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U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAQ

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST

AND SOUTH ASIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 4, 2001

Serial No. 107–44

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

RON PAUL, Texas

NICK SMITH, Michigan

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

ERIC CANTOR, Virginia

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

BRIAN D. KERNS, Indiana

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

JIM DAVIS, Florida

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

BARBARA LEE, California

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

GRACE NAPOLITANO, California

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California

DIANE E. WATSON, California

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

ERIC CANTOR, Virginia

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

PETER T. KING, New York

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California

HILLEL WEINBERG, Subcommittee Staff Director & Counsel

DAVID S. ADAMS, Democratic Professional Staff Member

DEBORAH BODLANDER, Professional Staff Member

PAUL BERKOWITZ, Professional Staff Member

MATTHEW ZWEIG, Staff Associate

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

WITNESSES

Geoffey Kemp, Director of Regional Strategic Programs, The Nixon Center ..... 7

Charles Duelfer, Visiting Scholar, Middle East Program, Center for Strategic

and International Studies ................................................................................... 13

Gary Milhollin, Director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control .............. 17

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

The Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, a Representative in Congress from the

State of New York, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the Middle East

and South Asia: Prepared statement ................................................................. 2

The Honorable Eric Cantor, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia: Prepared statement ......................................................................... 7

Geoffey Kemp: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 9

Charles Duelfer: Prepared statement .................................................................... 15

Iraq Watch Roundtables, May 24, 2001, submitted for the hearing record

by Mr. Milhollin ................................................................................................... 18

Article from Commentary Magazine, entitled ‘‘Shopping with Saddam Hussein,’’ dated July-August 2001, submitted for the hearing record by Mr.

Milhollin ................................................................................................................ 23

Reprint of an article from The New York Times, entitled ‘‘What the Inspectors

Can’t Find and Why They Can’t Find It,’’ dated December 20, 1998, submitted for the hearing record by Mr. Milhollin ................................................. 28

Gary Milhollin: Prepared statement ...................................................................... 32

APPENDIX

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record .......................................................... 51

(1)

U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAQ

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA,

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:13 p.m. in Room

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

Mr. GILMAN. The Committee will come to order. During the prior

Administration, Congress was told that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was in ‘‘a strategic box.’’ We were told that U.S. patrols over

northern and southern Iraq were preventing Saddam from threatening his neighbors with conventional forces. We were told that the

international sanctions were denying Saddam the revenues with

which to rebuild large weapons of mass destruction programs. And

we were also told that Saddam Hussein was isolated in the international community.

The purpose of today’s hearing is to question these assumptions

and to discuss what Saddam Hussein has been up to nearly 3 years

after the last U.N. Weapons Inspectors left Iraq.

Iraq has adamantly refused to allow any new inspections, even

while making the absurd claim that Iraq is no longer developing

any mass destruction weapons.

With Americans justifiably concerned with further terrorist attacks since September 11th, we want to know the extent to which

Saddam has rebuilt his biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons

capabilities.

September 11th has taught us how costly it is to be complacent.

It has also taught us to pointedly challenge those who assert that

aggressive terrorists or dictators are ‘‘contained’’ in ‘‘boxes.’’ In

point of fact, we can never be certain that dictators or terrorists are

in a strategic box as long as they are in power or at large.

Secretary of State Powell’s ‘‘targeted sanctions’’ are intended to

concentrate the efforts of the world community on denying Saddam

technology and illicit revenue. Regrettably, however, it seems likely

that it will allow Saddam to pick the lock of his cage or—to break

down its door altogether.

Accordingly, I very much doubt that the proposed approach will

yield the hope for plugging up of leaks in the sanctions regime.

Leaks that permitted a Chinese company to install new fiber optic

cable to link Iraq’s air defense network and make it more effective

against U.S. aircraft patrolling the skies over Iraq. Leaks that alVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
2

lowed Iraq, 6 years ago, to import through Jordan Scud missile

guidance systems from Russian middlemen.

There is no reason to believe that Saddam would shrink from

providing his weapons of mass destruction technology to terrorists,

although there is no reason to believe he has done so as of yet. We

cannot rule out the possibility that a man who would kill 5,000

Iraqi Kurds in a poison gas attack at Halabja would contemplate

the use of such weapons against American targets.

I am on record, along with the Chairman of the Committee and

many of the Members of our Committee, as advocating the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Indeed, under the Iraq Liberation Act

of 1998, it is officially declared U.S. policy to change Iraq’s regime.

There is no other way to fully and finally end the threat Iraq poses

to our national security.

This is an important goal, whether or not Saddam is demonstrated to have played a role in the September 11th attack on

our Nation.

We do not, of course, want to unnecessarily complicate the struggle we are currently undertaking against Osama bin Laden and

terrorists of his ilk.

But our Nation should be able to ‘‘chew gum and walk at the

same time.’’ At the earliest possible moment—which might be very

soon, and certainly will have to come before we can declare total

victory over terrorism—we must turn our attention to ending a regime which we should have dismantled years ago. Saddam’s regime

continues to defy the will of the international community, defies all

norms of acceptable international behavior, as well as human

rights norms. While we are striking at other terrorists, we should

end the regime of a master terrorist like Saddam.

Today we will hear from distinguished experts on Iraq and its

weapons of mass destruction programs, Geoffrey Kemp, Charles

Deulfer, and Gary Milhollin. I will introduce them in more detail

after Mr. Ackerman has an opportunity to make an opening statement if he so desires. Mr. Ackerman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gilman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

During the previous Administration, Congress was told that Iraqi dictator Saddam Husayn is ‘‘in a strategic box.’’

We were told that U.S. patrols over northern and southern Iraq were preventing

Saddam from threatening his neighbors with conventional forces.

We were told that international sanctions were denying Saddam the revenues

with which to rebuild large weapons of mass destruction programs.

And we were also told that Saddam Husayn was isolated in the international community.

The purpose of this hearing is to question these assumptions and to discuss what

Saddam Husayn has been up to nearly three years after the last U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq.

Iraq has adamantly refused to allow new inspections, even while making the absurd claim that Iraq is no longer developing mass destruction weapons.

With Americans justifiably concerned about further terrorist attacks since September 11, we want to know the extent to which Saddam has rebuilt his biological,

chemical, and nuclear weapons capabilities.

September 11 has taught us how costly it is to be complacent and taught us to

pointedly challenge those who assert that aggressive terrorists—or dictators—are

‘‘contained’’ in ‘‘boxes.’’

3

In point of fact, we can never be sure that dictators or terrorists are in any ‘‘strategic box’’ as long as they are in power or at large.

Secretary of State Powell’s ‘‘targeted sanctions’’ is intended to concentrate the efforts of the world community on denying Saddam technology and illicit revenue. Unfortunately, however, it seems likely that it will allow Saddam to ‘‘pick the lock’’ of

his cage—or to break down its door altogether.

Thus, I very much doubt that the proposed approach will yield the hoped-for plugging up of leaks in the sanctions regime. Leaks, for example, that permitted a Chinese company to install new fiber optic cable to link Iraq’s air defense network and

make it more effective against U.S. aircraft patrolling the skies over Iraq. Leaks

that allowed Iraq, six years ago, to import through Jordan Scud missile guidance

systems from Russian middleman.

There is no reason to believe that Saddam would shrink from providing his weapons of mass destruction technology to terrorists, although there is not reason to believe he has done so as of yet. We cannot rule out the possibility that a man who

would kill five thousand Iraqi Kurds in a poison gas attack at Halabja would contemplate the use of such weapons against American targets.

I am on record, along with the Chairman of the Committee and many of its Members as advocating the overthrow of Saddam Husayn. Indeed, under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, it is officially declared U.S. policy to change Iraq’s regime. There

is no other way to fully and finally end the threat Iraq poses to our national security.

This is an important goal, whether or not Saddam is demonstrated to have played

a role in the September 11 attacks.

We do not, of course, want to unnecessarily complicate the struggle we are currently undertaking against Osama bin Laden and terrorists of his ilk.

But the United States should be able to ‘‘chew gum and walk at the same time.’’

At the earliest possible moment—which might be very soon, and certainly will have

to come before we can declare total victory over terrorism—we must turn our attention to ending a regime we should have dismantled years ago. Saddam’s regime continues to defy the will of the international community, all norms of acceptable international behavior, and well as all human rights norms. While we’re striking at other

terrorists, we ought to end regime of a master terrorist like Saddam.

Today, we’ll here from three distinguished experts on Iraq and its weapons of

mass destruction programs, Geoffrey Kemp, Charles Duelfer, and Gary Milhollin. I

will introduce them in more detail after Mr. Ackerman makes any opening statement he may wish.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling today’s

hearing. In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, I

think it is important that we as a Nation not lose sight of those

states that in the past have wanted to do us harm. Indeed, in the

case of Iraq, we have a state that clearly intends to do us harm

in the future as well.

It is also appropriate for the Subcommittee to take up this subject, because at the end of November the United States will again

have to make the case in the United Nations Security Council for

continuation of sanctions on Iraq. In past discussions of the sanctions issue, we have heard a chorus of calls for the relaxation of

sanctions from Russia, China, France, and the Arab world, ostensibly because the sanctions hurt the Iraqi people.

I believe, Mr. Chairman, that we must be clear and emphatic,

that only Saddam Hussein hurts the Iraqi people. If he were to

abide by the conditions laid out in the U.N. Security Council resolutions, conditions which he accepted and which the international

community demanded, the sanctions would be lifted. But over the

last decade, what we have seen is the continued pursuit of weapons

of mass destruction by Iraq in direct contravention of those resolutions. But even if the sanctions remain, it is still Saddam Hussein

who chooses not to use the money from the Oil for Food program

to provide for the Iraqi people. Billions of dollars flow annually

through that program, and yet somehow Iraqis continue to suffer

4

as Saddam builds dozens of palaces, none of which appear to be edible. It is time for those outside Iraq who lament the suffering of

the people to acknowledge its true source.

Mr. Chairman, we must take back the public debate about sanctions, because for too long Saddam Hussein has portrayed himself

and his people as the victims of U.S. aggression. He has identified

himself with the Palestinians and suggested that it is U.S. policy

to repress both. It is time for this nonsense to stop.

The United States Government should be making an aggressive

public case for our policy and we should be making that case

around the world. The terrorist attacks of September 11 give us a

new context in which to pursue our Iraq policy. The heinous acts

of that day should serve as a reminder to our friends on the Security Council that Iraq is still a state sponsor of terrorism and, in

this new global coalition to fight terror, Iraq should remain on the

terrorist target list rather than their targeted customer list.

The evidence that Iraq was involved in the September 11th attacks is circumstantial. But if the United States does not continue

with an aggressive policy toward Iraq, those Nations which have

been opposing sanctions will conclude, if they haven’t already, that

the status quo in Iraq is acceptable. This is an outcome that we

must reject. Instead, we must seize upon this opportunity to press

vigorously for continued sanctions. The evidence in support of this

policy continues to be clear, as I believe we will hear this afternoon. Saddam Hussein continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction technologies and the means to deliver them. He therefore

remains a threat to the region and to U.S. interests.

All of the reasons that the international community went to war

in 1991 remain 10 years later. A strong effective sanctions regime

must remain an integral part of U.S. policy. The real question in

Iraq no longer revolves around whether Saddam Hussein can be

contained. The real question is whether the international community, and in particular his immediate neighbors, will recognize that

as long as he remains, the region and the world continue to be at

significant risk.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to hearing from today’s distinguished witnesses.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you Mr. Ackerman.

I call on Mr. Chabot, our Ranking Minority Member. The Majority.

Mr. ACKERMAN. He still is in the Majority.

Mr. GILMAN. Ranking Majority.

Mr. CHABOT. I will keep my remarks brief so we can get to the

panel.

I would like to thank the Chairman for holding this important

hearing. And just from this Member’s point of view, I personally

believe that Iraq, and Saddam Hussein in particular, ought to be—

I think he has given us more than enough reason to put him up

there with Osama bin Laden in this war against terrorism. And if

we are serious about ending, destroying and stopping international

terrorism, we absolutely have to target Saddam Hussein.

You know, my principal concern—and I have said this to a lot

of people—I have spoken to a lot of schools back in my district, and

some of the kids are a bit concerned about war and the possibility

5

of a draft and that sort of thing. What I have said, and I firmly

believe, is that the loss of life that this Nation suffered just a few

weeks ago in New York and here in Washington, DC and in Pennsylvania, as terrible as it was, pales in comparison to the potential

loss of life next time if chemical or biological or, God forbid, nuclear

weapons are used sometime in the not-too-distant future in this

country. And that is why it is absolutely critical that we prevail in

this war against terrorism. And I believe Saddam Hussein has to

be a principal target of that war. I would urge the Administration

to include him in those people that we absolutely have to get rid

of.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you Mr. Chabot.

Mr. Hoeffel.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Nothing.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you. Mr. Lantos.

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend you

for holding this hearing. I will just take a few moments to put my

views on the record. I was one of the handful of Democrats who

supported George Bush a decade ago on the Persian Gulf War. It

was not a particularly proud moment for my political party because

the majority of my colleagues were on the other side. But the President was correct, and the results, as far as they went, were satisfactory. They obviously didn’t go far enough. And when the history

books will be written from the vantage point of a hundred years

from now, the failure of the first Bush Administration to get rid of

Saddam Hussein once and for all will stand as one of the great policy mistakes of the end of the 20th century.

Now, our three distinguished witnesses have submitted superb

testimony. I read every line of it and I find it very convincing. Professor Kemp I think in his statement basically summarizes their

conclusion:

‘‘Saddam and his regime pose a growing danger to the Middle

East and the United States. The regime cannot be rehabilitated. Therefore, the goal of regime replacement should remain

a fundamental tenet of U.S. policy options.’’

