The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and The Harvard Sussex Program of CBW Armament and Arms Limitation present the:
A CBW Colloquium: Ambassador Rolf Ekeus

Iraq: The Conundrum
(Part I of II: A background on Saddam and UNSCOM)

by Reginald Bartholomew

(Note: The following information was derived from the comments of Amb. Ekeus and guests at the subject colloquium as well as from the extensive archives of the ASA Newsletter, various intelligence reports and the excellent reference/source document: Iraq-A Country Study by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress.)

23 May 2000, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
At this last meeting for the current school year, Stephen Black, CBW Colloquium Moderator, invited Amb. Rolf Ekeus to talk on the UNSCOM experience and disarmament efforts in Iraq.

Amb. Ekeus said that UNSCOM was in effect the UN's pilot scheme for Arms Control and in the long run proved itself to be a serious Arms Control organization and one that Iraq had to deal with. Iraq at first did not understand this and thought it could go both ways, i.e., deny all allegations on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and still get the sanctions lifted. Iraq's attitude changed over time as the UN Security Council at least initially backed the UNSCOM on every occasion. It is interesting to note that during this period, according to Amb. Ekeus, UNSCOM destroyed more CB weapons than did all of the Allied bombing during the actual conflict.

There was notable, albeit slow, progress over time between Iraq and the UN and UNSCOM and this progress seemed to be indicating there would be changes to the strict sanctions imposed. However, when Secretary Albright made a speech, in which she indicated that sanctions would be lifted when Saddam was no longer President of Iraq, Iraqi intransigence in this area immediately stiffened. Saddam and Iraq now assumed there would be no end to this tunnel of sanctions and there would be no lifting of sanctions as long as Saddam was in power. And Saddam felt that giving up power would not really be in his own best interest.

Saddam: Power and WMD
What is Saddam's interest? His overriding interest is that of power. Saddam is enthralled with WMD and believes these are key to his continued hold on power. He equates power and WMD as the ultimate equalizers with his long-term enemy - Iran.

Saddam is convinced there is an eternal struggle between Iran and the Arab world and that he alone is the gatekeeper against a perceived Persian onslaught. Saddam, terrified of Iran, believes that he must have these WMD for his survival. This perhaps irrational fear ensures that he will never, never, relinquish his weapons or his continued development across the WMD spectrum. And this knowledge that Saddam continues on the path for WMD, while the West benignly observes, can not make Iran feel secure unless they also have at least a modicum of continued weapons development on paper, if not in actual production.

Why this Iraqi fear? Although the basic enmity between the two regional powerhouses is 25 centuries old, this particular enmity rests solely with Saddam. In the 1978-80 time frame he feared that the new Iranian hierarchy's ascension to power would galvanize the Iraqi majority population, which, as is Iran, is Shiite; Saddam is a Sunni. He also surmised, wrongly, that the Iranian Armed Forces would be in disarray after the overthrow of the Shah and his government. Believing that he could quickly decimate any opposition to his aggression, in 1980 Saddam did the inane and chose to invade Iran, a country three times larger than Iraq.

This senseless and violent eight-year war destroyed Iraq's economic base and its social infrastructure, along with its previously acknowledged gains with its Shiite majority and large, always restless Kurdish population. The war also cost Iraq over 200,000 casualties. At the end of the eight-year war, Iraq's resources were depleted; all of its oil revenue had been used to support the war effort and build its WMD stockpile. Iraq was in economic ruin and it owed billions to its financiers including Saudi Arabia, France, the U.S. and Russia.

It was with this background that in August 1990 Saddam made his next foolish move; he invaded Kuwait. He did this solely to pick up much needed cash via additional oil revenues. An ASA tongue in cheek note is that Saddam claimed that historically Kuwait was a province of Iraq and therefore Kuwait belonged to Iraq. If this rationale were correct, does not Iraq belong to Iran? Iraq was for 1,175 years (539 BC to 636 AD) a province of Iran.

Iraq's Role in CW Acceptance
Another sad factor is that Saddam helped prove the West at that time was devoid of "moral leadership". The West and the UN wasted several years, with a loss of many thousands of Iranian and Kurdish lives, at first trying to delay UN inspection teams and then slowing, or even denying, their own findings that Saddam was in fact using chemical (and possibly biological) weapons. It was at that time (1984), when Iraq was well into the use of chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds, when then Vice President George Bush tabled the basic document that ultimately evolved into the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). He called for a total ban against use of these weapons, both by and against friend and foe alike. And yet as he spoke, the US and the West remained inexplicably in bed with Saddam.

Throughout this first Gulf War, the US and other Western powers continued to support Saddam with trade, aid and overhead intelligence data, even though it was a well-documented fact that Saddam and Iraq were the aggressor. Undeniably, Iraq had invaded Iran and was using CW as well as city busting with missiles. This trade and aid from the West included the sale of everything from chemical precursors to fermentation vats for biologicals.

