Thursday, August 01, 2002

Like a broken music record

by pv vivekanand

AFTER failing to establish a link between Saddam
Hussein and Osama Bin Laden -- and by extension to
prove an Iraqi role in the Sept. 11 attacks in the US
-- President George W. Bush is citing charges that
Baghdad is continuing to develop weapons of mass
destruction as his reason to launch military action
aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein.
But how authentic is the charge?
On the face of it, the international community is
being told to accept that Iraq has eluded the most
advanced satellite surveillance -- with equipment that
could arguably trace the contours of a grain of wheat
on the ground -- and the strictest-ever
air-sea-land-blockade backed by intense interceptions
and inspection of anything and everything crossing its
border -- and managed to resume its clandestine
weapons programme.
The assertion is based on an argument that the
departure of UN inspectors who were withdrawn by
Secretary-General Kofi Annan -- often wrongly
described by the US as their expulsion by Iraq -- in
late 1998 allowed Baghdad to pick where it had left
off following the destruction of most of its weapons
of mass destruction under the UN verification and
destruction programme.
A review of the UN programme would raise serious
questions about the US charge against Baghdad.
It was known that Baghdad and the UN mission never got
on well and there were always skirmishes, both
diplomatic and otherwise.
Iraq and the UN inspection teams have had many
standoffs, some of them resulting from the personal
postures adopted by inspectors and others because the
Iraqis tried to prevent vital papers on their
country's weapons programme as well as intelligence
documents unrelated to arms inspections being removed
by the UN officials.
"We hated each other's guts," as a former member of
the UN team put it.
It had become clear that Iraq had a much larger weapon
programme than was known to the international
community when the UN inspectors launched their
mission in 1991 as the United Nations Special
Commission (UNSCOM).
It took several years before UNSCOM managed to unravel
the programme, with the Iraqis revealing information
in bits and pieces and only when they were cornered
with solid evidence, and it became a cat-and-mouse
game.
It was not until late 1995 that the UN managed to get
a clear picture of Iraq's military programmes and that
came from Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel,
who "defected" to Jordan in August of that year.
Kamel, who served as Iraq's defence minister and head
of the country's military industry commission, was
believed to have been debriefed not only by the then
UNSCOM chairman, Sweden's Rolf Ekeus, but also by
American and European intelligence agencies.
At that time Kamel's "defection" and revelations about
his country's weapons programmes were seen as
Baghdad's opportunity to come clean with its secrets
to UNSCOM. In fact, Baghdad blamed Kamel for having
kept the secrets for himself and handed over several
cupboards full of files that it said were stashed away
by the defector at his farmhouse outside Baghdad.
The information gained from those files represented a
key pillar of UNSCOM strategy, and it was believed
that the UN mission had managed to unearth more than
90 per cent of Iraq's weapon programmes.
Shortly before the inspections came to a premature end
prompted by Iraq's insistence that a clear blueprint
be given for what was expected of it before the
sweeping UN sanctions imposed on it in 1990 are lifted
and Washington's refusal to meet the demand, UNSCOM
officials had asserted that the bulk of their work was
over although they were seeking answers to some vital
questions, and those questions are now being dusted
off and presented as the reasons for the charges
against Iraq.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which
followed an independent verification programme, said
that it had located Iraq's nuclear programme and had
eliminated the country's nuclear material and
equipment as well as the ability to renew them. But
when the IAEA tried to close the "nuclear file," the
US intervened it and aborted the move.