I could not agree more. I believe that the current war on global

terrorism so eloquently expressed by our President at the joint session a couple of week ago, lays out the formula. And it also lays

out the sequencing. The number one task will be to get rid of bin

Laden and his complex organization present in many countries.

But as soon as that task is finished, this Nation and our willing

allies will have to move on to get rid of Saddam Hussein and other

similar regimes. This regime, as Professor Kemp says, cannot be

rehabilitated. It has to be destroyed and it has to be displaced. And

the American people will find the willpower to do so. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.

Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate greatly the opportunity to hear this knowledgeable—and although I haven’t read

it all yet—well written and insightful historic accounting. I am particularly looking forward to this Committee, and hopefully the pubVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
6

lic, moving back toward where we were prior to September 11th in

focusing on our obligation to isolate Iraq, and particularly in our

programs that seem to have been long abandoned to reduce and

eliminate their ability to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Like many people around the world, I am concerned with the

consistent and continued problem of hunger and absence of good

medical supplies for the Iraqi people. And I hope that all of us on

this Committee can work together and I hope you can give us some

insight in how we might do it, to find a way to provide humanitarian relief that actually gets to the people of Iraq, while continuing and improving the containment of Saddam Hussein.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Issa.

Mr. Sherman.

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we have gotten

some phenomenally bad public relations as to the effect of our sanctions. There are hungry children and an inadequate amount of

medicine Iraq, but we have saved millions of lives by insisting that

these sanctions be there. If they were not, then every penny of

Iraqi oil revenue would go directly to Saddam Hussein. He would

have so many more palaces, would have nuclear weapons, would

have tanks by the thousands, and deaths would be in the millions

from starvation.

I don’t know whether we need humanitarian aid for Iraq because, frankly, that is a country capable of producing oil revenue

enough to make it a relatively well-off country. But we have somehow got to explain to the world that these are not sanctions against

Iraq, but rather they are a control system to make sure that Iraq’s

oil revenue is used to buy food, medicine, and the trucks to transport them. And in the absence of that, we would be looking at millions of Iraqi deaths. Never has a country saved so many civilians

and gotten not only so little credit for it, but actually been blamed

for those who are dying.

As to clearing out Saddam Hussein’s regime, I think our policy

ought to be first bin Laden then the Taliban. I think we would

have some substantial allies to do that. And then we would be in

a position to make demands of the Iraqi regime particularly as to

U.N. Inspectors. If they reject those demands, as I expect they

would, then perhaps with fewer allies we could proceed down the

road that the Ranking Member laid out for us.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Sherman.

Mr. Cantor.

Mr. CANTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too just want to thank

the three distinguished panelists for being here today and sharing

with us your outlook on the situation that we have with Iraq. And

if I could just ask you, in your remarks or at some point in your

presentation, to focus on the issue of Iraq’s state sponsorship of terrorism. As you know from the State Department’s terrorism report,

Iraq continues to provide safe haven and support to a variety of

Palestinian rejectionist groups, as well as bases, weapons, and protection to an Iranian terrorist group. Dozens of terrorist groups are

supported by Saddam Hussein, and several maintain offices in Bagdad, including the Arab Liberation Front, the Palestinian Liberation Front, and Abu Nidal. The PLF leader has appeared on the

state-controlled television to praise Iraq’s leadership in rallying

7

Arab opposition to Israel. And furthermore, Saddam Hussein has

offered $10,000 rewards to the families of the Palestinian suicide

bombers.

So in your remarks, if you could, just share with us some of your

knowledge as to the state sponsorship that Saddam Hussein is undertaking toward the terrorist movements.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Cantor.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cantor follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ERIC CANTOR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

In statements since the terrorist attacks on September 11, President Bush has

made it clear that the United States will not differentiate between terrorists and

the states that harbor them. He has said to other countries that ‘‘You are with us,

or you are with the terrorists.’’ With that in mind, it is clear that Iraq has already

chosen its side and it is not with us.

According to the State Department, Iraq continued to provide safe haven and support to a variety of Palestinian rejectionist groups, as well as bases, weapons, and

protection to an Iranian terrorist group. Dozens of terrorist groups are supported

by Saddam Hussein, and several maintain offices in Baghdad, including the Arab

Liberation Front, the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), and Abu Nidal. The PLF

leader has appeared on state-controlled television to praise Iraq’s leadership in rallying Arab opposition to Israel. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein has offered $10,000

awards to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Mr. GILMAN. Today’s first witness is Geoffrey Kemp, a wellknown expert on the region who served in the first Reagan Administration as Senior Director for Near Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council. Earlier this year, Mr. Kemp co-chaired a

prestigious working group on Iraq under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Kemp, your statement will be entered

in full in the record and you may summarize if you prefer. Please

proceed.

STATEMENT OF GEOFFEY KEMP, DIRECTOR OF REGIONAL

STRATEGIC PROGRAMS, THE NIXON CENTER

Mr. KEMP. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would like to summarize for 5

minutes.

Mr. GILMAN. Without objection, your full statement will be made

part of record. Would you press the button by your mike?

Mr. KEMP. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I am very honored to testify this afternoon on this very, very important subject. Let me get

straight to the point. If there is substantial and persuasive evidence that Iraq was directly involved in the attacks on September

the 11th, the President has no option but to prepare for a major

offensive against Iraq, including the use of military force. Its purpose would be the removal of the regime in Baghdad.

With compelling evidence, one would hope such action would

have the direct support of NATO, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. However, if the evidence of an Iraqi connection is indirect, circumstantial, and not credible to our key allies, the United States must pursue a longer-term strategy to undermine the regime.

Whatever the evidence, if we mount an operation to change the

regime in Baghdad, we will have few regional allies. Anti-Americanism in the Muslim world is intense and pervasive. Its causes

are complex and are to be found in many more issues than the

8

Arab-Israeli conflict. In the event of clear, substantive and persuasive evidence connecting Saddam to September 11th, the objective,

as I said, must be the removal of the regime as well as a coherent

policy for a post-Saddam Iraq.

There is no guarantee that any of Saddam’s successors that come

from within the regime will be any less anti-American than Saddam, or that they will disband their WMD programs or abandon

their wish to rebuild Iraq’s military conventional forces.

Under the circumstances of Iraq being responsible in part for

September 11th, the military choices the United States faces are

formidable. While airpower and missiles can wreak a great deal of

damage on Iraq’s facilities and demoralize Iraqi security forces,

most notably the Republican Guard, there is no assurance such an

operation would lead to the end of the regime. In the process we

could anticipate a severe backlash throughout the Muslim world,

since a sustained bombing campaign would need to be more intense

than anything witnessed during the Clinton Administration. This

would undoubtedly lead to civilian casualties, probably deliberately

orchestrated by Saddam.

While Iraqi forces are much weaker than in 1991, they may still

have access to WMD, and certainly they possess short-range surface-to-surface missiles. My colleagues will talk in more detail

about this, I believe. The occupation of an Arab country by American forces would reinforce Muslim radicals’ basic tenet that we are

intent on waging a war against Islam. Nevertheless, we may have

no option but to take such a step. Kuwait would likely make facilities available, but this provides a very narrow base from which to

launch an invasion. If Saudi Arabia decided to support such an action, the operation becomes much more favorable for the United

States.

As for coordinating a guerrilla war using Iraqi opposition forces

against Saddam, this too requires bases in regional countries.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria are unlikely to support such operations from their territory. Kuwait might agree, but the terrain in

southern Iraq is not well suited to guerrilla operations. Turkey and

Iran are much better suited, but Iran will clearly not participate.

Turkey might, but will continue to be extremely concerned about

the role of the Kurds, given its fear of instability on the border in

its own Kurdish problem.

Now, what should we do if the evidence linking Saddam to September the 11th is flimsy and inconclusive? First, we should not

abandon the efforts to strengthen the sanctions regime. The

present regime against Iraq is unraveling, and until September the

11th regional support for Saddam Hussein was growing. The revised sanctions policy proposed by the Administration deserves

support. Today President Putin may be prepared to go along with

the U.S. proposal to tighten the sanctions regime. China and

France have already agreed to.

But for this to work, we will have to provide more aid to Jordan

and to convince Turkey and Iran that their interests are served by

working with a new U.N. Security Council resolution on sanctions.

The question of support for Iraqi opposition forces outside Iraq

arouses controversy both within the United States Government and

among our allies. Iraqi opposition groups could and should be enVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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couraged to remain active in the political arena and the propaganda war against the regime. Provision of lethal assistance could

be considered based on future political progress. A parallel effort

must be made in the intelligence arena to seek ways to infiltrate

and undermine the Saddam Hussein regime from without and from

within. Given the intensity of his security, this is a longshot but

one we should pursue.

Irrespective of September the 11th, the U.S. needs to make sure

that regional allies understand American red lines and that we understand the limits of their support for future U.S. military action.

Three red lines are most likely to continue to receive active Arab

and Turkish support:

First, Iraqi military threats or attacks on allied forces.

Second, Iraqi threats or attacks on neighboring states.

Third, Iraqi acquisition and deployment of weapons of mass destruction or their use, including nuclear, chemical, and biological

weapons.

Red lines less likely to solicit active support include Iraqi aggression against the northern Kurdish enclave, which could be a real

problem, and Iraq’s military support for Palestinians against

Israel. And here to emphasize what several of you said on the

panel, the United States must be more assertive and aggressive in

its public diplomacy. It should outline its hopes for Iraq and its

people once the Saddam Hussein regime is gone.

Our most effective short-run strategy toward Iraq should be to

keep Baghdad guessing as to what we are going to do. There is circumstantial evidence that since September the 11th, governments

cozying up to Saddam and the dozens of companies seeking lucrative business deals have had second thoughts, not wanting to be

seen acting against American interests or caught in the cross-fire

of military confrontation. If countries such as Turkey reassess their

present favorable relations with Iraq, others might follow.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the U.S. will have to walk a fine

line between developing a more robust diplomacy while seeking regional support in preparing for a military response at some time

in the future. Thank you.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you Mr. Kemp.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kemp follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GEOFFEY KEMP, DIRECTOR OF REGIONAL STRATEGIC

PROGRAMS, THE NIXON CENTER

The immediate priority for U.S. foreign policy must be the removal of Bin Laden

and the Al-Qaeda network from Afghanistan and the installation of a new regime

in that country. To this end the Bush administration has assembled a powerful but

fractious coalition. It includes Russia, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, our European allies and some of our Arab friends. This is not going to be an easy operation and

it may take months to succeed. We may find ourselves drawn deeper into the quagmire of south Asian politics. The stability of Pakistan, including its nuclear facilities, must be of concern. A humanitarian crisis could be upon us. Under these circumstances any effort to widen the confrontation to take on Iraq or other Middle

East countries that harbor terrorists would put in jeopardy this particular coalition.

Thus the administration’s argument for a sequential approach to dealing with states

that support terrorism makes strategic sense.

If we are successful in eliminating the Bin Laden network from Afghanistan and

if a government comes to power in Kabul that can bring some stability and humanity to the region it would signal that we are serious about confronting those states

that support terrorism. At that point our ability to muster support to end the remaining terrorist threats in the Middle East may be enhanced, though not assured.

10

In the meantime, Saddam and his regime pose a growing danger to the Middle

East and the United States. The regime cannot be rehabilitated. Therefore, the goal

of regime replacement should remain a fundamental tenet of U.S. policy options.

The danger posed by Iraq increases the longer Saddam Hussein has access to ample

hard currency, which enables him to continue to fund his security services and his

WMD programs. The U.S. cannot negotiate with the Saddam Hussein regime. Its

demise would be greeted with pleasure by the vast majority of Iraqis, most of our

Arab friends, and of course, Israel.

In the aftermath of September 11th, the most pertinent questions concerning Iraq

are what actions should we plan for and over what period of time? If there is substantial and persuasive evidence that Iraq was directly involved in the attacks the

President has no option but to prepare for a major offensive against Iraq, including

the use of military force. Its purpose would be the removal of the regime in Baghdad. With compelling evidence one would hope such action would have the direct

support of NATO, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

However if the evidence of an Iraqi connection is indirect, circumstantial and not

credible to our key allies, the United States must pursue a longer term strategy to

undermine the Iraqi regime. This should include: more aggressive intelligence operations and assistance to opposition groups both in Iraq and outside; tightening of

U.N. sanctions; continued patrols of the no-fly zones over northern and southern

Iraq; and a coordinated international campaign to demonstrate to the world that the

United States cares about the plight of the Iraqi people and that it is Saddam Hussein alone who is responsible for their misery and suffering.

Whatever the evidence of Iraq’s complicity the reality is that if we mount an operation to change the regime in Baghdad, we will have few regional allies. Anti-Americanism in the Muslim world is intense and pervasive. Its causes are complex and

are to be found in many more issues than the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its true that the

Intifada of the past year has magnified the problem, but even if there was an

Israeli-Palestinian agreement hatred towards America would still be present. Much

of the anti-Americanism in the Arab world reflects the anger and rage of discontented populations against their own regimes. As my colleague, Fouad Ajami has

written, ‘‘It has been America’s fate to be caught in the crossfire of a war over Islam

itself. A war between privilege and wrath, between the secular powers in the saddle

and a nativist-pious opposition from below.’’ Some have argued that anti-Americanism is one thing, but that if the United

States shows new resolve and is prepared to do whatever it takes to end the regime

in Baghdad key Arab governments will support us, albeit reluctantly, since their interests ultimately lie with the West. However this proposition would need to be

carefully tested before taking precipitous action. Certainly the hostility shown to the

United States by citizens of one of our closest Arab friends, Egypt, is a very sober

portend of what could lie ahead.

