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U.S. Response: Administration Raises Option of Nuclear Response to WMDBy Bryan Bender The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, drafted by the National Security Council and White House Office of Homeland Security, lays out a three-pronged strategy for countering what is described as “one of the greatest security challenges facing the United States” (see GSN, Sept. 9). The strategy calls for the development of new military and civilian capabilities to defeat WMD-armed adversaries, the strengthening of nonproliferation treaties and arms control regimes, and preparations to reduce, “to the extent possible,” the potentially catastrophic consequences of a successful WMD attack against the United States or its allies. The strong language threatening overwhelming U.S. retaliation in response to a WMD attack represents part of the Bush administration’s expanding effort to strengthen the U.S. ability to deter potential adversaries. National security officials believe that the doctrine of deterrence — convincing enemies not to attack for fear of the consequences — was eroded by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “States hostile to the United States and to our friends and allies have demonstrated their willingness to take high risks to achieve their goals, and are aggressively pursuing WMD and their means of delivery as critical tools in this effort,” the strategy states. “As a consequence, we require new methods of deterrence.” In addition to strong military forces as a deterrent, it says, is the need for a “strong declaratory policy.” “The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force — including through resort to all of our options — to the use of WMD against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies,” according to the document. Such a doctrine, however, requires an enhanced ability to determine the source of a WMD attack quickly and effectively as well as improved means of launching a counterstrike, the strategy adds. “The primary objective of a response is to disrupt an imminent attack or an attack in progress, and eliminate the threat of future attacks,” it says. “As with deterrence and prevention, an effective response requires rapid attribution and robust strike capability.” The WMD strategy affirms the Bush administration case for pre-emptive measures to prevent a WMD attack in the first place (see GSN, Dec. 5). “This requires capabilities to detect and destroy an adversary’s WMD assets before these weapons are used,” according to the strategy document. “In addition, robust active and passive defenses and mitigation measures must be in place to enable U.S. military forces and appropriate civilian agencies to accomplish their missions, and to assist friends and allies when WMD are used,” the White House document says. The six-page document, the first of its kind to be published by Washington, underscores the level of concern at the highest levels of the U.S. government about what Bush calls the “crossroads of radicalism and technology.” It calls for a “comprehensive strategy to counter this threat in all of its dimensions.” Nonproliferation treaties and other multilateral regimes — including the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, efforts to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Missile Technology Control Regime — will remain a key pillar of U.S. anti-WMD efforts, according to the strategy. Increasing the Nunn-Lugar program to dismantle WMD materials in the former Soviet Union — “particularly through the G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction” — is also considered a priority. Strengthened U.S. export controls and sanctions will also remain valuable tools, it adds. Lastly, the strategy acknowledges that ultimately all of these efforts may fail to stop a successful nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological attack. “As part of our defense, the United States must be fully prepared to respond to the consequences of WMD use on our soil, whether by hostile states or by terrorists.” It concludes, “The requirements to prevent, deter, defend against, and respond to today’s WMD threats are complex and challenging. But they are not daunting. We can and will succeed in the tasks laid out in this strategy; we have no other choice.”
From December 11, 2002 issue.Iraq I: Inspectors Visit New Sites as Analysts Comb DeclarationU.N. weapons inspectors visited several new sites today believed to be connected with Iraq’s efforts to develop nuclear and biological weapons, according to reports (see GSN, Dec. 10). Today, inspectors continued work at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center and at the Ashakat phosphate mining facility, both believed to be connected to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program (CNN.com, Dec. 11). Inspectors also visited the bin Sina nuclear site, located in Tarmiya, about 20 miles northwest of Baghdad, and the Fateh chemical site on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital. In addition, they revisited the Amariyah Serum and Vaccine Institute at Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, according to Reuters (Nadim Ladki, Reuters/MSNBC, Dec. 11). Yesterday, an International Atomic