On the "missiles" file, Richard Butler, who succeeded
Ekeus as UNSCOM chairman, said in July/August 1997
that the UN team had accounted for all but less than
12 long-range Scud missiles that Iraq was known to
have bought from the then Soviet Union and modified.
He also said that the bulk of Iraq's chemical and
biological weapons were destroyed but that the UN team
had not received all answers.
"UNSCOM did a fantastic job," he said. "You have to
understand that when the Gulf war was ended there was
revealed an awesome array of weapons of mass
destruction: almost a nuclear bomb, long-range
missiles, chemical, biological, all of the weapons of
mass destruction. And we, with Iraq, got hold of most
of it, got an account of it or got rid of it."
Such comments had also come from several other key
members of the UN mission as well as American and
international military experts who had access to
classified information collected by UNSCOM.
Seen against the backdrop of such assertions, a look
at the claims and assertions that Iraq continues to
build weapons of mass destruction -- the reason that
Bush cites for his plans to launch military action
aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein -- unveils a
contradiction.
The key question is: With all entry points into Iraq
under close surveillance and a ban on all commercial
and military planes in and out of the country, how is
it possible that Baghdad continued to develop weapons
of mass destruction in the absence of the UN
inspectors since late 1998?
In an appearance before the US Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, Butler asserted that Iraq had
extensive chemical and biological weapons programmes
and that there is evidence it has stepped up it
alleged nuclear programmes in recent years.
Is the world then to believe that Iraq managed to get
equipment and material past the American armada
patrolling the seas and checking anything and
everything heading for Iraq, and indeed "suspect"
material headed for Iraq's neighbours that could be
sent to Iraq, and renewed its weapons programme?
It has been 12 years since the sweeping trade embargo
was imposed on Iraq.
Isn't it not fair to anyone to expect that the
enforcers of the sanctions would have perfected their
art?
Almost every vessel, small or big, is inspected before
it docks in Iraq or anywhere with access to Iraq.
American intelligence agents are present in all
neighbours of Iraq -- although to a lesser extent in
Iran -- to ensure that no "contraband" material enters
the country; nothing beyond food and medicine and
related items approved under the UN's oil-for-food
programme is allowed into the country. Any item which
could have slightest "military use" is blocked from
entering Iraq.
An example is caustic soda, a key element in cleaning
and washing of dairy equipment. It could also be used
in production of chemical weapons, according to
experts.
Since the day the sanction and verification regime was
put into place, no consignment of caustic soda has
been allowed into Iraq, and efforts by Jordan-based
exporters to send the material to Iraq across the
border -- presumably for legitimate purposes -- have
been repeatedly thwarted.
That is only an indication of the effectiveness of the
blockade, and it is difficult to see how the Iraqis
managed to lay their hands of components of chemical
weapons.
However, that is not to say that Iraq could not have
done it. Then again, reports from Washington and
London indicate that military generals on both sides
of the Atlantic are not really convinced that Iraq had
developed weapons as alleged or that poses a real
threat to the region. Such scepticism has been voiced
by officers who should be in a position to have access
to classified and top secret information on Iraq's
military capabilities as a key pillar of any strategy
to launch a war on that country.
Some of the allegations are also based on accounts by
Iraqi defectors, both identified and unidentified.
However, the credibility and authenticity of such
accounts are brought under question when considering
that almost all the "defectors" are produced and
paraded by Iraqi dissident groups which have a vested
interest in convincing the world that Baghdad is evil.