What options do we have in event of clear, substantive and persuasive evidence

connecting Saddam Hussein to the events of September 11th? Few governments, including Arab governments, approve of the Saddam Hussein regime. However they

express concern that a new American military offensive that did not guarantee the

final and definitive removal of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts and the emergence

of a stable, unified, Iraq would create more problems than it would solve. Thus if

force is to be considered, the objective must be the removal of the regime, as well

as a coherent policy for a post-Saddam Iraq. Removing Saddam alone might have

some short term benefits, but there are downsides. First, if only Saddam and his

immediate entourage are ousted, the Baathist regime will remain in power and

Saddam’s likely successor (unless it is his sons) would likely be greeted with such

relief by the international community that Iraq could soon get out from under the

punitive sanctions that have limited Saddam’s strategic ambitions. There is no guarantee that any of Saddam’s successors that come from within the regime will be any

less anti-American than Saddam or that they will disband their WMD programs or

abandon their wish to rebuild Iraq’s military conventional forces. Iraq has suffered

great humiliation in the past 10 years; the desire for redemption and revenge is not

restricted to Saddam Hussein alone.

The military choices facing the U.S. in event of a decision to use major force are

formidable. A strategic air offensive without the use of ground forces has well

known limitations. A ground offensive analogous to Desert Storm would take

months to put in place, assuming we had access rights in the region. A more indirect strategy of subversion and guerilla warfare has no guarantee of success.

While airpower and missiles can wreak a great deal of damage on Iraqi facilities

and demoralize Iraqi security forces, most notably the Republican Guards, there is

no assurance such an operation would lead to the end of the regime. In the process

we could anticipate a severe backlash throughout the Muslim world since a susVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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tained bombing campaign would need to be more intense than anything witnessed

during the Clinton administration. This would undoubtedly lead to civilian casualties, probably deliberately orchestrated by Saddam. Images of Iraqi suffering would

be duly reported by the worlds’ media, particularly CNN and the Arab station AlJazeera. Under these circumstances the danger of polarizing the region against the

United States would grow unless we were lucky and in the early days of an air campaign Saddam was either overthrown or killed.

If the Iraqi regime survived such an attack but was severely hurt another consequence could be chaos. An imploding Iraqi state could have a destabilizing impact

on the neighborhood, particularly on Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and

Iran. Of course events might turn out for the good, but the belief that a pro-Western

Iraqi regime will emerge from the ashes of a strategic bombing campaign may be

wishful thinking.

The only sure way to replace the Baathist regime is to invade and occupy Iraq.

This is such a daunting challenge that it would require a far greater consensus

amongst regional and international partners of the United States that is present

today. While Iraqi forces are much weaker than in 1991, they may still have access

to WMD and certainly possess short range surface to surface missiles. The occupation of an Arab country by American forces would reinforce Muslim radicals basic

tenet that we are intent on waging a war against Islam.

Nevertheless under certain circumstances we may have no option but to take such

a step. The political and logistical complications are formidable. Without major

bases in Saudi Arabia it is difficult to invade from the south. Kuwait would likely

make facilities available but this provides a very narrow base from which to accommodate a major American ground force and launch an invasion. If Saudi Arabia decided to support such an action and accept a large American military build up on

its soil, the operation becomes much more favorable for the United States. However

in 1990 Saudi Arabia itself was directly threatened by Saddam’s forces; today it is

not. In fact the regime might become more vulnerable from within if it accommodated a huge American military presence.

As for coordinating a guerilla war using Iraqi opposition forces against Saddam

this, too, requires bases in regional countries from which to support such action.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria have repeatedly made it clear they would not support such operations from their territory. Kuwait might reluctantly agree but the

terrain in southern Iraq is open and not well suited to guerilla operations. Turkey

and Iran are better suited but Iran will clearly not participate. Turkey might, but

will continue to be extremely concerned about the role of the Kurds, given its fear

of instability on the border and its own Kurdish problem.

What should we do if the evidence linking Saddam Hussein to September 11th

is flimsy and inconclusive? First, we should not abandon the efforts to strengthen

the sanctions regime. The present sanctions regime against Iraq is unraveling and

up until September 11th regional support for Saddam Hussein was growing. The revised sanctions policy proposed by the administration deserves support. It is focused

on four key issues.

• First, the preservation of the UN ‘‘escrow’’ account and other measures directed against the regime’s financial assets to prevent Saddam Hussein from

obtaining additional revenues from increased commerce between Iraq and the

outside world.

• Second, giving Iraqis more freedom to purchase civilian goods thereby shifting

responsibility to the regime for continued civilian suffering.

• Third, the continuation of an embargo on all conventional weapons transfers

to Iraq.

• Fourth, a refinement of the list of prescribed dual use technologies that can

assist Saddam Hussein’s efforts to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction.

These are realistic goals for which there is considerable international support. It

can be argued that under the new circumstances with greater Russian cooperation

on a number of issues, President Putin may be prepared to go along with the U.S.

proposal to tighten the sanctions regime on Saddam Hussein. China and France

have offered support for a new sanctions regime. If it were to be implemented it

could set the stage for reducing Saddam’s access to foreign currency.

In parallel we will have to provide more aid to Jordan and to convince Turkey

and Iran that their interests are served by working with a new UN Security council

resolution. It will be difficult to ensure that goods and services which would now

be free to move to Iraq do indeed reach the Iraqi people and are not pilfered by Saddam and his cohorts. Yet under these circumstances it would be less easy to criticize

12

the sanctions as being against the Iraqi people. Saddam would now be demonstrably

accountable for the suffering, not the UN.

Concerning enhanced support for Iraqi opposition forces outside Iraq, this issue

arouses great controversy, both within the United States government and among

our allies. Many military analysts have little expectation that any of the Iraqi opposition forces could at anytime soon provide the basis for a military challenge to Saddam Hussein. However the Iraqi opposition groups could and should be encouraged

to remain active in the political arena and the propaganda war against the regime.

Incremental support for the opposition can be pursued with additional support contingent upon progress in political de-legitimization efforts and opposition successes

in the field. Pressure to broaden the appeal of the opposition among the various

Iraqi clans, both Sunni and Shiite, should be made though we do need to find more

specific groups we can effectively work with. Provision of lethal assistance could be

considered based on future political progress. Under present circumstances, it would

take a major political investment by the U.S. to make support for opposition groups

more credible in the region.

A parallel effort must be made in the intelligence arena to seek ways to infiltrate

and undermine the Saddam Hussein regime from without and from within. Deception and dirty tricks should be refined and implemented. No one doubts the difficulties of these types of operations, but clearly the most likely danger to Saddam himself is an uprising within his own Sunni organizations. Given the intensity of his

security, this is a long shot, but one that should not be pursued.

Saddam Hussein is likely to behave egregiously at some point in the future. The

U.S. therefore needs to make sure that regional allies understand American red

lines and that we understand the limits of their support for future U.S. military action. Red lines remain an important element of our policy. Three red lines are most

likely to continue to receive active Arab and Turkish support, as distinct from acquiescence.

• First, Iraqi military threats or attacks on allied forces.

• Second, Iraqi threats or attacks on neighboring states.

• Third, Iraqi acquisition and deployment of weapons of mass destruction or

their use, including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Red lines less likely to solicit active support include Iraqi aggression against the

Northern Kurdish enclave and Iraq’s military support for Palestinians against

Israel. There remains considerable room for ambiguity on these issues. For instance,

most regional powers accept the US and UK right to defend aircraft patrolling in

the NFZ by attacking Iraq’s anti-air capability. However, they are unlikely to support major retaliatory action against other Iraqi military and civilian targets.

The United States must be more assertive and aggressive in its public diplomacy.

It should outline its hopes for Iraq and its people and state that they will be well

treated and respected once the Saddam Hussein regime has gone. The U.S. has been

losing the propaganda war and it should be a priority to retain the high ground on

the matter of who is most responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The U.S.

should lead international efforts to indict leading regime figures, including limiting

their foreign travel and freezing their external bank accounts. Those who wish to

profit from supporting present regime should be placed in position of having to defend it in light of its track record.

Our most effective short run strategy towards Iraq should be to keep Baghdad

guessing as to what we are going to do. There is circumstantial evidence that since

September 11th governments cozying up to Saddam and the dozens of companies

seeking lucrative business deals have had second thoughts, not wanting to be seen

acting against American interests or caught in the crossfire of military confrontation. If countries such as Turkey reassess their present favorable relations with

Iraq, others might follow if they believe the U.S. is serious about eventual regime

change. This could reverse the favorable momentum Saddam has been exploiting for

the past year and could make it more difficult for Baghdad to reassert its presence

in the region. For this reason the U.S. will have to walk a fine line between developing a more robust diplomacy while seeking regional support in preparing for a

military response at some time in the future.

Mr. GILMAN. Next we will hear from Charles Duelfer, who is one

of the few experts who can attest from personal experience just

how difficult it is to obtain information from Iraq on its weapons

programs. He visited Iraq many times during his tenure as Deputy

Executive Chairman of UNSCOM, the special U.N. commission

13

charged with dismantling Iraq’s weapons programs. He is now a

visiting scholar in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Duelfer, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES DUELFER, VISITING SCHOLAR, MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Mr. DUELFER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to have

my written testimony submitted for the record.

Mr. GILMAN. Without objection, we will be pleased to make it

part of the record. You may summarize.

Mr. DUELFER. I will summarize briefly and informally, and hopefully in questions we can get to some of these points in more detail.

Much of what I have to say would underline, I think, the comments made by Members of your Committee. My comments are, as

you mentioned, drawn upon my experience of having spent a lot of

time in Iraq with all sorts of Iraqis, both very senior officials,

Saddam’s highest officials in charge of his weapons of mass destruction program, his experts, and average Iraqis in the street.

Let me make first some comments on the weapons of mass destruction threat, and then secondly I will talk about some of the

specific problems of the Iraqi regime. UNSCOM, the U.N. Special

Commission on Iraq, and the IAEA accomplished a lot during the

many years we spent chasing down these programs in Iraq. We accomplished a lot over the obstructions put in our way of the regime.

We accounted for a lot of the weapons of mass destruction, but

there were some key remaining issues and some key uncertainties

which were left.

Ultimately, Iraq successfully divided the Security Council and we

found that the Security Council, all of its members, would not

agree to pursue sufficient force to cause Iraq to comply fully. But

anyway, in this process we learned a few key things. One is the

enormous value Iraq attaches to weapons of mass destruction. I remember spending many long nights with top commanders, trying

to get them to explain how they planned on using them, why they

were designing them, why they kept them. And it really boiled

down to two points which they made:

One, in the war that they conducted with Iran, they believed that

the use of chemical weapons saved them. Iran was using these

human wave attacks, you may recall, and Iraq responded by using

100,000 chemical munitions. And they believe that they survived

and prevailed in that war because of their possession of weapons

of mass destruction.

Secondly, and in the second Gulf War, they argue that the possession of weapons of mass destruction deterred the Coalition and

the United States from going to Baghdad. From their perspective

that is how they see it. It raises a question: Who is deterring whom

in the region these days? But in any case, that is the view; they

attach high importance to these weapons. It explains why they devoted so many resources, billions and billions of dollars, buildings,

people, throughout decades. Some of these weapons have military

rationales. This is what we tried to explore from them. Some of

them did not.

14

Iraq would never explain what the rationale was for some of

their biological weapons. UNSCOM was never able to get a full and

concrete description of the purposes for some of these. We all have

our opinions, but it is not a pretty picture. It is for population

modification. Killing their own population was one of the logical explanations. Iraq never said that—UNSCOM never stated that as a

fact, but it is one of the logical reasons why they would have made

some of these agents.

Remaining in Iraq is the intellectual capital to produce all of

these. Remaining in Iraq is production equipment. Remaining in

Iraq is at least a strategic reserve of these forces. And from what

we are able to gather—there are many Iraqis who have left Iraq—

these programs are still underway. Their full extent and their full

capacity can only be surmised. But no serious analyst believes that

Iraq is not pursuing these programs and does not retain some capability. One can only assume they continue to harbor ambitions

of having a full array of these weapons, including nuclear.

A couple of comments about the regime and its behavior. America seems to think that the Gulf War ended in 1991. Baghdad

doesn’t. They are still at war. And in fact, they make an argument

that they have been successful and are probably winning the war.

They believe that there has been an economic as well as a hot military war going on throughout the period. So there is definitely a

difference in view between Washington and Baghdad on what is

going on.

Their fight to erode sanctions has been largely successful. Even

if new sanctions are put in place in Iraq, Baghdad will see that as

a success; because the type of sanctions and the type of enforcement are certainly less stringent than had existed originally.

Curiously, in a lot of my experience with senior officials and professionals in Iraq, it was astonishing that, in fact, they would like

nothing better than to be reconnected with the West, with the rest

of the world and, curiously, the United States. The average Iraqi,

the professionals, the technocrats, the bureaucrats, are all under

the thumb of an onerous government.

But the people are the ones who are suffering, and that is where

the real tragedy of this whole circumstance is. Because if you look

at what Iraq could be in the region, the potential for economic

growth, for a growing society, for the proper utilization of oil revenues, with a different regime, with one that would behave by international norms, one that Washington could have relations with, it

could change everything in the Middle East. Palestinians could be

going to Iraq for schooling, for jobs. Thus, to me, if you compare

what Iraq could be with what Iraq is and what it is growing as a

threat, there is a big difference. And the potential gain to me is

worth the risk, because it really could change everything in the

Middle East.

A couple of other brief comments. One good thing about Saddam

Hussein is that it doesn’t appear that he is suicidal, and therefore

deterrence seems to work. This has been the one success, I suppose, in the last decade, and that is that we have been able to deter

Iraq again from invading its neighbors, from using overtly some of

the weapons which we know it possesses.

