Iraq: the myth and the reality
As the drumbeat grows louder for a possible attack on
Baghdad, we ask arms inspectors and military and
foreign affairs experts: is Saddam as dangerous as
the US makes out, and what would be the
consequences of war?
Julian Borger in Washington, Richard Norton-Taylor, Ewen
MacAskill and Brian Whitaker
Guardian
Friday March 15, 2002
1. Does Iraq have, or is it developing, weapons of mass
destruction?
The case for military action against Saddam Hussein stands or
falls on this apparently simple factual question. President
George Bush and his deputy, Dick Cheney, backed by Tony
Blair, claim there is no doubt that Baghdad possesses and
could use weapons of mass destruction, and so, as Mr Bush
put it, "inaction is not an option".
Most analysts, however, concede that there is considerable
doubt about the extent of Saddam's weapons programme, and
about how dangerous it could be to the rest of the world. What
is not in doubt is that Saddam has a record of aggressively
pursuing the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, and
has had more than three years since the UN weapons
inspectors withdrew to try to reconstitute his former nuclear,
biological and chemical programmes.
At the centre of the debate on Iraq's weapons capability are the
inspectors from the now-defunct United Nations Special
Commission on Iraq (Unscom), who spent seven years, from
1991 to 1998, attempting to gain access to the regime's arms
facilities. Despite their shared technical background, not all of
them can agree on the facts.
Charles Duelfer, an American who was deputy chairman of
Unscom, believes the Iraqis still have dangerous weapons in
their arsenal - probably not nuclear warheads, but possibly
chemical weapons and, almost certainly and most worryingly,
biological agents.
"The biological issue is the biggest issue and the least
understood," Mr Duelfer says. "[Saddam] has mobile labs,
which have the capacity to produce stuff in large quantities, and
he's continuing to build weapons."
Mr Duelfer's judgment is that Iraq "retained a missile capability
that could constitute a strategic reserve; how effective that would
be is an open question".
Not effective at all, says Scott Ritter, who stands as a vocal
minority at the other end of the former arms inspector divide.
While in Unscom he gained the reputation of being one of its
most aggressive sleuths, but he has since sharply shifted tack
and is today a leading sceptic on the issue.
Mr Ritter is sure the Iraqis never succeeded in turning their
chemical and biological agents into a weapon that could spray
its lethal warhead over a large area.
"They lacked an effective dispensing mechanism. That requires
specific capabilities, like bomblets, and the ability to aerosolise
the weapon. Missiles require a precise fusing mechanism which
Iraq never had."
Although Mr Ritter concedes that 5-10% of Iraq's known
pre-1990 stockpile of chemical and biological arms has not been
accounted for, he argues that even if Saddam had tried to hide
this remnant of his arsenal "it would no longer be viable".
Weapons built before the Gulf war that slipped through the
Unscom net would by now have passed their sell-by date.
Ali Muhsin Hamid, the Arab League's ambassador in London,
agrees. UN inspectors destroyed 95% of Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction, and the remaining 5% has been rendered
unuseable by the fact that Iraq is prevented under sanctions
from replacing equipment needed to deploy them.
Ben Bradshaw, the Foreign Office minister responsible for the
Middle East, including policy on Iraq, has no doubts that "Iraq
has and is developing weapons of mass destruction. We cannot
afford to ignore his weapons".
More specifically, Saddam is developing new missile-launching
technology that would allow him to strike beyond the 150km
(93-mile) limit imposed by the UN. Israel and several Gulf states
would lie within his range.
Most analysts believe that Iraq has so far failed to procure
long-range missiles able to deliver weapons of mass destruction.
However, it has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle modelled
on a converted jet trainer aircraft, which the CIA said recently
had been adapted to deliver chemical or, more likely, biological
warfare agents.
The most vexed area of disagreement relates to the most
profound fear: is Saddam building nuclear weapons? Western
intelligence agencies and independent analysts all agree that
nuclear weapons are far more difficult to develop than chemical
or biological, simply because of the difficulty involved in
acquiring fissile material.
Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle East programme at the
Royal Institute of International Affairs, says that from
discussions with nuclear scientists it seemed clear that Iraq
does not have the capacity to build nuclear weapons. She
suggests that the emphasis now on Saddam's nuclear
ambitions is dictated by Washington's plans for a pre-emptive
strike on Iraq.
Mr Bradshaw believes that Iraq has restarted its nuclear
weapons programme. "Saddam could develop a nuclear weapon
within five years," he says, though he adds that would only
happen "if controls are lifted".
Opponents of military intervention such as Mr Ritter counter that
even before Saddam was walled in by sanctions and
international surveillance he failed to create a nuclear bomb.
Were Saddam to possess fully operational weapons of mass
destruction, would he use them? Among Iraqis themselves,
there is rare agreement between supporters and opponents of
the Baghdad regime that Saddam is unlikely to do so. Dr
Burhan Chalabi, an Iraqi-born British businessman and a strong
critic of sanctions against Iraq, said deploying such weapons
would serve no useful purpose. "Apart from Kuwait and Israel,
Iraq has made peace with all its neighbours, including Saudi
Arabia."
Brigadier-General Najib Salihi, a prominent member of the Iraqi
opposition, agrees. Saddam would risk losing control of both the
army and his people if he pressed the button, he says.
Mr Bradshaw points out that Saddam has already used
chemical weapons against Iran and against the Kurds of
northern Iraq at Halabja, attacking and killing them with mustard
gas and the nerve agent tabun.
To which Mr Ritter replies: "Under international law, at what
point do we justify a war about bad behaviour in the past?"
2. What evidence is there for Saddam's possession or
development of weapons of mass destruction?