Energy Agency team worked to determine the current activities at four sites that the group visited in the al-Karama complex — bin al-Haytham, the al-Sumood factory, the al-Fatah Company and stores of the Military Industrialization Committee — and to learn more about the use of various previously known equipment, the agency said in a press release yesterday (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Dec. 10). The al-Fatah Company is believed to be connected to efforts to develop ballistic missiles, according to CNN (CNN.com, Dec. 11). Also yesterday, a team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission visited two sites, the Saddam Center for Biotechnology and the National Project for Controlling Brucellosis and Tuberculosis, the IAEA said. Inspectors at the Saddam Center, a newly declared site, gathered information to set a baseline for future inspections. They conducted similar inspections at the Brucellosis and Tuberculosis site to reset a baseline in accordance with information that Iraq submitted in October (see GSN, Oct. 2). The UNMOVIC team also confirmed the location of a newly declared third site, in Baghdad, involved in research on communicable diseases, the IAEA said (IAEA release). U.S. Analyzes Declaration In Washington, the CIA is expected to give the White House today a preliminary analysis of the 12,000-page declaration that Iraq recently submitted to the United Nations to outline its WMD programs, Bush administration officials said. “The CIA is working on it, and the analysis will obviously take time, but the agency will prepare a preliminary assessment tomorrow and will send it to the White House,” an administration official said yesterday. It may take a “few weeks” to complete a more detailed assessment that compares the information in the declaration with U.S. intelligence, an official said. Officials distributed the U.S. copy of the declaration yesterday to CIA counterproliferation, linguistics and weapons experts, and sent some sections to weapons experts at other U.S. agencies, the Washington Times reported. “The CIA is in charge. There must be six or eight agencies involved,” a U.S. official said. The United States plans to analyze the declaration carefully to “understand what it is that Iraq is purporting to declare, as well as what they have failed to declare,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said (Pisik/Kralev, Washington Times, Dec. 11). The United States might be ready by the end of the week to declare that Iraq is in “material breach” of U.N. Resolution 1441 — which mandates the Iraqi declaration and U.N. inspections — because early reviews of the declaration have led U.S. officials to believe that it contains “serious deficiencies,” one senior administration official said. The U.S. response to the declaration “will be a fairly definitive readout, but not a blow-by-blow rebuttal” a senior administration official said. The official added that the U.S. response would probably be presented in a document of more than 100 pages that includes small amounts of classified information (Joel Mowbray, Washington Times, Dec. 11). Iraq yesterday criticized the United States for obtaining an early copy of the declaration, calling the U.S. move “an act of unprecedented extortion in the history of the United Nations.” In a statement released by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, Iraq accused the United States of “possibly forging what it wants to forge” in the declaration to persuade other countries that Iraq has lied (John Burns, New York Times, Dec. 11). U.N. Translates Meanwhile, in a meeting with U.N. Security Council members yesterday, U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said he expects to translate a working version of the Iraqi declaration by Monday and to complete a preliminary assessment by Dec. 19. Blix and several council members said they expect to distribute an edited declaration to the full council by early next week. “The bottleneck, frankly, is translation,” Blix said. “We have about 500 pages in Arabic which need to be translated,” he added (Pisik/Kralev, Washington Times). Blix told the five permanent Security Council members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — that by Friday he wants their assessments of what information should be omitted. China and Russia said they probably would not have their assessments ready in time, according to the New York Times. Blix also told the Security Council that the United Nations would not release the names of non-Iraqi companies in the declaration because they might provide valuable information, the Times reported. Those companies could report which items Iraq has tried to purchase and where, Blix said (Julia Preston, New York Times, Dec. 11). Regarding the substance of the declaration, Blix only said that it “covers the period of time practically up to the present. They have not done that before, so it is evident that there will be something new, but … as for any revisions of the past, I do not know” (Jim Wurst, Global Security Newswire, Dec. 11). Iraqi Scientists In Baghdad, officials have yet to give U.N. inspectors a list of scientists involved in WMD programs, even though the United Nations requested the list two weeks ago, according to USA Today. “We are still