15

However, the question is, if Baghdad were able to conduct an attack that we would not be able to link specifically to Baghdad,

would it? And the potential that we saw in its biological weapons

program and some of the research activities which we saw them

conducting, seemed to indicate what they were looking at ways

where they could conduct an activity or a strike that would not be

able to be connected with Iraq.

I just ask you to envision if you went up to Saddam Hussein and

said, ‘‘Hey, boss, I have got a way of responding to the economic

hardships that have been imposed by on us by the United States;

we can cause them some damage and they will never be able to

connect that to you,’’ what would he do?

So we have got a problem if all we do is rely on deterrence. And

I say this, simply to say that treating this problem incrementally,

continuing to kick the problem down the road, may be a recipe for

long-term disaster.

I subscribe to those of you that say this is a problem that has

got to be dealt with. Managing it, deferring it, is not going to work.

So far, the regime has not done us the favor of collapsing on its

own. I think it is going to need some help. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Duelfer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHARLES DUELFER, VISITING SCHOLAR, MIDDLE EAST

PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee and discuss Iraq.

I will focus first on the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and secondly on the broader Iraq problem.

The Baghdad regime has had the intention of acquiring weapons of mass destruction since the 1970’s when most of their programs began. As is well known, the

Baghdad regime successfully developed long range missiles with chemical and biological warheads in the 1980’s. They came very close to achieving a nuclear weapons

capability just before the war in 1991.

Iraq used over 100,000 chemical munitions during its war with Iran. It used a

variety of chemical munitions against its own population as well. Best known was

the attack against the Kurdish city of Halabja. Immediate casualty figures numbered in the thousands, with long term effects that have not been calculated. There

are no confirmed reports of biological weapons use, but the evolving study of health

conditions in Kurdistan point to a growing possibility that biological agents caused

some of the extraordinary incidences of cancers, birth defects and major diseases

now prevalent. Interestingly, Baghdad has blamed similar health problems on the

presence of depleted uranium shells used by coalition forces in the south of Iraq in

1991.

UNSCOM and the IAEA were able to account for much of the Iraqi WMD programs. Despite a systematic policy by Iraq to conceal the full extent of their programs, much was learned—albeit with some key gaps.

A few salient points are worth recalling from UNSCOM’s work. First, the level

of effort and resources committed to these programs was enormous. Billions of dollars, thousands of people, and hundreds of buildings were dedicated to developing

and producing these weapons.

Second, the origins of the programs and their purposes are not fully understood,

but they were not simply military in nature. In particular, the biological weapons

(BW) program appears to have had its origins in the security services. No military

concept was ever presented for their research or production. In fact, Iraq claimed

that their Ministry of Defense had nothing to do with the BW development program.

Third, when UNSCOM and IAEA left in December 1998, there certainly remained

in Iraq the intellectual know-how to continue all these programs. UNSCOM had significant concerns about remaining production capability and indeed, weapons themselves. During the period of time UNSCOM still worked in New York, but was not

in Iraq, it continued to collect evidence or ongoing Iraqi work in all areas of WMD.

I doubt anyone believes Iraq has stopped its WMD efforts. Even while UNSCOM

was operating with our most creative and intrusive inspection techniques, we reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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mained deeply concerned that programs continued clandestinely—albeit at a reduced level.

Fourth, Iraq is actively and apparently successfully developing both liquid and

solid fuelled ballistic missiles. The United Nations resolution banning Iraqi WMD

programs does permit missiles of range under150 kilometers. While UNSCOM was

in Iraq, we monitored these programs quite carefully. In particular, a program

called the Al Samoud was being energetically pursued. It has been tested frequently. It may or may not exceed the permitted range, but what is clear is that

Iraq is developing an indigenous missile capability that did not exist before the war.

This sizeable commitment of resources by a regime which pleads that the United

States is starving its population via sanctions, puts in bold relief their true intentions and priorities.

A final observation about UNSCOM’s investigation of Iraq’s BW program is relevant under today’s circumstances. The BW program was the least understood program and the one Iraq obfuscated the most. There are multiple reasons for this. One

is that the purpose behind the development of certain biological agents and weapons

was probably not military. For example, Iraq produced large amounts of an agent

called Aflatoxin. Exposure to this causes cancer over a period of years. Such exposure might prevent a lieutenant from becoming a colonel, but it is difficult to envision a military purpose—especially bearing in mind that Iraq had extensive experience with the tactical military use of chemical weapons against Iran in the eighties.

Their successful use of chemical weapons was one factor that reinforced their commitment to WMD.

We also know Iraqi scientists conducted some experiments in mixing Aflatoxin

with a non-lethal agent—CS, or tear gas—commonly used as a riot control tool. The

question is what purpose is served by camouflaging the dispersal of an agent that

causes cancer?

Another aspect of Iraq’s BW research is also troubling. Experiments were conducted with substances that cause agricultural damage such as wheat cover smut.

This indicates they were investigating potential economic weapons. Moreover, such

agents could easily be deployed in ways that would make their origin virtually impossible to trace. If a potential enemy can harm you without you knowing who did

it, it makes deterrence very difficult. Recent events underscore the importance of

being able to identify the culprit in a terror attack. Conversely, opponents may increasingly seek to conceal their complicity through various methods.

If I may expand my remarks beyond Iraq’s WMD capabilities, I would like to

make a few observations drawing upon several years of experience in dealing with

Iraq and senior Iraqi government officials.

The regime in Iraq sees itself at war with the United States. It is a military and

economic war that is ongoing. The regime is intent on winning and is willing to pay

a heavy price to reemerge as the dominant country in the region. Baghdad, with

help from friends on the Security Council, has been successfully eroding the consensus that has contained it during the past decade. They have astutely distributed

economic favors in ways that win them support. Baghdad has convinced many that

the regime is inevitable and therefore must be accepted. Moreover, those who befriend Baghdad will profit. A blind eye is turned to past aggression and atrocities.

The regime, at tremendous cost to its own population, seeks to outlast the United

States.

At the same time, the Iraqi professionals, technocrats, and even government officials, while they serve their country, would like nothing better than to be reconnected with the rest of the world—including the United States.

The magnitude of the tragedy of Iraq can best be appreciated when you consider

two alternative futures for Iraq over the next few years. Presently, Iraq, under the

current regime, is on a path of growing threat to the region and the world. It has

not lost its ambition to dominate the region through military intimidation. It has

growing WMD capabilities, and a significant conventional military. It also will have

the increasing leverage of growing oil production—potentially growing to 4–5 million

barrels per day in the next few years. Its practice of domestic oppression is certainly

not decreasing. Iraq’s best and brightest escape if at all possible. Further, there can

be no doubt that the regime will continue its battle with the United States. The regime has supported and harbored terrorists in the past and will continue in the future. The regime can be expected to use whatever means possible to attack the

United States if it can, and can get away with it.

An alternative future is an Iraq governed by a regime which follows international

norms and with which the United States could have normal relations. Such a regime could not only free Iraq from its current quagmire, but could change much in

the Middle East. A growing Iraqi economy with the reconstitution of normal international commerce, educational systems and societal revival could go a long way toVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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ward addressing some of the endemic problems in the region. It certainly would release energies and talents of the Iraqi people who currently either escape or suffocate under the current regime.

The difference between these two futures is huge, and growing. The threat Iraq

poses will continue to grow if the present regime continues to renew itself. The policy of containment has succeeded in deferring the Iraqi problem not solving it. The

potential that Baghdad could act overtly or covertly against the United States remains high. Moreover, there has been a tremendous cost to the Iraqi people. They

have had to suffer under Baghdad’s repression for another decade while Iraq was

contained.

Obviously, the world will watch closely to see how the United States addresses

the Iraq problem. Many regional states have become convinced that they must seek

their own accommodation with the regime as it poses both a growing threat and reward in terms of oil exports. No firm policy has emerged from Washington in recent

years that would lead to other conclusions. Regional states will also watch how the

present campaign against terror plays out. If it does not include an Iraq component,

the conclusion will be drawn that either the United States accepts, if not desires,

the present circumstances in Iraq—or is powerless to change them.

There is an opportunity now to refocus how the world is dealing with Iraq. The

threat posed by this regime needs to be highlighted. Certainly the world is right to

worry about the suffering of the Iraqi people. But, the actions over the past few

years have had the effect of conveying legitimacy on this regime—a regime that has

invaded two neighbors and used chemical weapons on its own population. Trusting

that this regime, which has used chemical weapons against its own population,

won’t use them elsewhere is foolish. So far, the American military presence has deterred such attacks. But over the long term, only a when there is new leadership

in Baghdad will there be real improvement to regional security and the Iraqi people.

Mr. GILMAN. We’ll next hear from Gary Milhollin, who is the Director of the Wisconsin Project in Nuclear Arms Control, perhaps

the most authoritative center for the study of proliferation issues

in our Nation. Mr. Milhollin has produced volumes of work on

Iraq’s efforts to obtain weapons-related technology.

Mr. Milhollin you may put your full statement in the record and

summarize however you may desire.

STATEMENT OF GARY MILHOLLIN, DIRECTOR, WISCONSIN

PROJECT ON NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also have three

items that I would like to add to the record.

Mr. GILMAN. Without objection.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. They are findings from a roundtable that we

conducted recently, an article from Commentary Magazine, and a

table in the New York Times.

Mr. GILMAN. Would you identify the conference and the article

dates? Could you identify those dates?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Just a moment. The roundtable has just been

put on our Web site in the last few days.

Mr. GILMAN. Where was that conducted and the date?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. The date of the roundtable was May 24th, 2001.

It was conducted here in Washington. And the article in Commentary Magazine was published in the July-August edition 2001.

And the table in the New York Times dates from 1998. We prepared the table just after the inspectors left.

Mr. GILMAN. Without objection, they will be received in the

record.

[The information referred to follows:]

18

IRAQ WATCH ROUNDABLES

Panelists:

W. Seth Carus

Pierce S. Corden

David Kay

Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack

John Larrabee

Moderators:

Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz

Editors of IraqWatch.org

• What policies would be most effective now in dealing with Iraq?

• What practical steps would improve the present situation?

These were the subjects of a roundtable discussion that the Wisconsin Project on

Nuclear Arms Control hosted in Washington, D.C. on May 24, 2001. The

roundtable’s five panelists were chosen on the basis of their experience in Iraq and

the Middle East. They were W. Seth Carus, one of the world’s leading authorities

on Iraq and on the spread of weapons of mass destruction, Pierce S. Corden, who

served as Deputy Executive Chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq, David

Kay, who led nuclear inspection teams in Iraq, Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack, who led

biological weapon inspection teams in Iraq and who is presently chief of the biological weapon section at the U.N.’s Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and John Larrabee, who led missile inspections in Iraq and is a specialist on

ballistic missile technology.

The panel found, in sum, that there is little incentive for Iraq to disarm or cooperate with U.N. inspectors; that smuggling has created a multilayered infrastructure

that has corrupted Iraq’s neighbors from top to bottom; that ‘‘smart sanctions’’ may

not be an improved policy; and that given the forces and policies now operating in

the Gulf, the mass destruction weapon threat from Iraq will continue.

These findings are a composite of the panelists’ personal views; no particular finding should be attributed to any single panelist, nor should the findings be thought

to represent the views of any organization with which a panelist is affiliated. The

full text of the panel’s findings follow.

Finding 1—Iraq is still committed to developing weapons of mass destruction. In biological weaponry, Iraq is now self-sufficient; it has what is necessary to build

a biological arsenal. Iraq also appears to possess stocks of chemical agent and

is known to have had virtually every element of a workable nuclear weapon except the fissile material needed to fuel it. Iraq’s authorized program for developing short-range ballistic missiles could enable the building of longer-range

missiles, and Iraq is also showing an interest in cruise missiles and unmanned

aerial vehicles.

Since the cease fire agreement that terminated the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq has

waged an unceasing political struggle with the United States, the object of which

has been to undo the strategic results that the Gulf War produced. Iraq’s goals are

to undermine the position of the United States in the Middle East, to reestablish

Iraq as the leading Arab state, and eventually to dominate the region.

Iraq’s programs to acquire nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, together

with long-range missiles, are seen as essential to the achievement of these goals.

The drive to possess these arms will not abate as long as the current regime remains in power. In fact, the regime has paid a huge price to protect these programs.

Equally important, it has paid this price in order not to be seen as surrendering

to the United States.

The panelists agree that Iraq’s biological capability now presents the greatest

threat. Iraq has the infrastructure, the knowledge base, and the ability to produce

what it needs indigenously. This includes growth media for microorganisms, equipment to produce microorganisms in vials, and biological warfare agents. Iraq already possesses the necessary biological strains, some of which are endemic, so

there is no need to rely on imports. In addition, biological weapons are relatively

cheap to make so there is no financial constraint. Iraq has never demonstrated that

its biological weapon program has been terminated or destroyed.

Some panelists are particularly concerned about the covert use of an agent not

known to have been in Iraq’s arsenal. Such an agent could be produced with a minimum of effort, and a properly released or timed introduction could bring an opponent to its knees. The agent need not be lethal. In fact, the introduction of an economic-focused agent (such as foot and mouth disease) could be highly effective and

difficult to trace.

19

Nuclear weapons also remain a danger in Iraq. Baghdad presently possesses a

workable nuclear weapon design and had virtually every necessary component to

build it except the fissile material needed for fuel. In addition, Iraq has sought to

keep its nuclear weapon teams intact. With sanctions against Iraq declining, foreign

travel to Iraq increasing, and interactions becoming more common with Russians

trying to recover billions of dollars in pre-Gulf War debts, the odds are increasing

that Iraq may get what it needs. If Iraq manages to import the necessary fissile material, one panelist believes that Iraq could fashion a bomb in a matter of months.

This panelist also believes that Iraq still has a pilot centrifuge cascade of some size

that the U.N. inspectors missed. The panelist warns that the operation of such a

cascade would be hard to detect, and could be used in an effort to process low-enriched uranium up to weapon grade.