For the Iraqi-born Dr Chalabi, the answer is blunt: "There is no
evidence."
Mr Hamid, of the Arab League, makes the same point more
expansively. Talk of "evidence" is political rhetoric, he says.
"Either the US aim is to force Iraq to accept the inspectors
again or to have this issue burning in order to distract the
attention of Arabs from the situation in the Palestinian occupied
territories."
Sir John Moberly, who was the British ambassador to Baghdad
between 1982 and 1985, argues that to dismiss any fear of the
regime as rhetoric is to belie the evidence of history. Though he
concedes he is not privy to specifics, he is familiar with
Saddam's past duplicity.
"The Iraqis said they had abandoned weapons programmes but
we found later when one of the leadership defected to Jordan
that the programmes were continuing."
Exhibit A in the debate over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
is the final substantive report delivered by Unscom in January
1999, in which it gave an account of what biological and
chemical weapons had been accounted for and what remained
unknown. The document confirms that much of the pre-1990
stockpile was destroyed either in the Iran-Iraq war or under
Unscom supervision. For the rest, though, the key recurring
phrase was "cannot be verified".
Colonel Terry Taylor, a former UN inspector in Iraq, says he and
his colleagues had proof that the Iraqis had weaponised anthrax,
botulinum toxin and aflatoxin. They also carried out research
and development work on other agents including ricin (a toxin)
and animal and plant agents, and had several hundreds of tons
of mustard agent in missiles, artillery and rocket form, as well
as a weaponised version of the nerve agent sarin.
"The most worrying outstanding issue is that Unscom had
documentary proof that the Iraqis had acquired hundreds of tons
of the chemicals essential to the production of VX nerve agent -
one of the most deadly nerve agents developed in recent times.
They refused to disclose the location and confirm the
quantities."
Col Taylor adds that the Iraqi engineers and scientists are still in
place to develop and produce similar weapons. "Having been at
close quarters with these programmes over a number of years in
Iraq I concluded that they would make every effort to conceal
their weapons of mass destruction programmes and continue to
develop them as far as possible."
Mr Duelfer described as "very credible" an Iraqi defector named
Adnan al-Haideri who fled Iraq last year. Mr al-Haideri, a civil
engineer, claimed that he had worked on renovations to secret
weapons of mass destruction facilities concealed in private
villas, wells and under the Saddam Hussein hospital in
Baghdad.
Evidence of a nuclear capability is sketchy. The International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is responsible for
monitoring nuclear weapons and which is still making visits to
Iraq, is upbeat, concluding recently that there is no sign of a
surviving programme.
However, the comfort that affords is undermined by Mr Duelfer
and Mr Ritter who for once can agree that the IAEA has proved
largely ineffectual. Key components of three prototype nuclear
bombs are reported to have been made before the Gulf war but
were never handed over, including the high explosive "lenses"
designed to force the fissile core to implode.
However, according to Mr Ritter the same Iraqi source which
revealed the existence of the three lenses also said that the
delicate devices had been roughly handled and wrecked by
Saddam's Special Republican Guard. "What the Iraqis retained
is useless," he says.
Mr Duelfer accepts that it is unlikely Saddam has a nuclear
bomb, but argues that there is credible evidence from defectors
and other intelligence that the Iraqi leader is marshalling his
nuclear experts to have a fresh attempt at building a bomb.
3. Would an offer to allow UN weapons inspectors back
into Iraq be a meaningful and sufficient response to
negate the threat of military force?
Again, the experts at the centre of the dispute - the arms
inspectors - cannot agree. The most optimistic view comes from
Hans Blix, the Swedish head of Unmovic, which in 1999
replaced Unscom after it was expelled from Iraq. He is confident
that once his newly trained 230-strong team of inspectors are
back in Iraq they will have a real impact. He is also certain that
this route would be a much safer and more efficient way of
removing the fangs from the regime than a military offensive.
"Ten years and thousands of inspections and reports later it is
recognised that Unscom's efforts probably led to the destruction
of more weapons of mass destruction than did the Gulf war," he
says.
Mr Duelfer, with years of experience of Saddam's evasions, is
less sanguine about Unmovic's chances. "Blix can do no more
than what Iraq permits and the security council is willing to back
up," he says, pointing out that as a UN body, it would have to
make its information and intelligence available to countries such
as France, Russia and China, which have had a history of
sympathy and cooperation with Iraq.
Sir John Moberly thinks that if the Iraqis did allow the inspectors
back, they would take much wind out of US military sails. "It will
be very difficult to carry out any attack and maintain support
internationally if Iraq has complied."
Other analysts suggest the US is adopting a cynical approach.
For Mr Ritter, no Iraqi response would be sufficient to stop an
attack by an administration that has set its sights on "regime
change".
Dr Chalabi also sees a double game being played. "If the
Americans have made up their mind to attack Iraq, they don't
need any excuse such as demanding to send inspectors back.
This is just spin to prepare public opinion for an attack."
Mr Hamid, of the Arab League, says the only way to convince
Arabs that the US is genuine in its resolve to deal with weapons
of mass destruction is to tackle Israel's nuclear arsenal as well
as Iraq's. "If the Israeli weapons are looked at, the Arabs will feel
that the US is serious, fair, even-handed and objective."
In the strategy being pursued by Washington and London,
access to UN inspectors and military action are inextricably
linked - one depends on the other. The British government now
shares the Bush administration's view that there is no chance of
Saddam allowing in UN inspectors without a credible threat of
serious military action.
Col Taylor agrees with that view. For him, bargaining is not on
the agenda. "You have to demonstrate to Baghdad that
substantial and credible military action will take place. You
cannot negotiate with Saddam Hussein."
guardian.co.uk
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