Iraq:  “Missile Man” Surrenders, “Dr. Germ” Still Free

A former Iraqi general, known to U.N. inspectors as the “Missile Man,” turned himself in to U.S. custody yesterday, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 28).

Amer Rashid, ranked 47th on the U.S. Defense Department list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis, was formerly in charge of Iraqi missile programs and recently served as the country’s oil minister.  He is married to Rihab Taha, an Iraqi microbiologist known as “Dr. Germ.”

The U.S. military is also looking for Taha, but her whereabouts remain unknown, according to AP.

Rashid was a member of the Military Industrialization Organization, which oversaw the production of Iraq’s most powerful weapons.  Lt. Gen. Hossam Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison with weapons inspectors, and Amir al-Saadi, Saddam Hussein’s top weapons adviser, were both in that organization and are now in U.S. custody.

Top U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said in March that Rashid and Taha would be some of “the most interesting persons” to interrogate about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (Niko Price, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 29).

Meanwhile, captured former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has told U.S. officials that Iraq destroyed WMD stockpiles as military forces arrived in the Middle East to prepare for invading Iraq.

U.S. officials said they do not know if Aziz is being truthful, or if he would even be in a position to know such information (CNN.com, April 29).

Another Suspicious Find

U.S. forces have seized a truck near Mosul and specialists are testing equipment from the truck for traces of biological agents, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

U.S. intelligence officials believe the truck might be a mobile biological weapons laboratory, according to the Times (Miller/Drogin, Los Angeles Times, April 29).

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Iraq:  U.S. Plans to Add WMD Searchers; Leading Iraqi Official in Custody

Concerned by the lack of WMD evidence uncovered so far in Iraq, the Bush administration plans to triple the number of searchers, bringing the total to 1,500 personnel dedicated to finding banned weapons, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, April 25).

Currently, 500 military and scientific specialists are in Iraq, with 150 of them searching for weapons of mass destruction and the rest providing support.

“A fairly robust organization is going over there,” said a military official.  “It will also look for evidence of war crimes, terrorism connections, missing POWs — anything it can find that will help get to the weapons of mass destruction,” the official said (Steven Weisman, New York Times, April 27).

The additional personnel would allow the United States to broaden its search.

“We have about 1,000 sites that we knew about before this point,” said Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of all coalition forces in Iraq and the surrounding region.  “We’ll go through all of those.  The whole thrust of this is probably going to carry us through several thousand sites up in that country,” he said (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, April 28).

U.S. Searchers Frustrated by Limits

Some members of the U.S. WMD search teams say they are frustrated by a lack of resources and overly rigid search rules.  Originally four Mobile Exploitation Teams (METs) were assigned to hunt for weapons of mass destruction, but two of them have been reordered to investigate Iraqi war crimes and to collect documents of intelligence value, according to the Times.

MET members said they had not been told to expect more personnel and criticized the Sensitive Site Teams that are likely to receive the additional forces.  Those teams, intended to alert the METs to suspicious sites, have often provided inaccurate information because they are inadequately trained, according to weapons experts.

MET members also complained that they have been required to stick to the original Defense Department list of suspect sites and are not able to act upon tips from local Iraqi informants.

Furthermore, MET members said they lack air and ground transportation and communication equipment (Judith Miller, New York Times, April 28).

U.N. Inspectors Will Not Join WMD Hunt

While debate continues in the United Nations over whether U.N. inspectors should return to Iraq to help the WMD hunt, there is little interest in this prospect in the United States, according to the Times.  Even the State Department, which pushed for giving U.N. inspectors the opportunity to resume inspections last autumn, is not supporting their return now.

“Forget it,” said one official.  “On principle, we don’t want the United Nations running around Iraq,” the official added.

Ambiguous Evidence

Some U.S. officials are playing down the prospects of finding a “smoking gun” — usable weapons of mass destruction.  Instead, the most condemning evidence will probably be empty shells designed to carry chemical or biological weapons or laboratories that are capable of producing WMD precursor chemicals, according to administration officials and experts.

“People are realizing that Saddam Hussein may not have stored the weapons themselves, in part because when you put chemical or biological agents into weapons, they deteriorate very rapidly, said an administration official.  Therefore U.S. experts will probably need to make their case based on more ambiguous evidence that is subject to different interpretations.

“The evidence that we do find will be convincing to most experts, but not necessarily to those predisposed to doubt what we say,” said a U.S. official.