Iraq’s chemical weapon capability also remain a danger, despite the fact that U.N.

inspectors managed to destroy large amounts of it. Iraq appears to retain small

stocks of chemical weapon agents, including the highly destructive nerve agent VX.

It may be some time, however, before Iraq can produce strategically significant

quantities of chemical munitions. To be effective, a chemical agent must be delivered over a considerable area in high concentrations. One panelist pointed out that

in addition to the risk that Iraq may restart its known chemical weapon programs,

Iraq could pursue some of the new avenues the Soviets opened up. These avenues

included novel chemical agents, such as the Novichok family, which are designed

to avoid the routine monitoring provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention,

while being easy and cheap to produce in civilian plants. A step in this direction

by Iraq might be difficult to detect.

Iraq is presently barred by U.N. resolutions from possessing or developing ballistic missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometers. Most panelists agreed that

Iraq will not be able to perfect missiles beyond that range without flight tests,

which would probably be discovered. They note that the technologies Iraq has chosen for its 150 kilometer missiles, however, are clearly intended to support followon systems with longer ranges. Thus, Iraq’s 150 kilometer Al Samoud missile, which

is now under development, is little more than a reduced-range SCUD missile, which

has a range of 300 kilometers. Iraq has already shown the ability to modify SCUDs

to fly more than double their original range and Iraq may still retain a few SCUDtype missiles at secret locations. Some panelists were of the view that the 150 kilometer limit is not self-defining. Without overtly violating the 150-kilometer restriction, Iraq could flight test some of the systems and technologies necessary for a

longer-range missile. Iraq could use techniques such as increasing the warhead

weight beyond that designed for the eventual operational missile. The heavier payload would limit the range in flight tests, but would still allow the testing or validating of longer-range operational systems.

Some of the panelists believe that Iraq is more likely to deliver chemical or biological agents with a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) or cruise missile. These agents

are more difficult to deliver successfully with ballistic missiles. A UAV or cruise

missile provides better control. It is known that Iraq had a program for using a

MiG-21 as a UAV for delivering biological agents and that Iraq actually carried out

delivery tests with simulated agents. Iraq also modified a fuel tank to disperse biological agent from a Mirage F1 used as a UAV.

Iraq’s conventional military forces are limited, but significant. Iraqi ground forces

are weaker than they were in 1991. Some panelists believe that Iraq nevertheless

retains the power to overrun Kuwait unless the United States should have enough

warning time to increase U.S. forces in the region. Iraq’s air defense system is also

weak, but improving. U.S. military commanders have expressed the view that it is

only a matter of time before Iraq manages to shoot down a U.S. aircraft operating

in one of the no-fly zones.

The panel believes that the pace of Iraq’s present activities may depend on whether Iraq plans to re-admit U.N. inspectors under some future compromise. If Iraq readmits inspectors, it would be required to account for the use of the sensitive equipment that the inspectors were formerly monitoring. This requirement could limit

what Iraq is doing with the equipment now. If, however, Iraq has decided that it

will never again admit inspectors, then Iraq could already be using the sensitive

equipment without restraint, which would increase significantly its ability to develop weapons of mass destruction. From Iraq’s recent announcements, it appears

that the latter course is the most likely.

20

Finding 2—Iraq has little or no incentive to disarm or to cooperate with U.N. inspectors. Several panelists noted that the United States no longer appears to consider

the disarming of Iraq to be an achievable foreign policy goal, or to believe that

the resumption of U.N. inspections is a high priority.

Most panelists agree that Iraq has little or no incentive to re-admit U.N. inspectors. Iraq has achieved much of what it sought to gain—including an easing and

possibly a near lifting of sanctions—with no cooperation on its part. By promising

and actually providing financial advantages to key countries, Iraq has assembled a

number of supporters in both the United Nations and the Gulf region. There is no

reason for Iraq to see its present intransigence as bringing anything but gain. The

greatest remaining restraint on Iraq is U.N. control of Iraq’s oil income. Iraq is

working hard, however, to increase the amount of oil that is smuggled across its

borders without U.N. control.

Some panelists noted that the Bush administration appears to have decided that

inspections are not a high priority. The administration has no desire to return to

the situation in which the Clinton administration found itself, where U.N. inspectors asked for access to an Iraqi facility, were wrongfully refused, and then turned

to the United States for enforcement help. That process gave Saddam Hussein the

power to create an international incident at will, and ultimately demonstrated the

impotence of the international community—and the United States—when it came

to the use of force. They noted that Vice President Cheney has expressed the view

that Saddam Hussein can be counted on to frustrate any inspection likely to

produce results, and therefore that inspections should not be a high priority.

Nevertheless, some panelists pointed out that it is in Iraq’s interest to work out

a better relationship with the U.N. Security Council. As long as Iraq is in noncompliance with U.N. resolutions, Iraq’s diplomatic standing will be impaired. Even

more important, Iraq will continue to be barred from military and civilian dual-use

imports. These factors, however, have not been enough to produce Iraqi cooperation

so far, and are not likely to produce it in the future.

Finding 3—If Iraq were to re-admit U.N. inspectors, a new baseline for inspections

could still be created, notwithstanding the gap in inspection coverage during the

past two and one half years. Iraq, however, would have to provide accurate declarations of its weapon activity and immediate, unrestricted access to all persons,

documents and sites. In addition, the U.N. Security Council would have to refrain from exerting pressure on the inspectors to wrap things up quickly.

If Iraq re-admits U.N. inspectors (by accepting, for example, U.N. Resolution

1284) Iraq would be required to declare every change made to its monitored facilities since December 1998, when inspections ended. It would also be required to declare what it did with every piece of monitored equipment and all monitored materials. New sites would also have to be declared, as would imports of dual-use equipment. UNMOVIC would analyze these initial declarations, together with other information, and use them as a starting point for a new inspection baseline.

In the opinion of some panelists, a missile or nuclear baseline would probably require only a few months, whereas baselines in the chemical and biological areas

would take considerably longer. The gaps in knowledge of these latter areas could

be resolved only over a period of time. The time needed would depend on the accuracy of Iraq’s declarations and on the degree of access provided to the inspectors.

Immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to physical locations, personnel

and documents would be essential to both disarmament and monitoring.

Some panelists fear that if inspectors were re-admitted, there would be tremendous political pressure from the U.N. Security Council to do baselining quickly and

to get the inspections over with. Because the inspectors’ only authority is derived

from the Security Council, the Council’s ability and willingness to insist on effective

inspections is vital to success.

It is also a fact that even the most intrusive inspection system—such as the one

that UNSCOM operated in Iraq—will still produce a residue of uncertainty. It is

simply not possible to monitor every square inch in the territory of a state—and

some weapons activities do not require much space. It is a political task to decide

how serious the residue is. International inspections can be an important confidence

building measure, but no illusions should be harbored.

Finding 4—Oil-for-food monitors are no replacement for arms inspectors.

It has been suggested that the monitors responsible for the oil-for-food program

in Iraq could verify that sensitive items purchased by Iraq are not misused. However, these monitors have neither the ability nor the mission to carry out such a

task.

21

First, they lack the expertise. They have no training in the use of sensitive equipment or in the ways by which such equipment might be diverted to a weapon program. The typical oil-for-food inspector would not be able to distinguish a milling

machine from a vacuum furnace, and would have no hope of distinguishing a corrosion-resistant pump from an ordinary one. Even trained UNSCOM inspectors have

had difficulty combating Iraq’s practice of switching identification plates on machines, and of carrying out secret weapon work at supposedly civilian sites.

Second, oil-for-food monitors do not have the mission or the authority to prevent

diversions. Their mission is limited to verifying that contracts are fulfilled and that

an item goes to the site that purchased it. What happens to an item after that is

not their concern. The task of weapon inspectors is quite different; weapon inspectors must track sensitive items wherever they go and however they are used. Only

continuous monitoring can prevent weapon development at a civilian site. Thus, the

presence of oil-for-food monitors cannot justify the export of sensitive items under

‘‘smart sanctions.’’

Finding 5—The smuggling of oil out of Iraq and of goods into Iraq has created a

multilayered infrastructure that has corrupted Iraq’s neighbors from top to bottom. The prospects of stopping this smuggling are not good.

The international trade embargo did reduce Iraq’s access to resources when it was

first imposed. Since then, however, Iraq’s methods for smuggling oil have grown

more sophisticated and the financing harder to trace or block. Within Iraq, Saddam

Hussein has used smuggling revenues to enrich his family and friends and to bind

groups to his regime. He has also used these revenues to build support in neighboring countries. In addition, important elements of the Kurdish economy have become entrapped and dependent upon oil smuggling.

The smuggling of goods into Iraq has also grown, and become more sophisticated.

It now consists of a multilayered infrastructure that reaches back through the highest levels in Jordan, Syria, Turkey and even Iran. Overall, Saddam’s oil revenue has

now reached the levels he enjoyed before the Gulf war. This increased stream of

petrodollars has created a political momentum in Iraq’s favor that will be difficult

to stop.

To reverse the momentum, the front line states would have to be given great incentives. However, there are obstacles in the way. The first is the nature of the governments with which one would have to deal. There is real doubt whether some of

the front line states possess the internal coherence to counteract the secret flow of

money to elites—a weakness that Iraq is now exploiting. There is also the fact that

the West would have to deal with people in the Middle East that it doesn’t normally

turn money over to. And finally, there is the brute question of the amounts required. It is by no means evident that the United States and its allies would be willing to pay enough to offset the secret profits from billions in illicit oil sales.

Among the incentives that might be possibly offered—other than money—are intelligence sharing, increased sales of weapons or dual-use goods, or even threats of

sanctions for non-cooperation. These incentives, of course, present many problems

of their own. Iraq would no doubt retaliate against the first state that decided to

cooperate with the West, and would immediately shift its business elsewhere. Thus,

all states would have to cooperate. One benefit of cooperation would undoubtedly

be increased inspections at the borders of the front-line states. These inspections

might catch some goods coming in, but, in the panel’s opinion, they would be no effective substitute for U.N. inspectors on the ground inside Iraq itself. Borders leak,

and the more money that is at stake, the more they leak. A dedicated country with

the desire and resources of Iraq will either divert revenue or obtain it outside the

streams presently controlled. It will also seek new illicit revenue streams as old

ones are closed off.

Finding 6—The ‘‘smart sanctions’’ proposed by the administration may not be an improved policy, and could increase the danger posed by Iraq.

The administration has proposed a new set of ‘‘smart sanctions’’ for Iraq, but the

panel as a whole is not convinced that they are a step forward. Allowing Iraq to

import a broader range of civilian goods, which is what the new sanctions would

do, is not likely to help the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein has deliberately chosen

to maintain the suffering of the Iraqi population by refusing to buy civilian goods

with existing oil-for-food revenue. He has used the suffering, in turn, to build pressure for ending the U.N. sanctions and its control over his oil revenue. In fact, none

of the major players on Iraq’s side in the present debate—Russia, China or France—

appear to be motivated by concern about the Iraqi population and neither does Saddam Hussein. Ordinary Iraqis are ill-starred pawns in the struggle for control of

Iraq’s bank accounts.

22

The U.S. proposal would retain U.N. control over Iraq’s oil income and would forbid the purchase of arms and sensitive dual-use items; however, it would abolish

controls on just about everything else. It would not require Iraq to re-admit U.N.

inspectors or to take any steps toward disarmament.

Without inspectors, there is no internal restraint on Iraqi efforts to rebuild the

infrastructure necessary for rearmament, including efforts to develop weapons of

mass destruction. In particular, there would be no on-the-ground control to prevent

diversion of Iraq’s increased civilian imports to military ends. One panelist pointed

out that when the United States and its allies compromised in December 1999, and

agreed to U.N. Resolution 1284, they were trying to allay the humanitarian argument against sanctions by allowing Iraq to sell unlimited amounts of oil. The U.N.

received, however, nothing in return. Now, with smart sanctions, the process would

be repeated. Controls on Iraq would be weakened once again without any Iraqi

movement toward disarmament or inspections. There is no reason to believe that

Iraq will cooperate with the new sanctions any more than with the previous ones.

Thus, the new sanctions may be a slippery slope, with further reductions of sanctions to follow. The illusion of controls would be preserved while sanctions continue

to erode.

Finding 7—The prospects are dim for a satisfactory outcome in Iraq. Options are

few, and there are no good ones. The United States has never had a long-term

strategy for dealing with Iraq; this would be a good time to devise one.

Most panelists agree that Iraq has won the public relations battle over sanctions.

The general public no longer realizes that if Saddam Hussein truly decided to disarm, he could clear Iraq’s name in a matter of months, end the embargo, and remove any restraint on the flow of goods to the Iraqi population. He has been rejecting this opportunity, however, since 1991. Saddam Hussein obviously believes that

preserving his mass destruction weapon programs is more important than the billions of dollars in oil income that his country has foregone and will continue to forego.

In the face of Iraq’s intransigence, the West has tried to compel its compliance,

both by economic means through sanctions, and by political and military means

through a multilateral coalition. Neither of these efforts is succeeding. The principal

remaining option—full-scale military intervention—carries a price no one is willing

to pay. Thus, an uneasy status quo remains.

Yet the status quo is unacceptable. The Gulf states and others are already currying favor with Iraq because they perceive that it will not be compelled to give up

its weapon potential. They also perceive that Iraq has a growing chance of evading

U.N. control of its bank accounts. Thus, there is an increasing willingness to violate

sanctions. The result is that sanctions are eroding even while Iraq is working to enhance its mass destruction weapon capabilities.

