U.S. FOREIGN RELATIONS Futile search for WMDs in Iraq imperils curbs on other nations

The U.S. probe produced insight but no weapons of mass destruction.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- In nine months, not a single item has been found in Iraq from a long and classified intelligence list of weapons of mass destruction, which guided the work of dozens of elite teams from Special Forces, the military, the CIA and the Pentagon during the most secretive, expensive and fruitless weapons hunt in history.
For U.S. allies, arms control experts and some involved in the hunt, the lack of evidence in a war premised on the threat of proliferation will have far-reaching consequences in the coming year for the United States in its efforts to curb Iran, North Korea, Syria and others.
Although some argue the Iraq war helped push open the doors of closed regimes such as Libya and Iran, others say it has only strengthened convictions that negotiations, U.N. inspections and sanctions work.
A look at new details of Iraq's clandestine efforts and its behavior during the 13 years when it was supposed to disarm could serve as a lesson for future moves against any potential proliferator.
Sheds new light
The American-led effort has shed new light on Iraqi expertise, some of which was unknown to U.N. inspectors and hasn't been made public before.
In one case, Iraqis used front companies to import German and Russian-made missile parts between 1999-2002, the period when they banned U.N. inspectors from the country. They later lied to inspectors and said some of the parts were acquired inside Iraq.
"We didn't accept the sanctions then," Dr. Modher Sadeq-Saba al-Tamimi, Iraq's top missile designer, told The Associated Press. "From 1999-2002 we bought German and Russian parts," for the al-Samoud missiles which were later destroyed by returning U.N. inspectors because several tests flights showed a capability to go beyond a 93-mile U.N. limit. The purchases, often done through a web of middlemen and front companies, were investigated by the U.N., but such Iraqi imports wouldn't be considered a violation. American investigators are still sifting through documents.
Shared work
Modher is free and has shared his work with British military personnel. Ever ambitious and talented, he told AP in two separate interviews that he and his teams dreamed up ingenious designs for long-range missiles, which he hoped to work on once sanctions were lifted.
That information, which also wouldn't be considered a violation by U.N. inspectors, constitutes the bulk of what the America-led search has learned in the missile area.
The teams have closed their chemical and nuclear files and David Kay, the man currently leading the search, is considering stepping down, those involved in the hunt told AP on condition of anonymity.
The remaining hope for the operation is in the biological area, a field U.N. inspectors were all suspicious of. Kay's teams have found no evidence Iraq had smallpox but has continued questioning Iraqi biologists and were pursuing information about anthrax and aflatoxin.
Of the handful of Iraqi weapons scientists remaining in U.S. custody, two are missile experts, and seven worked on past biological programs, according to Iraqi officials now working for the American occupation.
All continue to claim that Iraq hasn't worked on weapons of mass destruction for years.
Legal missiles
Modher said he gave his word to Saddam that the al-Samoud missiles were designed to conform with U.N. regulations and his staff signed official letters forswearing proscribed activities.
On Feb. 20, one month before the U.S. attacked, Modher met with Saddam, his sons and five other men responsible for Iraq's air defenses to discuss the coming war. "We talked about the preparations." Modher had designed anti-aircraft missiles "but they were never fired because nobody fought," he said.
There was no mention in the meeting of other defense systems, Modher recalled.
To date, Congress has approved $700 million for the weapons hunt, according to Congressional staff, a figure higher than previously reported. The U.N. effort during the 1990s cost an estimated $60 million a year, which was paid by several countries and the United Nations.
The Bush administration began planning its own hunt six months before it went to war, military officers said.
Working in secret, the Pentagon set up the first U.S. teams designed to search for, identify and destroy chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The mission, which military planners expected to be brief, was a failure, and in June the Pentagon announced a larger operation with investigative capabilities to be led by Kay and Gen. Keith Dayton.
By August the operation, known as the Iraq Survey Group, was under way. Its most notable determination to date has been that two mobile trailers found in April and May were not biological laboratories as senior administration officials had claimed. In a BBC interview Kay called the trailers "a fiasco."
His first order of business was to throw out a U.S. intelligence list, which inaccurately identified locations of chemical weapons, stores of highly enriched uranium and laboratories for anthrax and smallpox. He told team members that working off lists had been a mistake.
An investigation
Instead, he ran the hunt as an investigation, the way the United Nations had done when he briefly worked for it in Iraq in 1991. Under Kay's direction, hundreds of Iraqis were interviewed, some were detained, no one has been charged. University science professors said ISG staff still come by once a week to poke around and ask questions.
At first, some ISG members identified themselves as journalists or academics interested in working on joint research projects, according to university staff and administrators. Modher said the ISG team that interviewed him in November said the meeting would be about privatizing his missile factory.
The CIA declined to comment on ISG activities or methods. It wouldn't release spending figures for the operation and Kay turned down a request for an interview. His interim report remains classified.
By contrast, the U.N. teams were required to file public reports every three months. Their major findings and expenses, later paid by Iraqi oil proceeds, were public as well.
Since the war was launched, American allies and U.N. Security Council members have talked of bolstering the work of U.N. inspectors and have used negotiations with Iran and North Korea as a way of reducing the threats those countries could pose.
The United States tried a different route, pushing to rebuke both Iran and North Korea for their nuclear activities in the Security Council but found no support for the moves.
"As long as the United States has a pre-emptive policy on the books, no one will pass sanctions against Iran or North Korea," said Hans Blix, the former chief U.N. inspector who will head a new nonproliferation center based in Stockholm.
That may be true, said William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, but he said the sudden attention paid to the issue of weapons of mass destruction is a tribute to the war.
"I don't believe the Iranians feel more confident that they can get away with a nuclear program today than they did a year ago," Kristol said.