waiting for the list of names,” U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said. “Cooperation has to be judged over time. It is only the beginning of the process,” he added (Vivienne Walt, USA Today, Dec. 11). Iraqi officials have begun moving scientists to positions with no direct involvement in WMD programs to put them beyond the reach of U.N. inspectors, according to the Western officials and Iraqi defectors. “These are the people with the know-how, so the best way to hide the know-how is to hide the people,” a Western official said. “Most of those working on the nuclear program in the 1980s and early 1990s have been sent away to university or industrial positions,” said Hussein al-Shahristani, the former chief researcher for Iraq’s atomic energy agency. “Some have been sent outside Iraq, including those working on chemical and biological warfare agents,” he added. Iraqi officials have already begun telling scientists and others involved in WMD programs that their families will be in danger if they reveal sensitive information to inspectors, according to the London Sunday Telegraph. Some personnel have been sent to countries such as Libya and Syria and told to remain there while their families are kept in Iraq, the Sunday Telegraph reported (Wastell/Gilmore, London Sunday Telegraph, Dec. 8). U.S. officials have said that any attempt by Iraq to block access to scientists will be seen as a material breach of the U.N. resolution, according to the Los Angeles Times. “If anyone should show up black and blue, that would also be seen as a sign of poor Iraqi cooperation,” a senior U.S. State Department official said. The United States has proposed that inspectors summon scientists both individually and in groups of as many as 50 to multiple interviews both within and outside Iraq, White House officials said yesterday. The purpose of such a plan would be to get several scientists in each of Iraq’s WMD programs — nuclear, biological, chemical and missile — to provide information, according to the Times. The United States wants the scientists to provide enough information to convince the international community that Iraq is still hiding its WMD arsenals and programs, White House officials said. “Now that the Iraqi declaration is in, the scientists will become a hugely important tool,” said a senior State Department official. At first, it will be difficult to persuade the scientists to talk, officials said. “We’re looking for one string to pull so we can begin to unravel the whole thing,” the State official said. Most Iraqi scientists eventually would be willing to talk, said Khidir Hamza, a former scientist in Iraq’s nuclear program. “The majority of scientists don’t like the government or the thuggish family running the country, confiscating property, enriching themselves, restricting movement, threatening their families,” Hamza said. The scientists, however, are unlikely to make the first move in contacting inspectors, according to experts. “No one will volunteer due to the fear of consequences,” said Martin Indyk, who dealt with Iraqi defectors while on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. The White House is responsive to concerns that Iraqi scientists could be seen as traitors if they cooperate, especially if U.S. intelligence is overseeing the effort, U.S. officials and former inspectors said. By working with the United Nations, however, the scientists could be seen as trying to save Iraq, they said. “Iraqi scientists are not going to go to the CIA. If they do, they’re done as Iraqis. They might as well just plan to move to Detroit and open a 7-Eleven,” a U.S. official said. “Those who believe in Iraq and want to help in a post-Saddam Iraq will want to go to the U.N. and be able to say they didn’t betray their country,” the official added (Robin Wright, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 11). Goods Review List At the United Nations, meanwhile, the United States has called for several new additions to the U.N. Goods Review List of items that Iraq must not import without Security Council approval, including new types of antibiotics, smaller trucks and fast work boats, according to the Financial Times (see GSN, Dec. 5). The proposed changes would include antibiotics such as ciproflaxacin and doxycycline, which are used in the event of exposure to anthrax. The United States has also proposed changing the parameters under which Iraqi orders are subject to review, the Times reported. Debate over the proposals should end in about two weeks, experts said. One U.N. diplomat, however, has criticized the proposals, the Times reported. “For the first time we are presented with a proposal to put medicine on the list — which has never been under embargo,” the diplomat said. “The GRL had been presented as a generous offer which shifted the blame for the humanitarian situation from the UN to the Iraqi government. This proposal is another nail in the coffin; it will raise problems,” the diplomat added (Mark Turner, Financial Times, Dec. 11). For further information, see: U.N. Resolution 687 (Sanctions Regime) U.N. Resolution 1409 (“Smart Sanctions”)