This outcome will undoubtedly spur weapons proliferation in the region. If Iraq

is successful in pursuing secret weapon programs, others will see that they can do

the same. Iran, in particular, will be under pressure to match Iraq in mass destruction weaponry, and Saudi Arabia will be watching. The United States and its allies

have been able to threaten countries with an array of sanctions for proliferation, but

if sanctions prove unsuccessful in Iraq, they will necessarily lose credibility. The

price of not making things better in Iraq may be to make things worse in the region.

The alternatives seem to be to keep sanctions as strong as possible or to replace

them with something better. However, giving up on sanctions would hand a tremendous victory to Iraq; there would be no way to ‘‘spin’’ it otherwise. Thus, while there

may be a temptation to declare victory on sanctions and retire from the field—by

arguing that sanctions have at least slowed down Saddam for a decade—it is not

possible to abandon sanctions unless something more effective can be substituted.

The opposition to sanctions is fundamentally driven by money. The reason why

Russia, France and China oppose sanctions is that they want access to Iraq—to ‘‘get

the money out,’’ in the words of one panelist. France, in particular, has always seen

Iraq as a major source of income. What is needed is an arrangement in which these

countries can get dollars out of Iraq while preserving international security. That

arrangement cannot mean a resumption of Iraqi mass destruction weapon programs.

One of the reasons the United States may not have been more successful in the

Gulf is that U.S. diplomats have pointed their energy further west—to the Israeli

peace process. Because the United States sees the peace process as its most important interest in the region, it has been willing to overlook things, for example, taking place in Jordan. To make progress in the Gulf, the United States needs to

spread its efforts across both parts of the Middle East more equally.

23

1GARY MILHOLLIN is the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, where

KELLY MOTZ serves as a research associate. This is their first appearance in Commentary.

U.S. Iraq policy continues to be largely tactical, without an evident long-term

strategy for dealing with the threat that Saddam Hussein presents. ‘‘Smart sanctions’’ are primarily a tactic—designed to counter the criticism that too many sales

are now being held up by U.S. and U.K. objections. Even if these new sanctions are

adopted, however, Iraq would be no nearer to disarmament than it was before.

The longer-term strategic question seems to be whether some common ground can

be found among the former members of the Gulf Coalition and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Most panelists believe that little such ground exists. Nevertheless, it might be feasible to fashion a consensus around the principle

that Iraqi military moves against its neighbors will not be tolerated; that Iraq’s military capabilities must be strictly limited; and that information should be shared on

what Iraq is up to. The United States may be compelled to seek such a consensus

eventually. The panel concludes that ‘‘solving’’ the problem of Iraq does not now

seem feasible. The removal of Saddam Hussein does not have the support of U.S.

allies, nor is such a step within the power and resources that the United States is

willing to commit. Nor is Iraq likely to disarm or re-admit arms inspectors with real

authority. This situation, coupled with the rise in Iraq’s oil income, will produce a

steady increase in Iraqi arms, with weapons of mass destruction likely to be part

of the mix. This is a hard conclusion to accept, but given present policies toward

the Gulf, the risk that Saddam Hussein will plunge the world into another crisis

remains.

SHOPPING WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN

By GARY MILHOLLIN & KELLY MOTZ 1

Commentary Magazine

July-August 2001, pp. 23–7

Whether or not the world is ready, Saddam Hussein is back. With oil income now

reaching the levels he enjoyed before the Gulf war, Iraq’s president is beginning to

buy his way out of the ‘‘box’’ in which former Secretary of State Madeleine K.

Albright famously declared we had confined him.

What Saddam chooses to spend his money on is of cardinal importance. During

the decade before the 1991 Gulf war, when he could buy what he wanted, his weapons scientists imported factories to make poison gas, strains of microbes for germwarfare agents, missiles that during the Gulf war would kill U.S. troops in Saudi

Arabia, and equipment that, had the war not intervened, would long since have produced an atomic bomb.

But the Gulf war did intervene, and as a consequence, after its troops were routed

in Operation Desert Storm, Iraq pledged to disarm. To verify that it had done so,

a UN inspection regime was put into place, coupled with a ban on international

trade with Baghdad that had been imposed in 1990. The inspectors were in for a

big surprise. They uncovered a complex of secret sites in which virtually every kind

of weaponry of mass destruction was being fabricated. Iraq had purchased giant

magnets and centrifuges for enriching uranium, had imported German components

to enhance the range of Scud missiles purchased from the Soviet Union, had bought

plants for producing chemical and biological agents, and had actually loaded those

agents into warheads. (The record of these purchases can be found in our online

publication, IraqWatch.org.)

It was these discoveries, and the resulting friction with Saddam’s regime, that led

in 1998 to the UN inspectors being forced out. The sanctions on international trade,

however, remained in place, though increasingly they had come to resemble what

President Bush last January characterized as so much ‘‘Swiss cheese.’’ Now a joint

British-American proposal has been put forward that would replace the current

broad-based sanctions with prohibitions only on the sale of arms and some civilian

‘‘dual-use’’ items. The new arrangement would also continue the current ‘‘oil-forfood’’ system, under which Iraq can sell as much oil as it wants but is supposed to

deposit the revenue in a UN-supervised escrow account and use it only to buy civilian goods that the UN has specifically approved.

The new proposal—whether adopted by the UN or not—has little hope of stopping

the Iraqis from sneaking in what they need to rebuild their weapons sites and

sneaking out the oil to pay for it. For the truth is that even when the UN inspection

regime was in place, the Iraqis had already figured out how to do just that.

Here is how the system works. Suppose an Iraqi site needs a new computer-controlled machine tool, one especially capable of making the high-precision parts needed for long-range missiles or nuclear weapons. Since such a purchase would be veVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
24

toed at the United Nations, the order goes instead to a middleman in Jordan. The

middleman contacts the manufacturer, who cannot export to Iraq without the approval of the UN but is perfectly free to export to Jordan, unhampered by any embargo. The machine goes to the free-trade port of Aqaba, where the middleman— listed falsely as the final user—loads it on a truck and illegally sends it to Iraq.

The international community’s export-control system operates on the assumption

that, in such cases, at least some steps will be taken to stop goods at the border,

or, failing that, to punish malefactors later. But neither is happening. The only

trucks that stop at the border between Jordan and Iraq are the ones carrying goods

bought under oil-for-food contracts that have been authorized by the UN. These

come to rest inside Iraq itself so that UN monitors can check the paperwork, thus

enabling the seller to get his money. Other trucks, carrying contraband cargo, simply cross the border unchecked.

And how does the contraband cargo get paid for? According to the latest esti- mates, Jordan imports, at discount prices, about $300 million worth of Iraqi oil per

year outside the UN oil-for-food program. (Jordan argues that it has no other source

of affordable oil, so the UN and the United States have chosen to ignore this continuing breach in the embargo.) To get reimbursed for his hot cargo, the smuggler

or his agent presents an invoice to the commercial attache ́ at Iraq’s embassy in Jordan, who pays him out of the proceeds of the sale of Iraq’s oil shipments. In effect,

cut-rate oil is being bartered for whatever Iraq wants to buy.

There is, of course, a reason why Jordan does not police its borders or track what

goes through its free-trade zones. If machine tools stopped coming out of Jordan,

discounted oil would stop coming in. Jordanian middlemen, officials, and others who

live off the discount would be hit hard. Besides, in addition to the $300 million in

unregulated oil, Iraq directs oil-for-food contracts through Jordan. The money gives

Baghdad enormous leverage.

A similar situation is developing in Syria. Last November, oil began to flow

through a newly repaired Iraq/Syria pipeline, all of it outside UN control, at a value

estimated at $1 billion a year. Although Secretary of State Colin Powell recently announced a Syrian pledge to bring this revenue under UN jurisdiction, Syria has

taken no discernible action. As billions of dollars in unregulated cash pile up in Damascus, smuggling can be expected to explode. And Lebanon, which this past April

was offered a deal similar to Jordan’s, appears to be next.

Since Saddam could sell his oil at a much higher price by operating through the

UN, he is obviously expecting something in return from the slush funds he has been

creating around his borders. What is he getting, and from whom?

Before being forced out in 1998, the UN inspectors compiled a series of confidential reports detailing what they knew about Iraq’s foreign suppliers. We have been

able to see these reports, which have never been published. What they recount is

an ongoing effort to build weapons of mass destruction. Throughout the 90’s, in violation of the UN embargo and in the teeth of the inspection regime, the Iraqis were

continuing to ‘‘import goods . . . from at least . . . twenty different countries.’’ On

Iraq’s shopping list were ‘‘turnkey facilities, full-sized production lines, industrial

know-how, high-tech spare parts, and raw materials.’’ The success of this import

program depended on ‘‘a disturbing proclivity on the part of several countries and

companies to supply Iraq with missile technology and assistance, despite the sanctions maintained by the United Nations.’’

The core of Iraq’s present supply network dates from the early 1990’s. As the result of a decision to concentrate its shopping expeditions in Eastern Europe, Iraqi

delegations fanned out to Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, and Russia, waving

petrodollars in front of these countries’ once proud but now starving missile and

military plants. They returned with suitcases full of illicit contracts for virtually

every kind of equipment a missile-maker might need.

The experience in Belarus was typical. In July 1995, a high-level Iraqi delegation

arrived in Minsk. It came from the Badr State Establishment, which had achieved

renown before and during the Gulf war. Badr’s machine tools had turned out components for the high-speed centrifuges that Iraq was counting on to process uranium

for its first atomic bomb. Badr also made parts for the Al Hussein missile, one of

which killed U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf war and several of which

landed in Tel Aviv. Today, the plant still retains a line of powerful machine tools.

The main attraction in Minsk was a company called Belstroyimpex. There the

Iraqis looked at high-end machine tools, a production line for making diamond-cutting tools, and another production line for powder metallurgy. Iraqi records show

that a contract for these machines, or for an even longer list of equipment, was then

being carried out. The final shopping list included the diamond-cutting tools, which

can be used to make precision parts for nuclear weapons and long-range missiles,

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2 Another piece of evidence that the Jordanian smuggling route was working well turned up

in 1998, when the inspectors found a new computer-controlled milling machine at a site that

had done missile work before the Gulf war. The machine, built by the Ping Jeng company in

Taiwan, had been sent through Aqaba by a Jordanian middleman listed as ‘‘Mohanad K. Mohammed.’’ Documents showed that the machine was built in March 1998, only shortly before

turning up in Iraq.

weapon components from corrosion. The list also included design work for integrated

circuits destined for a military electronics plant that, before the Gulf war, had produced military radars, missile components, and equipment for making nuclearweapon fuel. The deal was obviously not submitted to the United Nations as required; if it had been, it would never have been approved.

Like so much other contraband entering Iraq, the machines traveled first to the

free-trade zone in Aqaba. There they lay until word was given to transfer them to

the buyer. An outfit in Amman called the Firas Trading Company served as broker.

The confidence Iraq placed in its Jordanian arrangement was a marvel to the UN

inspectors. As one of them (a non-native speaker of English) put it colorfully, ‘‘Iraq

does not consider goods laying in a Jordanian free zone being threatened to loose

control.’’

Indeed not. During visits to the Badr site in 1996 and 1997, UN inspectors discovered both the powder-metallurgy line and the plasma spray machine (the latter

manufactured by the Belarus firm Visoky Vacuum). Obviously the contracts had

been fulfilled.2 As far as anyone can tell, moreover, the Belarus connection is still

active: when inspectors visited the Saddam State Establishment—known also as the

Saddam Artillery Plant—in 1998, they observed the Iraqis installing fourteen new

machines for manufacturing 75-millimeter lenses. The crates were marked ‘‘Republic of Belarus, Vitebsk Machine Building Plant’’ and ‘‘Free Trade Zone, Zarka, Jordan.’’ In light of the fact that the plant was making optical sights for artillery, one

inspector remarked: ‘‘You can bet the lenses were not for eyeglasses.’’

In Ukraine, the Iraqi focus was more specific: missile components. In September

1993, a Ukrainian trader with a Ph.D. in electronics named Yuri Orshansky arrived

in Baghdad. He was accompanied by Dr. Yuri Ayzenberg from a Ukrainian firm,

Khartron, well known for its ability to design missile-guidance systems. Within two

months, an Iraqi delegation would travel to Ukraine to follow up.

The Iraqi delegation was led by Brigadier General Naim Bakr Ali, head of Iraq’s

Scud missile-guidance program. With him were two officials from Iraq’s Missile Research and Development Center, and rounding out the team were Brigadier General

Safa from Ibn Al-Haytham, Iraq’s largest missile-manufacturing site, and Major

Raad from Al-Karama State Establishment, another such site. Their mission was

clear: to negotiate agreements for as much help as they could get. As General Naim

would himself tell the UN inspectors, his instructions were simple: ‘‘If you find

something good, sign; if you do not find something good, then don’t sign.’’

He signed. In Ukraine, Orshansky, Ayzenberg, and Naim executed a ‘‘protocol’’—

amounting to an outline of future cooperation—that promised Iraq the keys to a

trove of missile technology. Ukraine would sell guidance components for surface-tosurface missiles, help Iraq develop batteries of the latest anti-aircraft missiles, provide equipment for missile research, and even establish a college to train missile

experts. To get things started, Iraq asked for price quotes on a test stand for rocket

motors, a series of gyroscopes and accelerometers for missile-guidance systems, and

high-precision machine tools for making missile parts.

Under questioning, General Naim later claimed that the deal was supposed to

take effect only after the embargo was lifted, and hence did not violate UN resolutions. As the inspectors pointed out to him, however, the agreement expressly stipulated that it would come into effect ‘‘from the moment it [was] adopted by the governments of Ukraine and Iraq’’—that is to say, almost immediately. (Both Naim’s

superior and the Ukrainian cabinet approved the deal in 1994.) General Naim also

claimed that Iraq intended to work only on missiles that could fly under 150 kilometers, permitted under certain UN resolutions. But an appendix to the agreement

described a system for ‘‘separating the warhead from the bus’’; only long-range missiles, which Iraq is not permitted to possess, have warheads that are separated during flight from the rocket engine (or bus) that carries them aloft. In short, Saddam

Hussein was aiming to project his power as far as possible.

