Bill Arkin's take on the Inspection situation.
washingtonpost.com
Soft Evidence, Hard Conclusions
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, December 9, 2002; 8:07 AM
Now that Speedy Gonzalez and friends have started inspections in Iraq, except, of course, on holy days, holidays, Wednesdays, or between the hours of 5:00 PM and 9:00 AM; now that Iraq has delivered a multi-thousand page declaration explaining its position on the state of its non-existent nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs; now that the U.N. has made it clear that it will take several weeks to analyze Iraq's material because first it will have to be painstakingly translated and then compared against a million-page database; now that the Bush administration has made it clear that it still thinks Iraq is lying and Saddam has challenged Washington to put up or shut up, how does all of this play out?
It was clear from the start that the United Nations inspectors are not operating with the same urgency as Washington. In the first week that inspections recommenced after a four-year hiatus, the intrepid ones visited a meager 20 sites. By their own admission, this was only two percent of the some 700 sites they suspect could be involved in Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.
In saying that it does not currently, at this moment, possess nuclear, chemical, or biological materials or agents in weapon form, Baghdad is telling the truth, as much as it is able to. Yet as Washington concludes, Iraq is poised to "break out" in pursuit of its own national security, and its megalomaniac ambitions in the region. Baghdad sees the world ruled by might and contradiction. It sees Israel with nuclear weapons. It sees Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, all suspected of having biological and chemical weapons, in possession of the kind of long-range missiles that are proscribed for Iraq. And for good measure, let's throw neighbor Turkey into the mix, for Baghdad sees that it houses U.S. nuclear weapons as well.
Washington is as sure as it can be that Saddam Hussein is dodging and weaving to find a way to achieve an end to sanctions and international control of the country. But here is the bitter truth: The United States government doesn't have "hard" evidence of any existing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It has a mound of human agent reports, intercepts, satellite photographs, historical documents, target maps and installations descriptions, along with inferences galore from thousands of Iraq defectors, dissidents, and émigrés that all add up to the undeniable conclusion that Baghdad is intent on continuing to develop nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. But Washington can't prove anything. It isn't hiding something it knows from the American people or from the U.N. inspectors.
So nothing has changed. The inspectors have visited a handful of installations where the old commission left behind seals and tags and cameras to check on them. It went to a new installation that Iraqi agents claim is a gathering place for nuclear scientists near Baghdad. It has even made a perfunctory visit to a presidential palace in Baghdad, just to prove that it can. But it is largely operating off a rote script, armed with meticulous records about the Iraqi military and industrial infrastructure, but completely in the dark about where to look.
My hat is off to U.N. inspections chief Hans Blix for finally having the backbone to challenge Washington to give him intelligence information to help him and his inspectors in the search for Iraqi weapons sites. Demetrius Perricos, the head of the search team, also said on Friday, "What we're getting [in terms of intelligence] and what President Bush may be getting is very different, to put it mildly."
Blix's request is a valiant and un-diplomatic gambit after a week of relentless criticism from President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and others in Washington. But Hans and Demetrius don't get it. For the U.S. government to unload its even more voluminous dossier on Iraq's non-existing weapons of mass destruction on the United Nations is to string out an impossible process for months, if not years. In Washington's eyes, a drawn out process just tells the Iraqis what it does and doesn't know, and dissipates the energy and consensus that something needs to be done about Iraq. Washington could choose to assist the United Nations in this drawn out process to the end and continue to practice a policy of containment. From the U.S. perspective, that would be taking a risk that Hussein will be eventually succeeed in thwarting the U.N. and will eventually walk, free to pursue his dream.
The Bush administration can't produce the goods, but here are some indicators that tend to get ignored by those who think Iraq is merely victim to a Bush administration vendetta:
? China continues to help Iraq to put together its civilian and military communications infrastructure, including a fiber optics network that is more impervious to being spied on.
? In September, reports emerged that Iraq was shopping for spare parts in the former Yugoslavia, joining Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine, and a number of Asia and Arab states that have all been reported as illegally exporting to the country.
? In October, a Tongan-flagged ship bound for Iraq was seized with 200 tons of explosive powder.
As I've said before in these pages, the United States and Iraq are destined for war. But the administration is not as unilateral or preemptive as it postures to be. There is some logic in letting the inspectors meander. Perhaps the Iraqis will make a mistake in reacting to inspections. Perhaps new information will come to light as the pressure mounts. Perhaps a closely watched shipment will make its way to the treasure trove. Perhaps a new defector will come forth. Perhaps Saddam will get fed up before he gets his get-out-of-jail free card.
It is not the inspections themselves or the Iraqi declaration to the United States that are the important thing to watch. What is important, as it has always been, is to see how, when, and whether Baghdad or Washington blinks.
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