Said another official, “It may be that the Iraqis poured toxins into the ground, or scoured out their shells, or never filled their shells.  There may be weapons, and there may not be.”

“But it will be clear,” the official added, “that they were pursuing WMD actively” (Weisman, New York Times).

Senior Iraqi Official Captured

Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi official responsible for liaising with U.N. inspectors before the recent war, was captured by undisclosed forces at Ramadi and turned over to U.S. forces Saturday.

Amin had been head of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate, which kept track of Iraq’s weapons and facilitated the movement of U.N. inspectors.  Amin was No. 49 on the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi officials (Reuters, April 27).

In recent months Amin had given frequent news conferences to deny that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and he reportedly repeated that denial yesterday (Kelly/Porubcansky, Los Angeles Times, April 28).

Another Suspicious Find Discounted

A dozen 55-gallon drums found Friday in Iraq initially tested positive for the nerve agent cyclosarin and possibly for mustard gas, but more precise follow-up testing indicated no chemical weapons agents, according to reports.

The drums were found by U.S. special forces at Baiji, 115 miles north of Baghdad.  Initial tests conducted by units of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division used Army M-8 test paper, which is designed to provide more false positive results than false negative ones, said division chemical officer Lt. Col. Valentine Novikov.

A subsequent test with an AP-2C detector, considered more accurate, also “came up positive for a nerve agent,” Novikov said (Guy Taylor, Washington Times, April 28).

However, further testing by Mobile Exploitation Team Bravo contradicted the earlier results.

“Our tests showed no positive hits at all,” said team leader Capt. Ryan Cutchin (Miller, New York Times).

Former Iraqi Scientist Lied

Nissar Hindawi, a senior Iraqi biological weapons scientist in the 1980s, told the New York Times that he and other scientists were compelled to lie to U.N. inspectors following the 1991 Gulf War.

Responsible for briefing U.N. inspectors in the early 1990s, Hindawi said his reports “were all lies.”

Hindawi worked on Iraqi programs to produce anthrax and botulinum toxin until 1989 when he was dismissed after he complained to then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that the program was riddled with corruption.  During his tenure Iraq “produced huge quantities” of both toxins, he said.

Later, “there were orders to destroy it,” Hindawi said.  “They destroyed some — whether all or not, I can’t say,” he added.

He said Iraq never made dried anthrax, a form much more useful for weapons purposes, because he chose not to.  He thought he had figured out how to do it, but “I kept the method secret,” adding, “History would have cursed me.”

Following the Gulf War, Hindawi was intermittently under suspicion or jailed by Iraqi authorities for seeking to contact Western officials and he is now under the protective custody of Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabai (Judith Miller, New York Times, April 27).

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Iraq:  United States to Introduce U.N. Resolution to End Sanctions

The United States plans to introduce next week a U.N. Security Council resolution to lift sanctions against Iraq, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, April 24).

The decision to introduce the resolution, made during a meeting of top Bush administration national security advisers earlier this week, adopted for the most part a Defense Department proposal to eliminate all U.N. control over Iraq, rather than a step-by-step approach advocated by the State Department, according to the Post.

Many Security Council members have said, however, that the U.N. resolutions that established the sanctions regime in the early 1990s call for verifying Iraq’s disarmament of weapons of mass destruction prior to sanctions being lifted.  The Bush administration opposes the return of U.N. inspectors to Iraq, saying they would only interfere with the U.S. WMD search efforts (DeYoung/Lynch, Washington Post, April 25).

The Security Council yesterday temporarily extended limited U.N. control over the Iraqi oil-for-food program until June 3.  The extension leaves the council with more than a month to determine the future of the sanctions regime, the Financial Times reported (Mark Turner, Financial Times, April 24).

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov yesterday called for a partial lifting of the sanctions against Iraq.

Russia supports a temporary lifting of sanctions “on goods that may be used for humanitarian problems in Iraq,” Ivanov said.  “An overwhelming majority of countries share this approach, therefore it is necessary now to make appropriate decisions,” he said.

Russia has also maintained a position that only the Security Council can fully lift the sanctions.  Prior to doing so, however, Russia wants U.N. inspectors to verify Iraq’s disarmament.

“As for the full lifting of the sanctions, this issue must be resolved on the basis of U.N. Security Council resolutions that were adopted earlier,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said (CNN.com, April 24).