In November 1994, General Naim led another Iraqi delegation to Ukraine. Aided

by many of the same experts, he signed a second protocol as ambitious as the first.

Khartron was now to provide four different types of missile guidance, two of them

for separable warheads. According to the protocol, Iraq had already given Khartron

the data needed to build the first type, and a schedule was included for receiving

26

the data for the other three. Khartron also helped the Iraqis work on missile-guidance problems during the visit itself.

Iraq has always sought independence in missile production, and so the second protocol, like the first, took into account the ability to manufacture. To help the Iraqis

do the necessary research toward that end, Ukraine agreed to supply laboratories,

a wind tunnel, computer software, technical assistance, and training. For developing

guidance systems themselves, Iraq would get raw materials, a production line for

key parts, testing equipment, and a ‘‘clean room’’ to allow assembly of delicate parts

in an atmosphere free of dust or dirt. Iraq would also get a production line to build

rocket engines, plus equipment to test the engines and their sub-assemblies.

All in all, Yuri Orshansky would travel to Iraq at least six times between 1993

and 1995, and Iraq would send at least four delegations to Ukraine. But under questioning by the UN inspectors, General Naim claimed that Iraq had never actually

received a single import. ‘‘No deals were ever finalized, no money was ever transferred, and not one penny was made’’ by the company he had set up to handle the

missile deals. The inspectors, who concluded that Naim ‘‘was rarely honest,’’ did not

believe his story. Nevertheless, they were unable to find any of the equipment listed

in the protocols. None of it turned up at the missile sites they were monitoring, nor

could they develop any evidence showing that it might be elsewhere. In interviews

with us, the inspectors have offered two possible explanations for this outcome. Either Iraq bought the equipment and hid it for future use, presumably when the inspection regime would be lifted, or Iraq may have been only shopping—comparing

prices in Ukraine to those in Russia and Romania, where it was looking at the same

kind of equipment. The latter possibility seems unlikely after so many trips, so

much consultation, and so many contracts for specific items. More likely by far is

that Iraq received some of the Ukrainian equipment it tried so hard to buy, and

that the equipment is in use today.

As it turned out, moreover, Orshansky was offering more than just missiles. At

an Iraqi site called Al Kawthar, the inspectors found a 300-page file detailing an

illegal February 1995 deal for Russian aircraft. The agreement, with Orshansky’s firm Montelect, included Mi-17 helicopters and Su-25 fighter planes—military hardware that the embargo unquestionably banned—as well as engines and guidance

systems for remotely-controlled drones. The drones were every bit as disquieting an

item as the tanks and planes; they could be used to deliver poison gas or germ-warfare agents.

This Iraqi file did not reveal whether the helicopters and fighters were to be sent

directly from Russian factories or were to be assembled in Iraq. A firm called the

Russian Aviation Trading House was supposed to do the buying in Russia, and a

Lebanese company, Amsar Trading, was to handle the shipping of arms into Iraq

and of oil out. Livinvest, a Russian company, would obtain the needed ‘‘approvals’’ from the Russian government.

Whether this deal went through is likewise uncertain. The Iraqis claimed it did

not, and that they never paid Orshansky anything. Whether or not that is true, he

clearly remains in favor in Baghdad, and Ukrainian companies are still willing to

trade. Only this past April, according to a news report from Kiev, more than 100

Ukrainian companies, including makers of space and aviation gear, displayed their

wares at a Baghdad trade exhibition. The report quoted none other than ‘‘the honorary Iraqi consul in Kharkov,’’ Mr. Yuri Orshansky.

While Iraqi delegations were signing contracts in Ukraine, they were also signing

them in Romania, in some cases for similar equipment. The main place of interest

in Romania was Aerofina, a military firm that Iraqis had visited even before the

Gulf war. In February 1994, a group of missile experts returned to Aerofina to ask

for help with liquid-fueled missiles. This trip led to still further visits; in January

1995, experts from the Ibn Al Haytham and Al Karama missile sites signed a contract with Aerofina for 250 sets of missile-engine parts that Iraq could not produce

itself.

This was, of course, egregiously contrary to the UN embargo. Aerofina nevertheless agreed to provide the special valves, sealing rings, needles, and O-rings that

Iraq needed. Some of these parts arrived in Iraq around September 1995, intended

for a regulator, the part of a missile engine that maintains thrust.

As in Ukraine, the Iraqis were also looking for missile-guidance components. For

$1.16 million, Aerofina agreed in July 1995 to supply twenty sample gyroscopes;

also included were the tools and equipment needed to produce them, and the equipment needed to test them. Earlier in 1995, Romania’s Industrial Group of the Army

similarly agreed to help Iraq develop the propellant for a solid-fueled missile.

In addition to these contracts, the Iraqis managed to get other Romanian firms

to sign protocols for an even broader range of assistance. Thus, in March 1995, the

company GIA–RA agreed to provide 100 complete missile engines. Another firm,

27

3This was after the defection in 1994 of Khidhir Hamza, the regime’s top nuclear scientist;

see the review of his recent book, Saddam’s Bombmaker, by Daniel Pipes in the June Commentary.

Romtechnica, undertook to provide engine-testing facilities, while a third, Turbomechanica, agreed to sell injectors and turbopumps.

Iraqi missile experts were grilled about all of these contracts by the inspectors.

Once again the Iraqis would admit to getting only a small number of items—specifically, the parts for the engine regulators. All the other contracts, they claimed, had

been canceled for lack of funds. Although the inspectors opine that Iraq received far

more than it admits to, all they know for sure is that none of the contracted items

ever turned up at the sites they were monitoring.

But they do know one other thing for sure: a considerable number of Romanian

firms stood ready to violate the UN embargo. And it seems they still are. In February, a delegation of Romanian parliamentarians reportedly met with members of

the Iraqi secret service to negotiate arms deals. The trip was apparently authorized

by a Romanian party leader whose brother, a former Romtechnica employee, has

been linked to shady arms deals in the past.

Finally, the Iraqis also tried their luck in Russia. In June 1993, the Al Karama

State Establishment, in search of guidance components for Scud missiles, decided

to employ a Palestinian middleman named Wiham Garbiyah. That September,

Garbiyah shepherded an Iraqi delegation through Moscow on a successful hunt not

only for the Scud components but for guidance elements for a much more powerful

missile, the Soviet SS–N–18, which, after being launched from a nuclear submarine,

can hit targets more than 4,000 miles away. Garbiyah’s first package of missile

parts, which seem to have been mainly samples, arrived in Baghdad in December.

It contained Scud components plus at least some parts for the SS–N–18.

By April 1995, Garbiyah was back in Moscow searching for more. In Zagorsk, a

town near Moscow famous for its monastery and churches, he managed to buy 120

gyroscopes and accelerometers for long-range missiles. The seller was Niikhsm, a

missile-dismantlement plant. Another Russian company, Mars Rotor, obligingly tested the instruments before they left the country. On July 15, 1995, Garbiyah shipped

the components to Amman and on July 27 got them through to Baghdad.

It is unclear how many of these particular components the Iraqis wound up with.

After being tipped off by intelligence sources, the UN inspectors intercepted one of

Garbiyah’s subsequent shipments in Jordan. They also pulled a number of guidance

components from the Tigris river, where the Iraqis had thrown them to avoid detection. Again, the only thing we know for sure is that Russian firms were ready to

sell missile parts in clear violation of the embargo.

Can Saddam’s smuggling network be shut down? Only if it is possible to control

the cargoes coming into Iraq and the oil going out. Neither will be easy. In addition

to the determined leadership of the United States, what is required to control the

cargoes is the cooperation of four countries—namely, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania,

and Russia—where America’s writ does not exactly run strong. Belarus is trying to

re-integrate itself with Russia, while Russia itself is doing everything it can to help

Saddam. Ukraine is mired in political turmoil. The only comparative bright spot is

Romania, whose government took positive action in the 1990’s when confronted with

the Aerofina deals; there may also be some leverage in Romania’s dependence on

international loans. But in general the prospects are bleak.

Could controls work at Iraq’s borders? To change things there, Jordan and Syria

would have to start sending all the money they pay for oil to the UN, or withhold

it from Saddam in some other way that would dry up his smuggling accounts. They

would also have to start blocking his illicit imports, for which the oil shipments,

whether discounted or actually free, are acting as bribes. Why should they do that?

And what would replace the vast amount of money they would lose?

There may be answers to these questions, but behind all of them lurks the larger

question of the West’s political will. While pondering that imponderable commodity,

one should reflect upon a particularly chilling item turned up by the UN inspectors:

a 1996 directive, from Iraq’s powerful Military Industrial Commission, forbidding

any personnel associated with Iraq’s nuclear-weapon effort ‘‘to retire, move, transfer,

change housing, etc., without the permission of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.’’ 3 In other words, Saddam Hussein is working to keep his nuclear-weapon

teams intact.

Before the embargo began, these teams had the highest claim to Saddam’s resources. Now, as the embargo wanes, and the balances grow in his secret accounts,

they can once again buy what they need. Not only is Saddam Hussein back, he is

on the way to having nuclear weapons, and the missiles that will deliver them.

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29

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Mr. GILMAN. Did you wish to summarize your statement?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Yes.

Mr. GILMAN. Your full statement will be made a part of the

record.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just make a

few comments about the threat that I see from Iraq that still remains after inspections ended. And then I will make some comments about the Administration’s sanctions proposals.

First of all I think it is very important to remember what Saddam Hussein appears to have left. And I will just go down the programs one at a time. In biological weaponry, the experts that I

have spoken to (who seem to be the foremost ones), believe that

Saddam Hussein is now essentially self-sufficient; that Iraq has the

strains, the equipment, and the know-how necessary to make biological weapons; that Iraq is pretty much independent now of imports. We know that Iraq did not account for all the biological

agent that it made before the Gulf War, and we know that it produced anthrax. I think a reasonable assumption is that that capability still exists and is an active threat.

With respect to nuclear weapons, Iraq, we discovered during inspections, has a workable nuclear weapon design. The inspectors

looked at it carefully and judged that it will work. But we know

that Saddam Hussein made most, if not all, of the components of

the nuclear weapon and that the only thing lacking to have a successful bomb is the fissile material needed to fuel it. Which in the

case of Iraq’s design, the latest design I know of, is about 15 to 16

kilograms of highly enriched uranium. If Iraq could acquire that

somehow on the international black market, I think we would have

to assume that Iraq could make a bomb within weeks, or months

at the most.

Chemical weapons. Iraq retains, in the judgment of the inspectors, at least some stocks of chemical agents. The quantity is unknown. We do know that Iraqis knows how to make VX, which is

the most lethal nerve agent, and we know that Iraq is capable now

of producing more VX. We don’t know what Iraq might be doing

with respect to VX, because we don’t have any inspectors in the

country.

Missiles. Iraq under U.N. Resolutions is allowed to develop missiles that fly up to 150 kilometers. Unfortunately, the technologies

necessary to master a missile that flies up to 150 kilometers are

transferable. That same technology can be used to make missiles

that fly much farther than that. We know that Iraq appears to be

hiding some of the Scud-type missiles it had during the Gulf War,

and also appears to be hiding a substantial number of components

for those missiles.

All of this capability, and it is a massive capability, has been

built up through imports. Iraq has bought from abroad just about

everything it needed for its programs. And the important thing to

point out here is that the procurement activity did not stop with

the beginning of sanctions. It has continued through the 1990s.

I will just give you some examples of things that my organization

has discovered. In 1998, Iraq ordered some machines from Siemens

in Germany to pulverize kidney stones inside the body. These are

known as lithotripter machines. Unfortunately, in each machine is

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a high-precision electronic switch that is also used to detonate nuclear weapons. Iraq ordered 120 switches as spare parts. Siemens

says it supplied eight, one for each machine and two spares. The

State Department seems to think that Iraq got even more than

that, and the last time I talked to the U.N., they seemed to think

that there was a risk that the number was even higher.

The reason, I should say, that this export happened was because

medical equipment is an exception, or was at that time, to the embargo. So one of the risks we are facing in Iraq is that Iraq will

procure things under the guise of civilian equipment, humanitarian

equipment, medical equipment, oil equipment, that will in fact

have other purposes: arms or weapons of mass destruction.

In the Commentary Magazine article that I submitted, my colleague Kelly Motz and I managed to track Saddam’s efforts to buy

forbidden missile parts from Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Iraq

sent delegations to the Ukraine, to Belarus, Romania, and Russia.

In each country—this was during the embargo—they made contracts which would be illegal to perform in each of those countries,

and the inspectors know that some things were delivered. The

problem is that the inspectors found documents, but they didn’t

find much of the equipment that was described in the contracts. So

we are faced with the problem that we know Iraq contracted for

lots of missile components. We don’t know how many components

were actually delivered.

The inspectors reported that the shopping list included, ‘‘turnkey

facilities, know-how, and raw materials.’’ The Iraqis had a very aggressive shopping list.

Already today, we have heard mentioned the Chinese company

that is helping Iraq improve its air defenses with fiber optic technology. It is important to know that that company was built with

U.S. help. It imported a great amount of sensitive U.S. equipment

with licenses from the Commerce Department. When my organization wrote about this company, it had an import license pending

from Motorola. It is not true that the United States is totally innocent in these affairs. What we are seeing is that exports from the

United States, for example, to China, wind up biting us in Iraq.

I would like to make a few comments about smart sanctions, the

Administration’s proposal. I think from what I can gather from this

proposal and from the situation in Iraq, it seems to me unlikely

that it is going to make the situation better. Saddam Hussein is

using the suffering of the Iraqi people as a lever against the world.