Although even today many of the old school would say that chemicals have never won a war, the sad fact is that yes, chemicals did win a war. The use of massive CW had such a psychological impact that it stopped Iraq from being beaten into the ground and overrun by a very superior Iranian force. As Mr. Charles Duelfer, former acting Executive Chairman UNSCOM, points out in an International Herald Tribune article on 16 June 2000, "Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz ... described the key role of chemical weapons and long range missiles in saving Iraq during its war with Iran"; and, "Iraq officials have also pointed to their (CW) deterrent value in the (second) Gulf War, i.e., the Allies did not go into Baghdad or occupy Iraq. From the Iraqi perspective, possession of chemical and biological weapons contributed to that outcome."

Iraq's move into Kuwait prompted a US galvanization of world support, including a very rare solid UN support, for actions to remove Saddam's forces from Kuwait. Why? Oil. This region contains 2/3 of the world's known oil supplies and 1/3 of its known natural gas supplies. If Kuwait and oil were not intertwined - would Kuwait be independent today?

UNSCOM
The Allies were successful and Saddam was forced out of Kuwait. The UN passed resolutions they felt would quickly clear Iraq of WMD and the means by which Saddam's programs could be resurrected. The UN Special Commission, UNSCOM, was initiated with some of the world's finest CBW professionals who were brought in to ensure the wishes of the UN were followed. Amb. Rolf Ekeus, longest termed Executive Chairman of the UNSCOM, provided the audience at the CBW Colloquium an insight into the running of this expert group.

Satellite imagery was very important and permitted a coherent approach to the required UN mandated inspections. For example, with satellite imagery the UN could more precisely analyze new road construction and other changes in infrastructure, such as ventilation systems, architecture, etc.. The US did the initial spade work in this overhead photography analysis area and provided the UN rough assessments on which to base further observational efforts. Israel also helped on the rough interpretation of the large mass of data supplied via aerial/overhead data collection platforms (satellites, U-2s and helicopters). Altogether these various platforms constituted an interlayering system that, when aided by direct observation on the ground, greatly assisted the mission capabilities of the UNSCOM inspectors. Ambassador Ekeus was very impressed with certain camera capabilities that were truly fascinating, and which even permitted the reading of labels on barrels that were ostensibly hidden from view in buildings. In the end, the final analysis of all data required UNSCOM experts.

UNSCOM (and the IAEA) had support teams that helped analyze which prohibited items were being or had been earlier produced. These teams specialized in the areas of:

• chemical sensors
• water sampling (important in nuclear programs)
• soil sampling
• DNA technology (important in the biological programs)
  • In 1993/94 a laboratory in the US was able to confirm that anthrax had been produced.

By far, the most important of all the observation techniques employed, even with all of the expert teams available, was properly conducted interviews. These interviews were invaluable in accurately analyzing and determining the extent of the WMD program, i.e., what was there, what is there, and what could be there. In this area, ASA recommends reading Dr. Brian Davey's well written articles "Verification of alleged CW incidents in remote and developing areas" and "Interviews during investigations into alleged use of chemical weapons", which appeared in the ASA Newsletters 93-1 (February 1993) and 94-4 (August 1994).

In intelligence analysis, Iraq showed a certain adroitness. UNSCOM found that Iraq was able to analyze team composition and specific team members, which permitted them advanced information on which facilities would probably be inspected. Amb. Ekeus said that the teams had to work rather rapidly to overcome these newly found capabilities of Iraq.

The successes of the UNSCOM were numerous and very significant; however, being directly under UN oversight, the UNSCOM was doomed to eventual failure. This failure would ensure the tasks originally assigned to them by the UN would not be completed. Why? Politics and a lack of UN will.

Politics intruded from day one. As an example and by coincidence, ASA happened to be wandering around the 'hallowed halls' of the UN when we met with Dr. Johan Santesson who had been posted to the UNSCOM from his position at the FOA in Umeå, Sweden and with Prof. Dr. Robert Gallucci who had come in from the US State Department via the National War College in Washington. Johan was working on the very first operational message that would go to the field and alert the professionals around the world on their assignments to the very first inspection team. On this very first list was a young medical doctor who happened to be one of the most respected and experienced professionals in CBW medicine and one that was known to all professionals in this field. He was also a contributing author to the ASA Newsletter. Iraq said no way would this young professional be permitted into Iraq. He stayed on the team but he had to stay in Bahrain while the team went to Iraq for the first inspection. Who won round one? Saddam. His will was the UN way.

Charles Duelfer points out that in late 1998 "the UN Special Commission reported, in essence, that it could not achieve its mandated disarmament and monitoring tasks with the limited access and cooperation that Iraq allowed. A year later, in December 1999, the United States voted in the UN Security Council to eliminate the commission and replace it with another organization more acceptable to Iraq and its sympathizers on the council." Who won the last round? Saddam --- who else?

Editor's Note: Part I has provided a background to understanding Saddam and Iraq. In Part II, ASA 00-4, August 2000, we will look at the numbers. What did we know and when did we know it? This would be prior to, during and after the second Gulf War? What are Saddam's present capabilities and possibly his intentions towards his neighbors and the international community? Can 2 + 2 add up to anything other than 4? As always, ASA welcomes all comments - pro and con.

00-3, issue no. 78

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