Experts say scientists hold keys to secrets

The ability to talk with scientists is part of the United Nations mandate.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
QAIM UKASHAT, Iraq -- The truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) may not lie hidden in the Iraqi desert. Nor is it likely to turn up at previously targeted sites such as presidential palaces or toothpaste factories.
U.N. weapons inspectors expanded the scope of their search Tuesday, targeting as one of 13 sites a remote desert uranium mining facility here six hours from Baghdad. But increasingly, experts are pointing to only one sure way to reveal the true scale of Iraq's weapons programs: talking to the Iraqi scientists who built the programs.
It's an issue of paramount importance as pressure builds on all sides to get results after two weeks of inspections. "Solid evidence" that the U.S. and Britain claim to have of ongoing WMD development is coming under question, and senior U.S. officials are now dampening expectations, briefing journalists that there is no "smoking gun."
Removing scientists
The U.N.'s ability to talk with Iraqi scientists may turn on chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix's willingness to use a robust new plank in the U.N. disarmament mandate that permits the U.N. to spirit out of Iraq specialists and their families. The scientists could then speak freely without fear of reprisal from Saddam Hussein's regime.
"This new tool is virtually invaluable, because it gives you the chance to get at knowledge that can lead you quickly to places that have prohibited weapons, if they exist," said Gary Milhollin, head of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington.
"Any inspection regime that is going to answer the question, 'What does Saddam have?' is going to have to interview scientists exhaustively," Milhollin said. "There's just no substitute for talking to the people who really know the program."
No interviews yet
With fewer than 50 inspectors so far on the ground here prosecuting the most intrusive inspection regime ever devised to rid a nation of illicit weapons, the U.N. has yet to begin any serious interviews.
Despite explicit pressure from Washington -- which, with Britain, accuses Iraq of continuing to pursue WMD programs -- Blix appears reluctant to push the limit. The U.N., he said, will not "abduct" scientists, nor become a "defection agency."
The new powers stem from the limited results of U.N. inspectors in the 1990s, who had to interview scientists under the intimidating gaze of a government official. "Anybody who revealed anything that the leadership did not want them to reveal, basically disappeared and was never seen again by the inspectors," Milhollin said.
Suspect sites
Inspectors have already visited several sites pinpointed as suspect in a British dossier released in September, and a CIA report in October. The U.N. has so far not signaled any irregularities.
"It is unlikely the Iraqis have used these declared facilities for additional production. It's the sites that are not known about that are critical," said Jonathan Tucker, a chemical and biological weapons expert and former U.N. inspector now at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. "If Iraq is determined to hide its weapons, the inspectors are not going to find them.
"What they will find instead is a pattern of circumstantial evidence that the weapons exist, but have not been destroyed," Tucker said. "But that will take time, like building up a mosaic."
Iraqi officials grudgingly accept the requirement to export their experts, but say any decision to cooperate or leave will be up to the individuals. "It's like inspections. Do you like to be inspected, to be frisked at airports?" asked Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, a British-educated chemist and key adviser to Saddam who once controlled key elements of Iraq's WMD program. "Some things are like medicines, bitter pills."
Iraq's lengthy declaration, handed to the U.N. Security Council over the weekend, does not contain a "single document" that will answer questions about biological agent and growth material -- or any other of Iraq's programs -- that have been unaccounted for since inspectors left in 1998, according to Saadi.
Since then, he said, "We have done all the searching we could [for more documents], and we could not find any more." All the biological data were secretly destroyed in 1991, he contends, "and retrospectively, it was a mistake."
Even more vital
Such a declaration means the U.N. will have to rely even more on Iraqi scientists to fill in the many gaps in this program, as well as Iraq's chemical, missile and nuclear efforts. "Satellite imagery tells us that the buildings have been renovated, but those alone can't see what's under the roofs -- that's what inspectors can do," said Hiro Ueki, the spokesman for UN weapons teams in Baghdad. "They can see with their eyes, and use their expertise to tell what took place in there, even if it looks like nothing.."
Despite the chilling effect the sheer presence of Iraqi officials once had on scientists being interviewed, the interviews helped expose cover stories used to hide certain programs.
The power of interrogations, for example, enabled the U.N. to pry the lid off Iraq's long-denied biological program months before Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, defected to Jordan in August 1995.
Tucker recalls how an intelligence tip about growth-media imports led inspectors to a British company that confirmed Iraq had imported 37 tons of the material. Iraq had accounted for only 20 tons. Intensive interviews over a year forced the Iraqis to admit it was unaccounted for.