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Iraq I: Inspectors Visit Six Sites as CIA Completes Initial Assessment As the third week of U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq began, inspectors today visited six sites believed to have been connected with Iraq’s efforts to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear and biological weapons (see GSN, Dec. 11). A team of International Atomic Energy Agency experts visited the al-Nidaa Public Company in a suburb of Baghdad. Managed by the Iraq Military Industrialization Committee, the site had been destroyed by a cruise missile strike in 1993 and later reconstructed. It currently produces metal molds, according to Reuters (Alistair Lyon, Reuters/MSNBC, Dec. 12). Before the 1991 Gulf War, the site was believed to have been involved developing al-Hussein ballistic missiles, according to U.N. reports (Lamia Radi, Agence France-Presse, Dec. 12). IAEA teams also visited the Mu’tassim factory, 25 miles south of Baghdad in Jurf Sakhr, and revisited the bin Sina former uranium enrichment facility, Reuters reported. Near Suweirah, 40 miles southeast of Baghdad, a U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission team visited an abandoned factory owned by the Arab Company for Antibiotics, Iraqi officials said. In other visits, U.N. teams inspected a factory called al-Rasheed and a missile test pad near Ramadi, 75 miles northwest of Baghdad, according to Reuters (Reuters, Dec. 12). Yesterday, inspectors visited several new sites and finished work at others, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a press release. IAEA experts visited the Saddam GE site and its adjacent Amir Factory, which have been involved in Iraq’s missile development efforts, according to the agency release. While there, inspectors worked to verify activities conducted at the site since 1998 and to review the use of previously identified dual-use equipment. IAEA teams yesterday completed an inventory of remaining nuclear materials at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center and finished inspections of a uranium-extraction plant at the al-Qaim phosphate mining facility in Ashakat. An UNMOVIC team visited a previously declared facility in al-America known as the al-Razi Research Center, which produces small amounts of diagnostic reagents for some human and animal diseases. To verify the declaration of the site’s materials and activities, the team fully inspected the site’s buildings, several of which had been built in 1999, according to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Dec. 11). Currently, more than 70 U.N. inspectors are operating in Iraq, up from an initial group of 17. The total number of inspectors in Iraq is expected to reach 100 before Christmas, according to the New York Times. So far, inspectors have taken a cautious approach in releasing information on their activities, the Times reported. They have said time is needed to determine whether Iraq has resumed any of its weapons of mass destruction programs. “We haven’t disclosed anything, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t found any trace of evidence to suggest to our inspectors that there may be something” that indicates new Iraqi work on banned weapons, said a U.N. official with access to inspectors’ reports. “It’s just that we cannot tell you anything yet,” the official added. UNMOVIC chief Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei have until Jan. 25 to provide an initial inspections report to the U.N. Security Council. That deadline will probably be the first time that information on the inspectors’ findings is made public, unless Blix and ElBaradei “feel they have something they need to say before that,” U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said (John Burns, New York Times, Dec. 12). Declaration Is Based on Repeats, Officials Say In Washington, the CIA delivered its initial assessment of the 12,000-page Iraqi WMD document to the White House yesterday, according to the Los Angeles Times. Much of the information in the declaration appears to be repeated from past declarations, officials said. For example, the more than 2,000 pages of the declaration that comprise reports on the Iraqi nuclear weapons program appear to mostly duplicate declarations submitted to the United Nations in 1996 and 1997, officials said. The declaration’s information on Iraq’s biological and chemical programs also appears to be copies of reports that the United Nations rejected as incomplete between 1995 and 1997, they added. “The initial conclusion is there’s nothing really new,” said a U.S. official assisting in the review of the declaration. “What I’m hearing is it’s all recycled and (Iraqi claims that) it didn’t do anything wrong,” the official added. Analysts have finished translating from Arabic several sections of the declaration, including 300 pages concerning nuclear-related facilities. Those sections are undergoing a “line-by-line review to see if (Iraq) inserted something that wasn’t in previous reports,” the official said. “Nothing has emerged yet,” the official added (Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 12). U.S. Prepares Plans to Interview Scientists The Bush administration has ordered the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department to develop a plan to remove several Iraqi scientists from the country — either through an offer of asylum or through requests akin to subpoenas — to interview them about WMD programs, White House officials said. The orders for the plan, which originated with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, are supported by top civilian Pentagon officials who want to speed up an inspections process they fear could remain inconclusive for months or years, according to the Washington Post. A senior White House official said yesterday that the preliminary assessment of the Iraqi WMD declaration has made such interviews “essential.” The declaration is “almost the opposite of full disclosure. It’s full nondisclosure,” the official said. Under the new U.N. inspections regime, Iraq is required to identify all current and former personnel associated with its WMD programs, and to give inspectors the right to interview them. If Iraq failed to ensure that the scientists cooperated with inspectors, it could amount to a “material breach” of U.N. Resolution 1441, the Post reported. The inspectors’ new authority to interview Iraqi scientists is “the most significant authority contained in the resolution” and “the one thing that is most likely to produce overt Iraqi opposition,” the senior White House official said. Because of that, “it can’t be a voluntary program,” the official said, comparing an interview summons to a grand jury subpoena. Under this approach, if a scientist refuses to provide information, it could be considered a material breach of the resolution. Any new discoveries of WMD stockpiles made through information obtained in interviews could also be considered a material breach, the Post reported. Some in State and the CIA, however, are concerned about the speed with which an interview plan is being prepared, Bush administration officials said. Those agencies and some officials in other countries and the United Nations have said that a hastily prepared plan could endanger the lives of Iraqi scientists and their families, as well as undermine the inspections process as a whole, according to the Post. “I know they want to move quickly,” said an informed source, referring to those who favor the new plan. “But there is a tradeoff here between moving quickly ... and not putting so much pressure on Blix that you have an open rift between him and one or more members of the Security Council. ... You don’t want an open rebellion from UNMOVIC on this,” the source added. Some CIA officials that have supported giving Iraqi scientists asylum and want to work with the inspectors conducting the interviews have said that White House officials who favor a hasty interview plan have not thought about all of the potential consequences. “It’s more difficult than people believe,” said another official with knowledge of the plan. “Getting the list of names is easy, but getting folks together” in families inside Iraq, “and deciding who knows what is the real problem. The mechanics of pulling this off is still being looked at,” the official said. Planners have taken those problems and others into consideration, the senior White House official said. “I don’t think it’s complicated,” the official said. “It’s a little brutal. It’s a little rough, [but], it has always been a dangerous thing (for Iraqis) to be inside that (weapons of mass destruction) program,” the official added (DeYoung/Pincus, Washington Post, Dec. 12). For further information, see:
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