WMD Hunt

Meanwhile, yesterday’s surrender of former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to U.S. forces could be invaluable to U.S. efforts to find evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts, according to U.S. officials and Iraqi specialists.

Aziz could also help U.S. forces to learn the fate of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other members of his regime, they said.

“It’s almost as good as getting Saddam,” said Judith Yaphe, a senior research professor at the National Defense University.  “He’s the first real insider we’ve got.  This takes us someplace,” she said.

Even though Aziz might not know the precise whereabouts of banned weapons, “he may know a lot about de facto WMD programs,” a U.S. official said.  After the 1991 Gulf War, Aziz was involved in a committee formed to deceive U.N. inspectors and to find ways to covertly continue to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and National Security Council official (Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, April 25).

A number of U.S. military expert teams are preparing to travel to Iraq next week to assist efforts to disable and destroy any weapons of mass destruction that might be discovered, defense officials said.

The teams will have up to 100 members, with various teams focusing on different types of banned weapons, according to the New York Times.  Currently the teams consist of one nuclear team, one missile team and four chemical and biological teams.  The teams will also destroy any dual-use facilities, technologies and materials that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, officials said.

One of the teams’ first tasks will be to establish a central base where discovered weapons could be stored for later destruction, the Times reported.  Such a base will probably be set up at the Muthanna State Enterprise, a former suspected Iraqi chemical weapons plant 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, officials said.

Although some experts doubt the United States will find any WMD evidence in Iraq, defense officials said they had to be prepared for the possibility that such weapons and materials are found.

“One of the challenges we have in planning is we don’t know the scope of the mission,” said Stephen Younger, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which leads the effort.  “If nothing is found, we’ll have nothing to eliminate.  But I’m reasonably confident that things will be found,” he said (William Broad, New York Times, April 25).

Almost three weeks after capturing the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center — the main facility in Iraq’s former nuclear program — the Bush administration still has not conducted an extensive inventory of the radiological materials housed at the site to make sure none have been stolen, according to U.S. military officials (see GSN, April 14).

Before the war, the Tuwaitha site contained almost 3,900 pounds of partially enriched uranium, more than 94 tons of natural uranium and small quantities of cesium, cobalt and strontium, according to reports compiled during the 1990s by the International Atomic Energy Agency.  The United States does not know if these materials remain secure, however, because it has not sent investigators to examine the site, defense officials said.  It is known, though, that the Tuwaitha complex was unguarded for days and that some looters were able to get inside, according to Pentagon and U.S. Central Command officials.

Interagency disputes are partially responsible for the delay in investigating the Tuwaitha complex, officials said.  Civilian Pentagon policy officials had originally proposed to conduct a complete inspection without the involvement of the IAEA, which would have required U.S. experts to break the agency’s seals placed on safeguarded nuclear materials, according to the Washington Post.  Other Pentagon and U.S. State Department offices responsible for treaty compliance, international organization and nonproliferation, however, objected to that proposal.

U.S. forces at the site have not broken any IAEA seals, said Lt. Col. Michael Slifka, a senior leader at the Central Command’s Sensitive Site Exploitation Planning Team.  He also said he did not know if others had broken the seals, however, because he has not been authorized to send an expert team to the site.

“For force protection reasons, because of the folks we’ve got there, we aren’t in a position to go inside,” Slifka said (Barton Gellman, Washington Post, April 25).

Bush Confident WMD Will Be Found

U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that Iraqi officials and scientists have provided information that Hussein might have destroyed or hidden biological and chemical weapons stockpiles prior to the war. 

“We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some,” Bush said in an interview with NBC News.

Even so, Bush said he was confident U.S. troops would find evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts.  While the United States has only examined about 90 out of hundreds of suspect sites, those sites that have been examined have been designated as the most likely to conceal weapons, Bush said.

“And so we will find them,” Bush said.  “But it’s going to take time to find them.  And the best way to find them is to continue to collect information from the humans, Iraqis who were involved in hiding them,” he said.

Bush acknowledged, however, that U.S. credibility would be questioned until proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was discovered.

“I think there’s going to be skepticism until people find out there was, in fact, a weapons of mass destruction program,” Bush said (Stevenson/Sanger, New York Times, April 25).

Even if no such Iraqi weapons were found, it would not mean the war against Iraq was not justified, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said today.

“People are now trying to suggest that somehow the decision to take military action was entirely conditional on subsequently finding chemical and biological weapons material,” Straw said.  “That wasn’t the case,” he said.

