Iraq plans to declare itself free of weapons of mass destruction
By WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Iraq signaled Tuesday that it soon will declare that it is free of weapons of mass destruction, setting the stage for a renewed confrontation with the Bush administration.
A senior U.S. official said that President Bush will launch an aggressive effort to demonstrate that the expected Iraqi claim is false, using U.S. intelligence data and pressing the United Nations to conduct weapons inspections with that goal in mind. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
In Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors entered one of President Saddam Hussein's opulent, forbidden palaces from two directions Tuesday, conducting a surprise visit that tested Iraq's promise to comply with a Security Council resolution permitting unannounced inspections of any site in the country.
When the inspectors arrived at the front and rear entrances of Sijood Palace in central Baghdad -- a site usually off-limits to all but a few of Hussein's top lieutenants -- guards initially blocked the convoy.
After about eight minutes, as Iraqi officials who had been following the inspectors barked into their radios and shouted at the palace guards, the black metal gates were pulled open.
The inspectors then drove up a palm-lined driveway toward the three-story, turquoise-domed brick building at the center of the compound.
U.N. officials did not say why they chose to visit the site, what the inspectors were looking for there or whether they found any evidence of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Western intelligence officials and analysts long have thought that Hussein has hidden evidence of a program to develop prohibited weapons in some of his secretive and garish palaces.
Bush's top national security advisers met Tuesday at the White House to discuss U.S. responses to Iraq's expected claim that it is free of weapons of mass destruction. They plan to reconvene Thursday, after Secretary of State Colin Powell returns from a two-day trip to Colombia.
Under a resolution that the U.N. Security Council adopted unanimously last month, Iraq has until Sunday to make a full confession of its programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
A senior Iraqi official suggested that the document, which he said will be delivered Saturday, will declare that Hussein's government no longer possesses such weapons.
"We are a country devoid of weapons of mass destruction," said Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate.
The United States has promised Britain, its closest ally, that it would not launch a war against Iraq solely on the basis of a weapons declaration that it deemed false, said a senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Rather, the official said, Bush and his aides are expected to launch a full-scale effort to prove that the Iraqi document is false. That effort could take until next month, meaning Bush could face a decision in January on whether to go to war.
First, the United States carefully will scrutinize the Iraqi document and compare it with U.S. intelligence information, a process that could take days or more.
Then the United States will press chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix to "really do an audit, in effect, of the final declaration," the official said. "The end result of that...is to show the declaration to be false."
As part of the effort, Washington is expected to share additional intelligence data with Blix, other officials said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that, in the event of a false Iraqi declaration, the United States could begin ratcheting up pressure on Hussein by accelerating a buildup of U.S. ground forces in the Persian Gulf region for a possible invasion.
A previous inspection group, the U.N. Special Commission, stated in its final report in January 1999 that it had found serious discrepancies in Iraq's declarations of its weapons holdings.
The group said that Iraqi declarations of its holdings in the biological weapons field were assessed as "incomplete, inadequate and containing substantial deficiencies."
The earlier inspectors were pulled from Iraq in December 1998, days before the United States and Britain launched a four-day bombing campaign in response to Baghdad's refusal to grant the inspectors full access.
The new inspection team resumed inspections last week. They have reported full cooperation from Iraqi officials.
Bush this week began shifting his rhetoric away from the activities of the inspectors and toward Iraq's declaration.
"The issue is not the inspectors," Bush said Tuesday. "The issue is whether or not Mr. Saddam Hussein will disarm like he said he would. We're not interested in hide and seek inside Iraq."
A short, simple denial by Hussein that Iraq has any banned weapons could be enough to trigger a U.S. buildup to war, U.S. officials and private analysts said.
"If he denies having anything, we will know he's in violation," said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
A flat denial would make Bush's choice easy, the senior U.S. official said. "They're not going to do that," he said.
The official predicted instead that the Iraqis would acknowledge having equipment that can be used to make chemical and biological weapons, but state that it is "dual use" and intended only for civilian purposes.
It is less clear what the Iraqis will say about suspected programs to develop nuclear weapons and missiles, technology that has no clear civilian use, the official said.
In the absence of clear-cut evidence of Iraqi deception, however, Bush could find himself again at odds with other leading members of the Security Council, who are anxious to avoid a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
European nations such as France emphasize that a false Iraqi declaration alone should not be a pretext for war.
While the Bush administration formally shares this reading of the U.N. resolution, hard-liners on the president's team are likely to renew their case for toppling Hussein.
Video from inside the palace visited Tuesday by the weapons inspectors showed inspectors, clipboards in hand, quickly moving through darkened rooms with flashlights, stopping occasionally to peruse, for example, a utility room or a refrigerator.
"Marmalade," one announced after looking over a jar.
The visit by 17 U.N. inspectors lasted only 11/2 hours. Once the inspectors left, reporters were allowed inside the palace's spectacular entry hall, a three-story-high, eight-sided room of carved white marble with a giant gold-and-crystal chandelier.
Each of the eight walls was inscribed in huge gold letters with a poem praising Hussein. "You are the glory," read one. |