In some cases, it has also been found that the
defectors had left Iraq around the same time the UN
inspections were halted and they were making claims
linked to the period after their departure from the
country.
However, regardless of all reasonings and logic based
on available facts that expose the hollowness of the
American argument for striking at Iraq, the Bush
administration is dead bent upon carrying out their
designs in the region and Saddam Hussein has no room
in their strategy.

'Spying' charges

AS was expected sooner or later, the Swedish diplomat
who headed the UN arms inspection programme in Iraq
until 1997 has turned around and extended implicit
endorsement of Baghdad's assertion that the
inspections were mostly a smokescreen for American
intelligence activities in the country.
Sweden's Rolf Ekeus, who chaired UNSCOM since its
creation in 1991 until he quit in 1997, affirmed in
public comments this week that some of his team
members were obviously engaged in work unrelated to
weapon inspections.
In comments carried by Swedish radio, Ekeus said the
US and other powers had exploited UN teams in Iraq
for their own political ends, including monitoring
President Saddam Hussein's movements and that, at
times, crises were created that could possibly form
the basis for military action.
"There is no doubt that the Americans wanted to
influence the inspections to further certain
fundamental US interests," Ekeus said in his first
affirmation that he was aware of what was going on.
That partly vindicates Baghdad's accusations,
particularly that Ekeus was one of the harshest
critics of Iraq while he headed UNSCOM and thereafter
until this week's comments.
Indeed, one of the key arguments Iraq is putting up
against the US demand for renewed inspections of
Baghdad's alleged programmes of producing weapons of
mass destruction is the record that previous
inspectors had spied on the country.
It is not a new position and some of those who served
in the UN mission for verification of arms in Iraq
until it was stopped in late 1998 had admitted in
public that some of their colleagues were intelligence
agents rather than arms experts.
In a statement that went largely unnoticed or played
down deliberately or otherwise, Iraqi Deputy Prime
Minister Tareq Aziz said in mid-1998 -that many of the
UN inspectors appeared unaware of what they were
supposed do in the realm of arms inspections and Iraqi
officers assigned to working with them found a marked
ignorance among them of technical issues related to
weapons of mass destruction.
Ironically, it had also been reported that some of the
inspectors were reporting directly to Israel with or
without US knowledge.
In fact, it was Aziz's statement that enraged
Australian diplomat Butler, who assumed charge of the
UN inspections as successor to Ekeus in mid-1997, and
led to a course of events that culminated in the UN
decision to withdraw the inspectors ahead of
US-British military strikes against Iraq in December
1998.
Obviously Butler was counting on American military
strikes against Iraq everytime he reported to the UN
Security Council that Baghdad was not extending the
level of co-operation he demanded. He was frustrated
that his mission was not making any real headway and
knew within a few months' time and several visits to
Iraq that he would not get anywhere in his mission.
The real reason for the failure was his high-handed
approach and effort to dictate terms from his
self-assumed position of strength stemming from
American military powers to "punish" Iraq if it did
not fall in line with his commands.
It was clear that Aziz's pointed comments angered
Butler if only because he had hand-picked some of
members of the inspection team and the Iraqi
minister's accusation was seen as questioning his
abilities.
He was visibly upset when he appeared before the press
in Bahrain after his last visit to Baghdad during
which Aziz had made the statement to the press.
When asked about a report that a British minister had
said that Iraq was loading missiles with chemical
warheads at the rate of one a day Butler said he was
not aware of the report. In a report he presented to
the UN Security Council two days after the Bahrain
appearance he made no reference to any such Iraqi
activity.
However, a few hours after he presented the report, he
appeared before a pro-Israeli gathering in New York
and accused Iraq of arming missiles with chemical
weapons aimed at "destroying" Israel. He repeated that
allegation in a New York Times interview shortly
thereafter, leaving one wondering why he failed to
include it in his official report to the Security
Council, the very body which had assigned him the
mission and to which he was supposed to report.
The impression one got was that Butler took his
failure in Iraq too personal and waged a pointed
campaign during which he spared no effort to build the
case against Baghdad. And that culminated in the
December 1998 military "punishment" for Iraq.
Scott Ritter, an American who served under Ekeus as
well as Butler, has affirmed in public comments that
some of his team members were obviously engaged in
work unrelated to weapon inspections.
Against such a backdrop, it is only natural that
Baghdad continues to see any renewed inspection as
aimed at gathering more intelligence on the country in
preparation for eventual action to eliminate the
Saddam regime.
The Iraqi reaction to Ekeus's comments was also
predictable.
An official spokesman called the Swedish diplomat's
comments as "another important confirmation of many
statements by Iraq, international parties and foreign
personalities on the exploitation by the United
States of UN arms inspectors to perform tasks that
contradict their mandate as defined by Security
Council resolutions on Iraq."
"The remarks come at a time when extremists in the US
administration are trying to distract attention from
Iraq's legitimate rights according to Security
Council resolutions, in the forefront of them lifting
of the unjust sanctions and respecting Iraq's
sovereignty," he said.
"The new comments by Ekeus confirm Iraq's legitimate
concerns expressed in the questions submitted to the
UN secretary-general in talks on May 7," the
spokesman added. Those questions sought answers
whether US threats against Saddam were a breach of
international law to whether US "spies" would serve on
inspection teams.
Iraq is now demanding that the Security Council answer
Iraq's queries as "a first move to stop the United
States' exploitation of the apparatus of the United
Nations for ends contradicting those stipulated in
the council's resolutions and the UN Charter," said
the spokesman.