The international community “accepted that Saddam had these weapons and they posed a threat,” Straw said.    “Did we overstate the threat?  I don’t think we overstated the threat,” he added (Associated Press/MSNBC.com, April 25).

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NATO Response:  WMD Response Team to Be Ready by Year’s End

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is on schedule to deploy its new WMD response team by the end of this year, according to E.C. Whiteside, head of NATO’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Center’s Political Affairs Division (see GSN, Nov. 21, 2002).

A prototype response team is already in place and has been conducting exercises throughout Europe and North America, according to documents provided by Whiteside.  The team is scheduled to become active after Exercise Allied Action, hosted by Turkey in November.

The response team, which would be NATO’s first, is part of a larger effort by the alliance to confront new threats and develop an overall capability to respond to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, Whiteside said.

That effort includes developing a disease surveillance system to alert NATO commanders of unusual infectious epidemics, a deployable analytical laboratory to investigate potentially contaminated sites, a stockpile of medicines, and defense material and improved training.

Whiteside described the effort at an international security conference hosted by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories.

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, NATO officials assessed what the organization could offer to the war on terrorism, he said.  Until this effort, the organization has relied on WMD teams from member countries to address WMD defense needs, Whiteside added.

NATO’s Senior Defense Group on Proliferation developed the initiatives and alliance defense ministers endorsed the effort last June.

“They were designed to serve as a first step in addressing the most critical deficiencies in NATO’s NBC defenses.  These initiatives will be developed … and will emphasize multinational participation and the rapid fielding of enhanced capabilities,” according to a NATO release.

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U.S. Response:  Pentagon Restructures Management for WMD Defense Program

U.S. officials have approved a plan for a new management structure for the U.S. Chemical and Biological Defense Program, the Defense Department said yesterday.

Various items such as protective equipment, chemical and biological agent detectors, decontamination equipment and medical countermeasures are acquired through the program, which would see the streamlining of a number of management positions and the strengthening of accountability for different program elements under the new plan, according to a Pentagon release.  The naming of a new joint program executive officer is also planned.

Dale Klein, assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, and Anna Johnson-Winegar, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for chemical and biological defense, will oversee the program.  The science and technology areas of the program and its financial management will be handled by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Defense Department said (Defense Department release, April 24).

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Iraq I:  U.S.-Led Forces Capture Suspect Chemical Site in Baghdad

U.S.-led troops have captured a warehouse complex in Baghdad filled with chemicals where Iraqi scientists are suspected of testing unconventional weapons on animals within the past year, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, April 23).

The warehouse complex was heavily looted before members of Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha (MET Alpha) and other coalition forces captured it, weapons experts and officers who have seen the site said.  The experts and officers described the warehouse complex as being filled with broken parts and equipment debris consistent with a full-scale laboratory. 

Iraqi citizens have told U.S. experts that scientists tested various agents on animals at the site, the experts said, noting that they have begun collecting samples from debris at the warehouse complex to test for biological and chemical weapons agents, the Times reported.  The samples are currently being analyzed at a U.S. laboratory.

The warehouse complex is typical for Iraq, and Baghdad is home to hundreds of such sites, according to the Times.  Because of this, it would have been almost impossible to find this particular site or determine whether it was connected with WMD efforts without the aid of Iraqis willing to discuss what had taken place there, a weapons expert said (Judith Miller, New York Times, April 24).

Sanctions

Meanwhile, the United States yesterday rejected a French proposal to temporarily suspend sanctions against Iraq until the country’s WMD disarmament could be certified.

“With the regime gone, the United States position is economic sanctions are no longer necessary,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.  “They shouldn’t be merely suspended, they should be out-and-out lifted,” he said (Joseph Curl, Washington Times, April 24).

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said today that any discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would need to be independently verified, but did not explicitly say if this task should be carried out by U.N. inspectors.

“I do not necessarily believe that it has to be the United Nations that provides that independent verification.  Clearly, the United Nations could be one of the organizations that does so,” Hoon said.  “We have not necessarily specified that that (verification) should be the United Nations.  There could be other countries who could identify ... particular chemicals, precursors for nerve agents or gas,” he added (Reuters/MSNBC.com, April 24).

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U.S. Response:  Bush Administration Ready to Strike First to Keep U.S. Safe

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The United States is prepared to use pre-emptive military action again in the effort to stop the worldwide proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a top U.S. nuclear official said yesterday (see GSN, April 7).