From December 11, 2002 issue.Iraq II: Summary of InspectionsInspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency have now visited dozens of sites in the round of post-Gulf War inspections that resumed Nov. 27 after a four-year lapse. The following chart summarizes some of their reported activities.
From December 10, 2002 issue.Iraq I: Washington Distributes Copies of the DeclarationThe United States yesterday began providing copies of Iraq’s declaration of its weapons of mass destruction programs to the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom, diplomats said (see GSN, Dec. 9). The United States had been chosen to make the copies for security reasons, said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. “We have been asked to ensure that the document is copied in a controlled environment in order to guard against the inadvertent release of information,” he said. On Saturday, Iraq provided two copies of its 12,000-page declaration to U.N. inspectors in Iraq. One copy was divided between the International Atomic Energy Agency, which received sections relevant to Iraq’s nuclear weapons efforts, and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission. UNMOVIC brought the second complete copy to New York to give to the Security Council (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 9). On Sunday, the United States obtained the second copy of the Iraqi declaration and began providing it to the other four permanent Security Council members, according to Reuters. U.S. officials gave France and the United Kingdom copies yesterday in Washington, while Russia and China asked for their versions to be sent back to New York, diplomats said (Reuters/MSNBC, Dec. 9). According to UNMOVIC, the declaration that the United States took to Washington is now at the United Nations. Commenting on the decision to supply an unedited declaration only to the five permanent council members, British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said today that the other council members might feel “uncomfortable, but they have to take on board that there is a nonproliferation element to this” (Jim Wurst, Global Security Newswire, Dec. 10). The 10 nonpermanent council members should receive an edited copy of the Iraqi declaration in about a week, Reuters reported. UNMOVIC is expected to remove information that might pose proliferation risks from their versions. U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix is expected to tell the Security Council today how long that process should take. Several council members have said that the edited information should not be used later to determine whether Iraq is in material breach of the U.N. resolution because they would not have the ability to determine the information’s veracity, Reuters reported (Reuters/MSNBC). By obtaining its copy of the Iraqi declaration early, the United States reversed a decision that the Security Council made Friday to wait to give the declaration to all council members until inspectors had screened it, according to the New York Times. That process might have taken up to 10 days, however, and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice did not want to wait that long, U.S. officials said (Julia Preston, New York Times, Dec. 10). The current president of the Security Council, Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, yesterday defended reversing the council agreement on who should receive a copy of the full declaration. He said U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte phoned him Saturday morning saying the United States “wanted to make some changes to the previous understanding and that was it.” Valdivieso received calls “from other members” of the council and consulted with “all the members, many times,” he said. “This is a sensitive issue and we cannot risk proliferation and the way to avoid that is to provide [the declaration] to the members that have the expertise,” Valdivieso said. “The worst thing I could do is not exercise my responsibility, and I did it,” he added (Wurst, Global Security Newswire). Most nonpermanent Security Council members agreed, albeit reluctantly in some cases, to wait for edited copies of the declaration, diplomats from those countries said (Preston, New York Times). “It’s a way of getting through an existing problem,” he said. “The expertise brought to bear will save time and will bring a text to the council within the next matter of days which we will all examine together,” he added (Wurst, Global Security Newswire). Syria, however, strongly objected and criticized Colombia for violating basic diplomatic procedures, the Times reported. “We are not happy,” said Mikhail Wehbe, Syria’s U.N. ambassador. “It is in contradiction to the political logic, to the procedural logic, to every kind of logic the Security Council used to work on,” he said. White House officials said that the five permanent members do not need to wait for a screened declaration because they already possess nuclear weapons. “We would have nothing to gain in terms of proliferation from reading an unsanitized version, because we already have that information,” a U.S. official said. “This is not a question of asserting some special privilege,” Negroponte said. “It’s more a question of drawing on the expertise of declared nuclear weapons states” to accelerate analysis of the declaration, he added (Preston, New York Times). First Glimpse Iraq has also