THE world is about to witness its first proxy war fought by scientists. On one side are the experts who design, build – and hide – Iraq’s banned weapons. On the other are the UN inspectors, many of them civilian scientists, who are trying to find their creations.
In 1991, the UN Security Council forbade Iraq from possessing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and missiles with a range over 150 kilometres. The latest UN resolution gives Iraq 30 days to produce “a currently accurate, full and complete declaration” not only of all such weapons, but also of legitimate facilities that could be used to make these weapons, such as chemical plants.
The UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said last month that it may be impossible for Baghdad to declare all the components of its civilian chemical and biological industries in this time. Any “false statements or omissions” will be considered a violation. But assuming some kind of satisfactory declaration is made, weapons inspectors could be back in Iraq before Christmas. They will have 60 days to report back to the Security Council.
Advertisement
The nuclear inspectors will again be from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, while missiles, biological and chemical weapons fall to the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), led by Blix. They will start by comparing Iraq’s declaration together with everything else they know, from satellite images, intelligence services, the vast database from the last inspections and even press reports.
Next they will visit factories, demand purchasing records and destruction orders, interview scientists and take samples. They will work out if imports of critical materials can be legitimately accounted for, such as the silica nanopowder Iraq acquired last month which can be used in industry, but also to make “dusty” chemical weapons that can penetrate protective clothing. Then they will demand explanations for any discrepancies. “We can’t prove a negative – that there are no weapons,” says UNMOVIC spokesman Ewen Buchanan. “But we can reduce the uncertainties.”
The paper trail is often the best way in. No officer destroys expensive missiles without orders in writing, and Iraq’s failure to provide such evidence in the past has left many questions. But the “smoking gun” that will truly resolve the issue is empirical evidence of undeclared weapons.
This time the inspectors will be better equipped. To start with, unlike the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), which sent in inspectors in the 1990s, UNMOVIC has regular funding – a percentage of Iraq’s earnings under the oil for food programme. One of its purchases will be commercial satellite images, which have doubled in resolution since the 1990s.
Jacques Baute, leader of the Iraq Action Team at the IAEA, says he also has equipment that didn’t exist five years ago. Spectrometers to detect gamma radiation and X-ray devices to identify metal alloys are now small enough for hand-held fieldwork. Back in the lab, even single radioactive particles can now be detected on swabs from inspection sites.
And in 1998, when the inspectors left, the IAEA was just starting “wide area environmental monitoring”, in which air, water and vegetation samples are tested for traces of unusual radionuclides, which can then be traced back to their source. Baute will look for the unnatural ratios of uranium isotopes from enrichment plants.
Bioweapons will be hardest to find. “We have been shopping for the best new equipment, and contracting laboratories to do analyses,” says Buchanan. But UNMOVIC must make its requests through national governments, and some, including the US, are reportedly not eagerly offering their expertise or facilities.
One way to spot covert biological weapons might be, like the IAEA, to survey the environment. Soil or waste water near suspect facilities might reveal telltale germs. But unlike the IAEA, biologists have no established methods for verification, which is not required under the biological weapons treaty. UNMOVIC’s inspectors will take samples mainly from inside facilities, and hope the Iraqis do not remove traces of any illicit cultures that may have been there hours before.
Chemical inspectors could face similar frustrations. Both chemical and biological weapons can be made in relatively small facilities, and Iraq has reportedly built both underground and mobile labs since 1998. Finding them could depend on informers.
To encourage them, the UN says scientists and their families may be taken out of Iraq for questioning. The US is considering offering them residency. But any friends or relatives left behind could face retaliation.
All this, of course, will take time. If the inspectors do manage to find evidence of undeclared, forbidden weapons, or if Iraq refuses to cooperate, it will be in “further material breach” of UN resolutions and face “serious consequences”. That means the US and its allies will take military action, unless Saddam Hussein finally comes clean and disarms to save his skin.
But what if the inspectors produce no indisputable evidence of weapons, or of Iraqi intransigence, before the deadline runs out? The nightmare scenario, says Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, will be if Iraq delays and blocks inspections, but passes it off as misunderstanding. It did that throughout the 1990s.
“After a while, the US will say: they’re not cooperating, that’s all we need,” says Cirincione. “But that might not be so clear to the rest of the world.” Yet without incontrovertible evidence, many countries would be more likely to oppose an attack.
That’s one reason the US initially wanted a UN resolution that gave inspectors the option to use “limited force to overcome token resistance at an inspection site”, says Bob Gallucci, former deputy head of UNSCOM. That way, he says, inspectors would either get access or be kept out by superior force – a clear breach. But last week the UN rejected this. So the only way to avoid the “nightmare scenario” is for the inspectors to quickly deliver clear evidence of noncooperation or undeclared weapons. Yet the omens aren’t good. When UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors went to Iraq in 1991, they expected to stay six months.
They left in 1998, after increasing non-cooperation by Iraq, culminating in their exclusion from “presidential” sites – and the UN’s failure to force the issue. They had managed to find and destroy many of Iraq’s forbidden weapons. But they left unresolved questions (see “The loose ends”).
UNSCOM proved that inspections can work, but only if given enough time and if the UN meets obstruction with the threat of real force, says Jean-Pascal Zanders of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The problem facing inspectors now is that they may not be given enough time.
Of course, UN resolutions put the burden on Iraq to cooperate with the inspectors. If it fails to do so, in theory the US does not need a smoking gun to justify an attack. But Iraq’s failure to prove it isn’t breaking the rules will play a lot less convincingly to the UN, and world opinion, than proof that it is.
All this assumes the inspectors will get a chance to inspect. “If the Iraqis cooperate, we could be done in six months to a year,” says Baute of the nuclear team. But the other teams could take far longer. No one expects cooperation. And a year may be too long to wait for some.
The loose ends
If weapons inspectors go to Iraq, they will start by asking questions that were unanswered when they left in 1998:
NUCLEAR
Where are the records backing your claim to have abandoned your nuclear programme? How can we be sure that what we destroyed last time is all there was?
CHEMICAL
Where is that document you took back from UNSCOM showing you had 6000 more chemical munitions than you claimed? Have you found the 550 mustard-gas shells you “lost”? Where is the proof you destroyed those 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve gas, and where is the rest of it you admitted to?
BIOLOGICAL
Where are the two or more tonnes of imported microbial growth medium you haven’t accounted for? Where are the records of your yearly production of bioweapons? Where are your records of destroying those aerosol generators and bioweapons bombs as you claimed? Why should we believe you didn’t have more?
MISSILES
Provide evidence you destroyed 500 tonnes of missile fuel and 50 warheads as you claimed. Where are the orders for destroying the seven Al Hussein missiles you said you destroyed? Where are the rest?