“Nonproliferation strategies will fail.  We will have to counter proliferation through other means,” said Linton Brooks, acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.  Brooks delivered a keynote address to an international security conference hosted by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories.  Brooks said military action is an important tool to prevent WMD attacks.

“The armed forces have to be prepared to act in advance to prevent their use,” he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush has established a policy that using force pre-emptively — before the United States detects a specific, imminent threat — may be necessary to prevent rogue states or terrorist groups from using or proliferating WMD.  The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was the first major demonstration of the new policy.

The Bush administration “realizes that proliferation threats have to be dealt with,” Brooks said.

He said the post-Cold War era is over, and the world now faces “The Age of Terrorism and Counterterrorism.”  Efforts to fight WMD proliferation, including diplomatic and military strategies, must become a central component of U.S. foreign policy in this new age, according to Brooks.

International Cooperation

Brooks also called for greater international coordination to advance initiatives to combat WMD proliferation, including military options.

“Nations need to work together however they can and wherever they can.  All nations have an interest,” he said.

This cooperation, however, should take place on an “ad hoc basis,” according to Brooks.  He noted that is was a “coalition of the willing” that initiated the military action in Iraq, not a standing international organization.

Brooks envisioned “nations dealing together to limit the threat, or where it can’t be limited, to eliminate it.”

Revitalizing the Nuclear Stockpile

As for his role, Brooks said the Bush administration is committed to revitalizing the nation’s nuclear stockpile and infrastructure (see GSN, April 23).

“The administration has, through the (Nuclear Posture Review), re-conceptualized the idea of a strategic triad,” Brooks said.

That triad, according to Brooks, includes an offensive strike component, a missile defense capability and the “revitalization of our nuclear weapons infrastructure” to provide a “credible and responsive deterrent.”

“Intellectually it’s a huge departure,” he told Global Security Newswire.  The effort carries “an intellectual importance that translates into budgetary importance,” he said.

Brooks said the strategic triad would be of particular benefit to the Energy Department’s Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program, designed to revitalize the physical infrastructure of the nuclear weapons program and reduce maintenance backlogs.

The Bush administration has requested $6.3 billion for nuclear stockpile stewardship in the fiscal 2004 budget.

The increased focus on the strategic triad “will prevent us from ignoring the (nuclear) infrastructure” by making it “more visible,” Brooks said.

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Iraq II:  U.S. Troops Capture Three Iraqi Most-Wanted Officials

U.S. forces in Iraq yesterday captured three Iraqi officials included in a list of the 55 most-wanted members of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to the Associated Press (see related GSN story, today).

With yesterday’s capture, 14 Iraqi officials included on the list have either been captured or are believed to have been killed.  U.S. officials hope that interrogations with captured Iraqi officials could provide useful information in the search of Iraq weapons of mass destruction.

Among the officials captured in Baghdad yesterday was Muzahim Sa’b Hassan al-Tikriti, former head of Iraq’s air defense network and No. 10 on the U.S. list.  Al-Tikriti is also believed to have helped train the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary forces.

U.S. troops also captured Gen. Zuhayr Talib Abd al-Sattar al-Naqib, former head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence and No. 21 on the U.S. list; and former Iraqi Trade Minister Muhammad Mahdi al-Salih, No. 48 on the U.S. list (Associated Press/USA Today, April 24).

In an interview conducted with the Los Angeles Times prior to surrendering to U.S. troops, al-Naqib denied that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction or that he had done anything that could be considered as a crime against humanity.

“This was the military — you move up from position to position,” al-Naqib said.  “I was just following orders,” he said (Rubin/Slackman, Los Angeles Times, April 24).

In addition to al-Tikriti, al-Naqib and al-Salih, U.S. forces have also captured:

Muhammad Hazmaq al-Zubaidi, Central Euphrates region military commander and former deputy prime minister, No. 18 on the U.S. list;

Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najm, Baath Party chairman for the Diyala region, No. 24 on the U.S. list;

Jamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti, deputy chief of tribal affairs, No. 40 on the U.S. list;

Hikmat al-Azzawi, former Iraqi finance minister, No. 45 on the U.S. list;

Watban Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Baath Party official and former intelligence minister, No. 51 on the U.S. list;

Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, Baath party official and former head of the Mukhabarat intelligence service, No. 52 on the U.S. list;

Humam Abd al-Khaliq Abd al-Ghafur, former minister of higher education and scientific research, No. 54 on the U.S. list; and

Amir Hamudi Hasan al-Sadi, former presidential scientific adviser, No. 55 on the U.S. list (BBC News, April 23).