submitted a Dec. 7 letter from Foreign Minister Naji Sabri that is, in effect, a table of contents for the 12,000-page declaration. The eight-page document, which is circulating at the United Nations but has not been officially published, lists sites and techniques relevant to Iraq’s production of ballistic missiles and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The bare-bones document sheds little light on what is in the declaration. The word “former” describes some of the programs, nuclear locations are divided into “major” and “secondary” sites, and the number of pages in each section is noted. The Sabri letter also refers to a 5,047-page annex containing “supporting documents” on Iraq’s “former programs in the field of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles since the establishment of those programs.” Sabri wrote that some of the “detailed information, in particular the parts relating to research and development and techniques for the production of agents and weapons, entails risk and is inconsistent with the norms of the weapons nonproliferation regime.” Of the four sections listed in the letter, the nuclear declaration is apparently the longest at 2,081 pages. The letter lists several techniques useful for producing nuclear weapons — including electromagnetic isotope separation and gaseous centrifuge — but without details it is not possible to know whether Iraq is claiming these activities have halted or whether it is claiming them as nonmilitary operations. Eight locations, including Tuwaitha, which IAEA inspectors visited again today, are listed as “major sites.” Before the Gulf War, Tuwaitha was the primary site for Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. The letter also lists as major sites al-Athir, al-Farat and Tarmiya, which had been a facility for uranium enrichment. Of the four declarations, only the chemical declaration has a heading for “foreign technical assistance.” Muthanna, near Samarra, is listed under the biological declaration but is regularly cited as a chemical facility. The last report by UNMOVIC’s predecessor, UNSCOM, lists Muthanna as a major chemical weapons facility, and UNMOVIC reported last week that it had found artillery rounds of mustard gas at the site. Iraq said these are old weapons left over from the early 1990s. According to nongovernmental research organization GlobalSecurity.org, Iraq’s biological weapons program shifted from Muthanna to al-Salman in 1987. Work on anthrax and botulinum toxin is going on at al-Salman, according to GlobalSecurity.org. Under the missile declaration, Iraq lists the “Ibn Firnas Company for remotely piloted aircraft.” The existence of this drone program was cited by President George W. Bush as one of the reasons that Iraq is a threat to the United States (Wurst, Global Security Newswire). It appears from the Sabri letter that Iraq is merely resubmitting old reports, said David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector. The list of contents “seems to confirm that on the nuclear side, the declaration has been recycled. A lot of this is pre-1991,” he added (Dafna Linzer, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Dec. 10). Inspections In Iraq, U.N. inspectors visited five sites today — a phosphate mine, a veterinary site, a chemical company, a research facility and the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, according to reports. About 25 additional inspectors are scheduled to arrive in Iraq later today, bringing the total to about 70, inspectors said. Leaders of the U.N. inspection teams said they hope to field eight teams in Iraq by the end of the year. An IAEA team traveled today to a phosphate mining facility in Ashakat, located about 250 miles west of Baghdad. During the 1980s, Iraq mined about 100 tons of uranium over six years from the phosphate deposits at the site, AP reported. The U.N. team that made an unannounced visit to Ashakat today did so to reassess the site’s current operations and compare that information with what was learned by inspectors in the 1990s, according to AP. UNMOVIC inspectors reportedly visited a veterinary medical site located at Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad. The site is believed to be the Amariyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, where Iraq conducted biological weapon-related research in the 1980s, according to AP. The United States has argued that the institute has expanded its storage capacity beyond what it would need for legitimate research (Charles Hanley, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Dec. 10). Other U.N. inspectors visited al-Furat Chemical Industries General Company, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, and bin al-Haitham research facility, located in the northern Baghdad suburb of Wazireyah (Reuters/MSNBC, Dec. 10). Additional IAEA inspectors visited the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center today (Hanley, Associated Press). IAEA experts visited three Iraqi sites yesterday — the Tuwaitha site, Ash Shakyli and al-Qa Qaa. At the Ash Shakyli site, inspectors visited the site’s buildings and took samples to detect the presence of radiological materials. At al-Qa Qaa, IAEA experts began preparing an inventory of known explosive materials from Iraq’s previous nuclear weapons program that had been under IAEA control. Also yesterday, an UNMOVIC team visited the Fallujah 2 site of the al-Tariq Company, which is located near the previously visited Fallujah 3 site. The Fallujah 2 site consists of the al-Tariq Company’s headquarters and a factory area, but inspectors only visited the factory area, according to an IAEA press statement. The site contains several dual-use items tagged during previous inspections, which inspectors reconfirmed (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Dec. 9). For further information, see:
From December 10, 2002 issue.Iraq II: Summary of InspectionsInspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency have now visited dozens of sites in the round of post-Gulf War inspections that resumed Nov. 27 after a four-year lapse. The following chart summarizes some of their reported activities.
From December 9, 2002 issue.Iraq I: Baghdad Submits WMD DeclarationIraq submitted a 12,000-page declaration of WMD-related information to international inspectors Saturday, a day ahead of the deadline set by the U.N. Security Council in November (see GSN, Dec. 6). In the documents, “we declare that Iraq is empty of any weapons of mass destruction,” said Hossam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring directorate, which prepared the report. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had ordered Iraqi officials to be “fair and frank” in preparing the report, he added. “That means that when we say we have no weapons of mass destruction, we are speaking the truth,” Amin said (Burns/Sanger, New York Times, Dec. 8). In addition to the full report, Iraq submitted 900 pages of other documents, including information on the status of U.N. monitoring equipment, according to the Washington Post. Iraq also provided 10 compact discs containing semi-annual declarations of its WMD programs as required by earlier U.N. resolutions (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, Dec. 8). Once the U.N. Security Council gains access to the declaration, it will have a standard for determining whether Iraq has come clean about its WMD efforts, according to the New York Times. In the declaration, Iraq should account for weapons and related materials that U.N. inspectors knew about during the 1990s but could not find during previous inspections, officials said. Such items include 4,000 tons of chemical weapons precursors, 31,000 chemical weapons munitions, 20 Scud ballistic missiles modified for chemical and biological warfare, and 600 tons of VX precursors — enough to make about 200 tons of the nerve agent, according to Western experts. When asked if the Iraqi declaration would include information on these types of items, Amin replied, “Generally speaking, the declaration will answer all the questions that have been raised in the past months and years” (Burns/Sanger, New York Times). The declaration contains no new information, however, to support Iraq’s claims that it destroyed its biological and chemical weapons arsenals during the 1990s, Gen. Amir Saadi, an Iraqi presidential adviser, said yesterday. Iraqi officials have been unable to find any documentation beyond what has been given to inspections over the last 10 years, Saadi said. “Those documents have not been increased, not by a single document,” Saadi said. “We have done all researching we could, and we could not find any more,” he added. While Iraq has destroyed all of its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, it made a mistake in also destroying the documentation of such weapons’ production and destruction, Saadi said. Iraq’s biological weapons program “was totally and completely removed before the inspectors arrived in Iraq,” he said. “When you remove something completely, it no longer exists, and if you want to do it properly, you also remove all the evidence that it ever existed. That’s what we did, and retrospectively, it was a mistake,” Saadi added. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix recently expressed skepticism over Iraq’s claims that it has no more information. “The production of mustard gas is not like marmalade,” he said on a trip to Baghdad last month. “You have to keep some records,” Blix added (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, Dec. 9). U.S. Response The United States began this weekend to prepare a team of analysts from the CIA and U.S. national laboratories to examine the Iraqi declaration. The team plans to compare the information in the declaration with U.S. intelligence on Iraq’s known WMD projects before inspectors were withdrawn in 1998 plus additional information, including that provided by defectors, obtained since then, according to the New York Times. The Iraqi declaration must be able to withstand full U.S. scrutiny for Iraq to avoid war, U.S. President George W. Bush said Saturday. “We will judge the declaration’s honesty and completeness only after we have thoroughly examined it, and that will take some time,” Bush said during his weekly radio address. Bush would feel free to attack Iraq if the United States determines that Hussein lied in the declaration, a senior Bush administration official said Friday. “This is not a court of law,” the official said. “This is a matter for national security, and we have to go with the preponderance of the evidence,” the official added. UNMOVIC and IAEA The first copy of the Iraqi declaration was scheduled to arrive in New York yesterday to be provided to the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), the Times reported. A second copy would then be provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency (Burns/Sanger, New York Times). Out of the 12,000-page declaration, 2,100 pages cover Iraq’s nuclear activities, according to Agence France-Presse. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said today that it should take the agency about 10 days to make a preliminary report to the Security Council before submitting a full report by Jan. 27. It could take up to a year, however, to know the full extent of Iraq’s nuclear capabilities, ElBaradei said, calling for patience. “We know that our conclusion is very critical to decisions which come between war and peace, so we feel conscious that before we come to any conclusion that it is based on absolutely as much information, as much fact as possible,” ElBaradei said. “We have been out (of Iraq) for four years. So even if it takes us a year to come to a conclusion, it should be looked at in that perspective,” he added (Ryan Nakashima, Agence France-Presse, Dec. 9). No Intelligence for Inspectors The United States has told U.N. inspectors that it will not give them intelligence information on suspect Iraq sites, as called for in the new U.N. resolution, until it thoroughly examines the Iraqi declaration, ElBaradei said Friday. The United Kingdom has also refused to provide inspectors with intelligence information, according to the Washington Post. “I trust they will give us whatever they have. I have impressed on them that they need to make (it) available,” ElBaradei said (Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Dec. 7). Only Permanent Council to See Declaration The Security Council reached a compromise yesterday over member access to the Iraqi declaration. The five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — are to receive an unedited version, White House and Security Council officials said. Before the declaration is given to the other council members, it will be edited to remove information that might aid those countries in developing their own WMD and ballistic missile programs, sources said. It has yet to be determined how that will be done without angering the other 10 members, which include Syria, the Los Angeles Times reported. Colombia, a nonpermanent member that is currently Security Council president, will also probably receive an unedited copy of the declaration, a diplomat said. There are several concerns that led the Security Council to limit access to the full declaration, according to the Times. One such issue is the identity of companies that provided dual-use technologies to Iraq, according to former weapons inspector Jonathan Tucker. Some international companies have agreed to cooperate with inspectors on the condition that they would not be publicly identified,” he said. The names of those companies and descriptions of what items they provided to Iraq could be “a road map to other countries interested in obtaining dual-use technology,” Tucker said. The five permanent Security Council members, however, are believed to already have such information, he added (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 9). Inspections In Iraq, an additional 25 U.N. inspectors arrived yesterday to help accelerate inspections, according to the Associated Press. Four are UNMOVIC specialists and 21 are IAEA nuclear experts, U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said. A further 25 to 30 inspectors, mostly from UNMOVIC, are scheduled to arrive tomorrow, he added. At the Baghdad airport yesterday, technicians began assembling the first of eight helicopters for use by the inspectors, AP reported. The helicopters are meant to help inspectors visit sites located farther from Baghdad. An IAEA inspection team yesterday visited the State Company for Geological Survey and Mining, located in Baghdad. The team spent two hours at the site, which had been involved in uranium processes that could have produced weapon-grade nuclear materials, AP reported. Moussa Jaafar al-Attiyah, the company’s chief geologist, said inspectors checked to ensure that equipment tagged during inspections in the 1990s had not been moved. Al-Attiyah said the search of the company was “an ordinary visit,” but he added, “This is not a welcome visit” (Bassem Mroue, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 9). IAEA experts also revisited the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center today, which they had visited last week (Hassan Jouini, Agence France-Presse, Dec. 9). An UNMOVIC team yesterday visited the Fallujah 3 site of the al-Tariq Company, 100 kilometers west of Baghdad. The site, which is a chemical factory that produces pesticides and insecticides, contains several dual-use items previously tagged by inspectors that were accounted for during yesterday’s visit, according to an IAEA press releease (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Dec. 8). Inspectors revisited the site today (Jouini, Agence France-Presse). 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