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Missiles, scientists and the question of
war
By Ferry Biedermann
BAGHDAD - Once again jeeps carrying United
Nations weapons inspectors set out from the parking lot
of the Canal Hotel in Baghdad. Cars carrying members of
Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate follow close
behind, along with unmarked secret service cars.
Journalists bring up the rear.
The convoy drives
at breakneck speed for about 80 minutes through the
morning rush on the roads of Baghdad, and then along
smaller country roads. It finally comes to a halt at the
gates of the Al-Fatah factory near the holy city
Kerbala. The factory produces components for the Al
Samoud 2 missile.
The arrival is something of an
anti-climax after the high-speed journey as the visitors
appear anything but unexpected as the gates to the
complex are swung open with little ado and the
inspectors are allowed to enter, followed by their Iraqi
minders.
This was the second visit to this site.
The inspectors have found missiles with what they call a
longer than permitted range - not weapons of mass
destruction. But at last they had found something that
they can call irregular.
This was a typical
inspection, there was little that was surprising, or
intrusive. Hardly an exercise likely to establish
whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. As
they continue with these kinds of search, the inspectors
and the Iraqi authorities have returned to the old cat
and mouse games that ultimately led to the Gulf War in
1991.
The Iraqis are adopting a piecemeal
approach rather than a wholesale change of attitude,
Yasuhiro Ueki, spokesman for the UN Monitoring and
Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) in
Baghdad told IPS. Seated in UNMOVIC's well-stocked
cafeteria at its Canal Hotel headquarters, he spoke of
the inspectors' dismay at Baghdad's failure to give
complete information on its weapons of mass destruction
programs "if they have nothing to hide".
The
frustration of the inspectors is showing through. "We
still have not seen the drastic change in the Iraqi
attitude called for by Mohammed ElBaradei [head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, and one of the chief
inspectors along with UNMOVIC boss Hans Blix]," says
Ueki. ElBaradei had said that it would be impossible for
the inspectors to prove anything about Iraq's weapons
program if the authorities were not "proactive".
The limitations of the UN team were pointed out
by British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday. "The
idea that inspectors could conceivably sniff out the
weapons and documentation relating to them without the
help of Iraqi authorities is absurd," he told
parliament. "They are not a detective agency, and even
if they were, Iraq is a country with a land mass roughly
the size of France."
Confrontations are building
up between the inspectors and the Iraqi authorities over
two specific issues. One is the inspectors' demand to
destroy the Al Samoud 2 missiles. The other is their
demand to interview Iraqi scientists without government
minders and without the Iraqis recording the
conversations.
Blix has asked Iraq to start
destroying the Al Samoud missiles by March 1. But Saddam
Hussein told CBS television on Monday that "we do not
have missiles that go beyond the proscribed range". He
said that Iraq wanted peace "but not at all costs".
The dispute over the scientists is more
controversial. It goes back to the question of what
happened to the chemical and biological agents that the
inspectors say Iraq possessed when they had to stop work
in 1998. Iraq says that it has destroyed them, but has
not produced evidence of the destruction. Private
interviews with scientists who worked on those programs
is seen as a key to establishing what actually happened.
The report presented by Blix to the Security
Council mid-February included documents relating to
those materials, and a list of scientists said to have
been present at their destruction. But none of these
scientists has been interviewed by the inspectors.
Handing over the list was only a partial gesture, Ueki
says. Some UN officials say that the dispute over the
scientists could decide whether or not there will be a
war.
Many Iraqis, too, are wondering what the
regime is up to. "Why don't they just give complete and
immediate insight into everything," says a government
official. If the weapons had been destroyed, the
destruction of the materials should have been thoroughly
documented, and even filmed or photographed, he said,
and the evidence presented to the inspectors. Now the
waiting game and the "surprise" visits to suspect
facilities appear to be coming to an end.
(Inter
Press Service)
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