“Chemical Ali" — Dead or Alive?

Meanwhile, Baghdad hospital workers have said they saw Ali Hassan al-Majid — known as “Chemical Ali” for ordering a 1998 chemical weapons attack on Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq — alive shortly before the city was captured (see GSN, April 10).

Al-Majid was twice reported to have been killed during coalition air raids on the southern city of Basra, first on March 22 and then on April 5, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Two workers at the Baghdad Nursing Hospital, part of the Saddam Hospital Complex, said they saw a healthy al-Majid arrive after the April 5 airstrike.

“Of course I was very, very surprised to see him, because the radio said he was killed,” a nurse at the hospital said (Juan Tamayo, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 24).

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Iraq:  WMD Hunt Shifts to Finding Program Personnel, Away From Actual Weapons

France surprised the U.N. Security Council yesterday by calling for the immediate suspension of sanctions against Iraq, and the Security Council is now debating not only how quickly sanctions should be lifted but also the future of the oil-for-food program, which supplies much of the Iraqi population with vital goods (see GSN, April 22).

The United States wants all restrictions placed on the government of Saddam Hussein lifted immediately to increase the flow of aid to the country while many council members fear such a step would be too disruptive and thus favor a more gradual approach.  However, council resolutions say sanctions can only be ended or suspended when U.N. inspectors have declared Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction.

French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said yesterday the council ‘should immediately suspend … all the civilian sanctions” on Iraq and start “phasing out” the oil-for-food program that governs the export of oil and purchases of humanitarian goods.  Completely ending sanctions depends on the return of inspectors and their verification that there are no weapons of mass destruction left, he said.

France has not yet put its ideas into the form of a draft resolution for the council to consider so council members this morning made no comments on the specifics of the French plan.  Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov said he had not seen a draft but added that the French proposal “is fully in line with resolutions, it depends on how you formulate in specific terms. Conceptually, it’s in line with existing resolutions, which is fine by us.”

The U.S. position is that sanctions should be lifted quickly.  The lifting of sanctions would also eliminate justification for the oil-for-food program since it was instituted to provide humanitarian relief for Iraqi civilians while maintaining pressure on the government.  ‘sanctions need to be lifted as soon as possible, so we now need to work with France and other countries to see how best that can be achieved and how quickly,” U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said yesterday.  He said he would not comment “on the specific tactics at the moment.”

Yesterday, before the French announcement, Lavrov said, “We are not at all opposed to the lifting of sanctions.  What we are insisting on is that Security Council resolutions must be implemented.  We all want to know that there are no [weapons of mass destruction] in Iraq and the only way to verify it is to have inspectors in Iraq … and to report back to the Security Council.  As soon as they deliver the report, sanctions could be lifted.”

However, the United States is not allowing the inspectors to return.  “The coalition has assumed the responsibility for the disarming of Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction,” Negroponte said.  “For the foreseeable future we visualize that as being a coalition activity.”

Hans Blix, director of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, told the council that while it is “entirely natural” for the United States to place a priority on “finding and neutralizing” Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, finding these weapons “is an interest that is not limited to the governments that have pursued the war but is one which is shared by the whole international community,” he said.

In a statement read to the council, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei was more direct.  “The IAEA should resume its work in Iraq as soon as possible,” he said.  “The IAEA continues to be the sole organization with legal powers — derived from both the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and successive Security Council resolutions — to verify Iraq’s nuclear disarmament” (Jim Wurst, Global Security Newswire, April 23).

The WMD Hunt

The recent claims made by an Iraqi scientist that Iraq destroyed biological and chemical weapons and related equipment prior to the war has led to a greater emphasis on finding scientists and technicians who worked in WMD programs and less emphasis on finding stockpiles of actual banned weapons, the New York Times reported today.

Based on the Iraqi scientist’s claims, military experts said they now believed that it was unlikely that large WMD stockpiles would be discovered, at least not within Iraq (see GSN, April 21).  Instead, there will be a greater reliance on recovered documents and information provided by Iraqis to help develop an overall picture of Iraq’s WMD efforts, they said.

