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Hussein Had “Virtually No Problem” Purchasing Missile Components, Duelfer Report Says
Despite U.N. sanctions on Iraq, former President Saddam Hussein raised billions of dollars from the U.N. oil-for-food program and in 1999 began buying long-range missile components and other arms in large-scale purchases, chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq Charles Duelfer concluded in his report released Wednesday (see GSN, Oct. 7). “Prohibited goods and weapons were being shipped into Iraq with virtually no problem,” the report says. “Indeed, Iraq was designing missile systems with the assumption that sanctioned material would be readily available.” The report, released Wednesday, names the governments of Syria, Belarus, Yemen, North Korea, the former Yugoslavia and possibly Russia as dealing directly with the Hussein regime. Illicit visits to Iraq by officials and arms merchants from Europe, Asia and the Middle East are also documented in detail, according to the New York Times. In addition, private companies from Jordan, China, India, South Korea, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus, Egypt, Lebanon, Georgia, Poland, Romania, Taiwan, Italy and Turkey offered or sold components to Iraq that could have been used to produce weapons of mass destruction, according to the report. The report quotes Hussein, speaking at a gathering of leaders of the Iraqi armed forces in January 2000, boasting that despite efforts by the United States and the United Nations to isolate his regime, he was able to purchase nearly any type of military equipment he wanted. “We have said with certainty that the embargo will not be lifted by a Security Council resolution, but will corrode by itself,” Hussein said in the speech, a quotation Duelfer included on the cover of the chapter in his report demonstrating the ineffectiveness of sanctions in isolating Hussein. U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that the report demonstrates that Saddam Hussein used the oil-for-food program to evade the arms embargo, intending to rebuild his military after the first Gulf War. “Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the United Nations oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions,” he said. Several U.S. entities are listed as having received oil vouchers that permitted them to profit from the oil-for-food program, according to the report. Unlike non-U.S. recipients, however, those entities are not named in the report due to U.S. privacy laws, according to the Times. They are instead listed as a “United States company” or a “United States person” (Lipton/Shane, New York Times, Oct. 8). Meanwhile, a Russian foreign affairs expert said North Korea may have provided assistance to Saddam Hussein’s missile programs, but he doubted that Iraq received similar assistance from Russia. “I do not rule out the possibility that some elements of missiles might have been supplied to Iraq from North Korea. Claims that Iraq might have received such assistance from Russia in violations of the U.N. sanctions do not correspond to reality,” Vladimir Dvorkin of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations told Interfax yesterday (Interfax, Oct. 7). The United States does not plan to take immediate action against entities that may have violated sanctions in order to avoid exacerbating tensions with allies during the presidential campaign, the Washington Post reported. “It seems the sensible thing to do is to let these investigations play out,” a senior Bush administration official said. “The information is only going to get better as time goes on.” “We’re interested in tracking down the (illegal) trade but not interested in doing it before the elections for fear of opening up new fronts and further alienating European allies,” said another U.S. official. The administration is “taking its time” in assessing the report, said James Wilkinson, deputy national security adviser for communications. “We’re still studying the report, but it paints a disturbing picture of individuals, companies and others with curious relationships working secretly to help Saddam. At this point, I wouldn’t rule out future options,” he said. The administration believes that U.S. allies are studying the report “as closely as we are and there may be potential actions by those nations internally,” Wilkinson said. French Ambassador to the United States Jean-David Levitte “expressed anger at the process and said he was not happy that names of individuals and companies are being made public on the basis of allegations that have not been verified,” embassy spokeswoman Nathalie Loiseau said. Levitte questioned the fairness of not allowing parties listed in the report to give their version of the story, while the names of U.S. companies were left out entirely (Wright/Kessler, Washington Post, Oct. 8). Meanwhile, former U.N. weapons inspectors said Duelfer’s report proved that the inspections regime was effective in keeping Hussein from acquiring banned weapons, the Post reported. “We can see today that the inspections worked,” said Rolf Ekeus, who led the first international arms inspectors into Iraq in 1991. He said the report demonstrated that most of Iraq’s banned weapons, equipment and facilities had either been destroyed or transferred to nonmilitary use by 1995. The report indicates that “international inspection is another means of war without fighting,” Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector from 2000 to 2003, told the Post. He added that Hussein would have been contained had his inspectors been allowed to remain in Iraq instead of having to evacuate prior to the war. “Saddam would have remained, but he would have become like (Fidel) Castro or (Muammar) Qadhafi, in power but not a threat to his neighbors,” said Blix. By 2001, however, Duelfer told a congressional committee Wednesday, “My personal view is that the sanctions were in free fall. They were eroding. There was a lot of corruption. Were it not for 9/11, I don’t know that they would exist today” (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Oct. 8). International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said today that the report had proved his agency correct in its assessment of prewar Iraq’s weapons, Agence France-Presse reported. “The lesson I take from that is that the international community should listen to us more carefully in the future” before resorting to force, he said. He added that it was a “relief” to see that IAEA inspections had played a role in the disarmament of Iraq. He said the U.N. inspectors would return to the country once the security situation improves (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Oct. 8).
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