort to help them track down banned weapons. U.S. officials acknowledge the intelligence is circumstantial but not irrefutable proof that Iraq continues to develop weapons in defiance of U.N. resolutions.
"We have good evidence of sanitation activities at various sites: carting away scrap, cleaning up and so forth," said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sharing of satellite imagery with the United Nations marks the latest round of jousting between the administration and the inspection team. The administration wants a faster, more aggressive pace to the inspections. U.N. officials counter that they need help from U.S. and other intelligence agencies to determine where to go to look for prohibited weapons.
The CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and other branches of U.S. intelligence are pooling information that could be shared with the weapons inspectors.
While there is no proof the cleanup activity was sinister, the officials said some of the sites were later visited by U.N. inspectors, or are on the list of sites likely to be visited.
This is the type of circumstantial evidence that U.S. officials expect to compile over time as they build a case that Iraq has been developing banned chemical and biological weapons.
Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said he wants detailed information. U.S. and British intelligence officials briefed inspectors on what they suspect the Iraqis are hiding. But Blix told the BBC that the inspectors need information on specific locations. He told CNN the Bush administration should "put the evidence on the table."
The Pentagon and CIA say they can't put all their information on the table for fear of compromising intelligence-gathering methods or tipping off the Iraqis to locations that might be the focus of a U.S. military campaign.
U.S. intelligence is most concerned about protecting human sources in Iraq who are providing information on Iraqi weapons programs. But the imagery alone may be of limited value. A second intelligence official said the spy satellite photos don't show whether the substances being cleared are related to prohibited Iraqi weapons programs. The scarcity of proof of suspected Iraqi weapons programs is generating some political pressure on the Bush administration.
"I would like to at least have the president, who I think is an honest person, look us in the eye and say, 'We have evidence, here it is.' We've never heard the president of the United States say that," Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a possible Democratic presidential candidate, said on ABC's This Week.
"There is nothing but innuendo, and I want to see some hard facts," Dean said.
A front-page editorial in Babil, a newspaper run by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's son Odai, voiced similar skepticism.
"Everybody knows that if they had concrete information, they would have put it on television all around the world before giving it to the inspection teams," the editorial said.
At a news conference Sunday in Baghdad, Amir al-Saadi, an adviser to Saddam, invited the CIA to send officials to Iraq to show U.N. inspectors where they should look.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the invitation.
President Bush canceled plans to travel to Africa in mid-January. White House aides indicated he wanted to be in Washington then to make key decisions on Iraq. |