Members of Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha (MET Alpha), which located the Iraqi scientist, have now joined other coalition forces in searching Baghdad for scientists and military officers who might have been involved in WMD programs, according to the Times.  They are also re-examining lists of dual-use items found at previously visited sites.

“The paradigm has shifted,” said a MET Alpha member.  “We’ve had a conceptual jump in how we think about, and what we look for in Iraq’s program.  We must look at the infrastructure, not just for the weapons,” the officer said (Judith Miller, New York Times, April 23).

In an interview with PBS’s NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has traveled with MET Alpha, illustrated how the change in focus is helping the U.S. military develop a better picture of Iraq’s WMD efforts.  For example, the team spent a week at the Karbala Ammunitions Production and Filling Station, where they found quantities of dual-use biological equipment, Miller said.  The discovery was considered unusual at the time, however, because it was unclear why such equipment would be at an ammunitions storage site, she said.

“Well, now it becomes rather clearer, I think, that what the Iraqis were intending was to kind of distribute dual-use equipment at various ammunition and weapons storage places throughout the country, so that no inspector or even soldier would ever be able to find that smoking gun,” Miller said.  “You could find a little bit of the program.  You would find a program very much, these days, in the research and development stages,” she said (Ray Suarez, PBS NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, April 22).

In addition, six Iraqi scientists who worked at various Baghdad research institutes have said they were ordered to destroy some bacteria samples and equipment, as well as hide other samples and equipment in their homes, before visits by U.N. inspectors.

All six scientists have said they worked in civilian research programs and that none of them knew of any WMD programs, according to the Associated Press.  It is unknown why their materials, which appeared to be for civilian research, were ordered to be destroyed.

The assistant dean of Saddam University, where at least one of the six scientists worked, has denied having ordered any materials to be destroyed and said U.N. inspectors visited the university three times.

“The inspectors never found anything because there wasn’t anything to find,” said Ameer Abbas Ameer.  “They were even joking about it when they were here.  They were never serious.  You don’t search for weapons of mass destruction under the carpet,” he said (Niko Price, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 23).

U.N. Role (Or Lack Thereof)

Meanwhile, the Bush administration said yesterday that coalition forces in Iraq, and not U.N. inspectors, will be responsible for finding evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts.

“Make no mistake about it:  The United States and the coalition have taken on the responsibility for dismantling Iraq’s (weapons of mass destruction),” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.  “We have a coalition that is working on the ground to dismantle Iraq’s WMD programs, and we think that’s going to be effective.  We think it will get the job done,” he said (Joseph Curl, Washington Times, April 23).

The coalition effort, however, is not likely to reach full speed until U.S. and British forces have full control over Iraq, which could take at least another two weeks, intelligence officials said yesterday.  Military planners have established May 10 as the date by which they expect to have full control of the country.  Once that is accomplished, then a systematic WMD search would begin, the officials said (Mark Huband, Financial Times, April 23).

The United States also plans to establish by early June a Baghdad headquarters for the Iraq Survey Group — a 1,000-member team of intelligence officials and scientists who will search suspect biological and chemical sites, according to Bloomberg.com.  The team will be headed by U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, who currently heads the Defense Intelligence Agency’s directorate for human intelligence, defense officials said (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg.com, April 22).

The U.S. WMD hunt, which has so far found no conclusive proof of Iraqi WMD, has begun to come under intense international criticism, according to the Dallas Morning News.

“The goal of this war — to disarm Iraq — has not been achieved,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has also been highly critical of the U.S. search.

“It is conspicuous that so far they have not stumbled upon anything, (any) evidence,” Blix said yesterday (Jackson/Whittle, Dallas Morning News, April 23).

Blix said he suspected the United States and the United Kingdom of exaggerating their intelligence that claimed to offer proof of Iraqi WMD efforts.

“I think it’s been one of the disturbing elements that so much of the intelligence on which the capitals built their case seemed to have been shaky,” Blix said. 

Blix also said he believed the United States sought to discredit U.N. inspectors in order to gain support within the U.N. Security Council for military action.  Some critics outside the White House have said Blix’s team deliberately suppressed information in its prewar Iraqi WMD report such as evidence of an unmanned drone plane, a charge Blix has denied.

“At that time, the U.S. was very eager to sway the votes of the Security Council, and they felt that stories about these things would be useful to have and they let it out,” Blix said.  “Thereby, they tried to hurt us a bit and say we’d suppressed this,” he said (Curl, Washington Times).

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