His objective is to use the suffering to create momentum sufficient

to give him control over his own bank accounts. So just because we

are allowing Iraq to buy more civilian equipment doesn’t mean that

the Iraqi people will be helped.

This proposal, the smart sanctions proposal, does make it easier

for Saddam Hussein to import sensitive technology. Under the

smart sanctions approach, the U.N. will only be reviewing a small

fraction of the contracts that it is now reviewing. That means that

there is a significant risk that dual-use equipment or arms are

going to go into Iraq under the guise of civilian equipment.

And it is important to notice that we are not getting anything

in exchange for the relaxation in import controls on Iraq; that is

there is no quid pro quo coming from the Iraqi direction. Iraq has

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not agreed to disarm, to permit inspectors to come in, or to take

any other steps.

There is also the problem of oil smuggling. It is getting worse.

The amount of oil now being smuggled out without U.N. control is

growing. We estimate it is above $2 billion now, probably closer to

4. And we have to assume that all of that money can be looked at

as sort of an arms index. Iraq gets more for its oil by shipping it

legitimately through the Oil for Food program. To smuggle it out,

Iraq has to sell it for less. So why should Iraq do that? Why does

it want to get less money for its exports in order to launder the

money to get it free of U.N. control? Answer: Either to prop up the

regime or to buy arms.

So, we can tell how much—we can tell how fast the risk is growing by looking at the amount of oil that is being smuggled out.

I don’t know of any links directly between Iraq and the events

of September 11th. There have been some meetings reported in the

press, but there is no evidence that I am aware of that links Saddam Hussein to the attacks. I think overall, we have pretty much

lost the public relations battle on sanctions. So I recommend that

our government make a better effort to take our case to the public

and to the world. We have a good case; we are just not making it

very well.

Second, I think we have to do something to bring Russia back

into the fold. Russia is acting as Saddam Hussein’s lawyer in the

United Nations. If Russia wants to be part of the solution to the

terrorism threat, then Russia can start by helping us on Iraq,

which it is not doing at the present time.

And then finally, there has to be some kind of a solution for the

front-line states. They are now cooperating in oil smuggling. If we

want to keep Saddam’s bank accounts under international control,

that has to be stopped. We have to find a formula for bringing the

front-line states into line. I am afraid that so far, I don’t see one.

Thank you very much.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you Mr. Milhollin.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Milhollin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GARY MILHOLLIN, DIRECTOR, WISCONSIN PROJECT ON

NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL

I am pleased to appear before this distinguished subcommittee to discuss the situation in Iraq. I direct the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a research

project here in Washington that is devoted to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

I will begin by describing the threat from Iraq and some recent Iraqi procurement

attempts, and then I will comment on the ‘‘smart sanctions’’ proposal put forth by

the administration. I will conclude with a few words on the recent terrorist attacks

on America.

I would like to submit three items for the record. The first presents the findings

from a roundtable that my organization conducted in May 2001. The five panelists

were experts chosen on the basis of their experience in Iraq and the Middle East.

The second item is a recent article authored by myself and Kelly Motz in Commentary Magazine (accompanied by a news story in the New York Times) which revealed that Iraq continued to buy prohibited military items throughout the 1990s,

despite U.N. sanctions. The third is a table my organization prepared after the inspectors left Iraq in 1998, which lists what remains unaccounted for in Iraq’s mass

destruction weapon programs. This list is still relevant to the issues we face today.

These documents can also be found electronically on our Iraq Watch web site:

http://www.iraqwatch.org. This comprehensive web site monitors Iraq’s progress in

building weapons of mass destruction and has as its goals increasing public awareVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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ness of the strategic situation in Iraq and making detailed knowledge of Iraq’s weapon status available to policy-makers, the media, private scholars and the general public.

WHAT HAS IRAQ BEEN DOING RECENTLY?

Since the cease fire agreement that terminated the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq has

waged an unceasing political struggle with the United States and its allies, the object of which has been to undo the strategic results that the Gulf War produced.

Iraq sees its programs for developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, together with long-range missiles, as essential to the achievement of this goal.

The main restraint on Iraqi arms has been the international trade embargo. It,

however, is now eroding—with increasing speed—because key countries no longer

support it. The decline of the embargo has removed virtually all incentive for Iraq

to disarm or to re-admit U.N. inspectors, who were forced out in December 1998.

These developments, coupled with the present rise in Iraq’s oil income, will produce

a steady increase in Iraq’s military might, with weapons of mass destruction as part

of the mix.

Such a military resurgence in Iraq is certain to destabilize the Middle East. It

will also complicate the peace process. If Iraq continues an all-out drive for mass

destruction weapons, Iran must try to match the effort. Egypt and Saudi Arabia will

also be watching. A growing nuclear, chemical, and biological arms race between

Iraq, Iran and possibly other countries in the region will, in turn, make it difficult

for Israel to feel secure enough to make the concessions that would have to accompany peace in the Middle East. The price of not making things better in Iraq could

be to make them worse in the region.

Iraq’s procurement network is a vital component of its weapon effort. This network, which years of U.N. inspections have failed to eradicate, has remained active

despite the embargo. It can be expected to put Iraq’s recently-enhanced oil revenues

immediately to work.

IRAQ’S MASS DESTRUCTION WEAPON THREAT

Iraq’s biological capability now presents the greatest threat. Iraq has become selfsufficient in biological weaponry; it possesses the strains, growth media and infrastructure necessary to build a biological arsenal. Iraq also retains stocks of chemical

agent from the period of the Gulf War and is known to have all the elements of

a workable nuclear weapon except the fissile material needed to fuel it. Iraq’s authorized program for developing short-range missiles will also enable the building

of longer-range missiles, and Iraq is showing an interest in cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, apparently to deliver chemical or biological payloads.

When the U.N. inspectors left Iraq in December 1998, they were convinced that

Iraq had not revealed the full extent of its weapon programs, and still retained important capabilities. Iraq now seems to have everything it needs, for example, to

produce biological weapons. Iraq already possesses the necessary biological strains,

some of which are endemic, so there is no need to rely on imports. It also has equipment for producing microorganisms. The total amount of germ agent Iraq produced

(anthrax, botulinum, gas gangrene, aflatoxin) was never revealed to the inspectors,

who know only that Iraq’s production capacity far exceeded what it admitted producing. Iraq has simply alleged that its production facilities were not run at full capacity, a claim contradicted by its all-out drive to mass-produce germ warfare

agents. Inspectors believe that Iraq retains at least 157 aerial bombs and 25 missile

warheads filled with germ agents, retains spraying equipment to deliver germ

agents by helicopter, and possessed enough growth media to generate three or four

times the amount of anthrax it admits producing. Iraq either claims that these

items were destroyed unilaterally, claims they were used for civilian purposes or

simply refuses to explain what happened to them. Nor can inspectors account for

the results of a known project to deliver germ agents by drop tanks or account for

much of the equipment Iraq used to produce germ agents. Finally, Iraq contends

that many essential records of its biological weapon program, such as log books of

materials purchased, lists of imported ingredients, and lists of stored ingredients,

simply ‘‘cannot be found.’’

There are signs Iraq may be back in the business of developing biological weapons, if indeed it ever left that business. In March 2001, Iraq created considerable

suspicion by asking the United Nations for permission to ‘‘renovat[e] the laboratories for the production of foot-and-mouth vaccine’’ using oil-for-food monies. The

laboratories in question were at the Daura site, which Iraq had admitted converting

in 1990 to its secret biological weapon program. Daura conducted research on hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, human rota virus, and camelpox, as well as enterovirus 70.

34

Iraq also produced thousands of liters of botulinum toxin and admitted to having

undertaken genetic engineering research and development there.

Nuclear weapons also remain a clear and present danger in Iraq. Baghdad presently possesses a workable nuclear weapon design and all of the necessary components to build it except the fissile material needed for fuel. It is also known that

Iraq has decided to keep its nuclear weapon teams intact. With sanctions against

Iraq declining, foreign travel to Iraq increasing, and interactions becoming more

common with Russians trying to recover billions of dollars in pre-Gulf War debts,

the odds are going up that Iraq may get what it needs. If Iraq could import the necessary fissile material, it could fashion a bomb in weeks or months.

Iraq’s chemical weapon program is also a danger, despite the fact that U.N. inspectors managed to destroy large amounts of it. Iraq appears to retain small stocks

of chemical agents, which could include the highly destructive nerve agent VX. Iraq

would, however, have to restart its production plants before turning out strategically

significant quantities of chemical munitions.

There is at least some evidence that it may be doing so. In an August 2000 report

to Congress, the CIA said Iraq is continuing to rebuild former dual-use chemical

weapon plants and missile production facilities, as well as installing or repairing

necessary dual-use equipment. In January 2001, Iraq was reported to have rebuilt

two factories in the Falluja complex, which produced chemical and biological agents

before the Gulf War, and to have resumed the production of chlorine at a third factory. Iraq claimed one of the factories was making castor oil used in brake fluid,

but castor beans also contain ricin, a biological agent. The other factory is believed

to be producing pesticides and herbicides. Then in April, August Hanning, the director of German intelligence (BND), was reported by the press as saying that Iraq was

developing new chemical weapons and that ‘‘German companies apparently delivered important components for the production of poison gas to Iraq’s Samarra

plant.’’ Iraq denied these allegations.

U.N. resolutions presently limit Iraq to developing missiles with a range of not

more than 150 kilometers. A missile beyond that range would be hard to develop

without flight tests, which would probably be discovered. The technologies Iraq has

chosen for its short-range missiles, however, are clearly intended to permit followon systems with longer ranges. Thus, Iraq’s 150 kilometer Al Samoud missile, which

is now under development, is little more than a reduced-range SCUD missile, which

has a range of 300 kilometers. Iraq has already shown the ability to modify SCUDs

to fly more than double their original range, and Iraq still appears to retain a few

SCUD-type missiles at a secret location. In addition, the inspectors cannot account

for up to 150 tons of missile production materials, or for Iraq’s stockpile of liquid

rocket fuel. There is also the problem that the 150 kilometer limit is not self-defining. Iraq could test a longer-range missile by burning only a portion of its fuel, so

that it would travel only 150 kilometers, or Iraq could test a longer-range missile

with a warhead heavier than the one intended for use, which would cause the test

missile to fly a shorter distance than the real one would.

There are also signs that Iraq may be working on other means to deliver biological or chemical weapons. In the same August 2000 report to Congress, the CIA

warned that Iraq is still developing an unmanned aerial vehicle, converted from an

Eastern European L–29 trainer jet, which the CIA believes is intended to deliver

chemical or biological agents. This effort is taking place at the Al-Faris Factory, located in Al-Amiriyah, Baghdad, the same site where Iraq built drop tanks to deliver

biological agents before the Gulf war. Iraq actually deployed L–29s to an air base

in November 1997 when threatened with attack by the United States.

Iraq also took over several Russian-built crop-dusting helicopters from the U.N.

Food and Agricultural Organization in May 2001. While only about half of the original six helicopters are still airworthy, the remaining three could possibly be used

to disseminate biological or chemical agents. Before the Gulf War, Iraq’s Technical

Research Center at Al Salman developed an aerosol generator for the dispersal of

biological agents by modifying helicopter-borne disseminators for chemical insecticides.

IRAQ’S SUPPLIERS

Iraq has built these capabilities almost entirely with imports. Before the Gulf

War, Western companies sold Iraq turbopumps and rocket nozzles for extendedrange Scud missiles, sold special furnaces and presses capable of shaping nuclear

weapon components, and built turn-key plants for manufacturing poison gas agents.

Without this help, Iraq’s weapon programs could not have achieved anything near

the success they enjoyed when the Gulf War began.

35

These procurement efforts continued during the 1990s, despite the prohibitions of

the U.N. embargo. In 1999, our organization revealed that Iraq had imported a half

dozen machines called ‘‘lithotripters’’ (which pulverize kidney stones inside the body

without surgery) under the guise of humanitarian supplies. Each machine, however,

required a high-precision electronic switch that had a second use: it could trigger

an atomic bomb. Iraq wanted to buy 120 extra switches as ‘‘spare parts.’’ Iraq placed

the order with the German electronics firm Siemens, which supplied the machines

but forwarded the order for the extra switches to its supplier, Thomson-C.S.F., a

French military-electronics company. It is uncertain whether the French government barred the sale. Stephen Cooney, a Siemens spokesman, claimed that Siemens

shipped only eight switches, one in each machine and two spares. Sources at the

United Nations and the State Department, however, believe that the number supplied is higher. It only takes one switch to detonate Iraq’s latest bomb design.

In March 2001, our organization disclosed that the Chinese company Huawei

Technologies, recently caught supplying fiber optic technology to Iraq’s air defenses,

had previously imported a large amount of sensitive U.S. equipment, and had an

important license application pending to import more from Motorola. In fact, Motorola proposed to sell routing and switching technology that would have been ideal

for improving an air defense network. The technology allows communications to be

shuttled quickly across multiple transmission lines, increasing efficiency and immunizing the network from air attack.

Iraq also shopped for military items throughout the 1990s, despite U.N. sanctions.

In the article in Commentary, Ms. Motz and I showed that Iraq’s procurement efforts were focused mainly in former eastern bloc countries. We based the article on

a series of U.N. reports in which the U.N. inspectors detailed what they knew about

Iraq’s foreign suppliers. The reports revealed that in violation of the U.N. embargo,

Iraq had continued to ‘‘import goods . . . from at least . . . twenty different countries’’ and that Iraq’s shopping list included ‘‘turnkey facilities, full-sized production

lines, industrial know-how, high-tech spare parts, and raw materials.’’

Iraq made agreements to buy missile and conventional weapon components from

companies in Ukraine, Belarus, Romania and Russia. The deals also included hightech machine tools useful in building both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Jordanian middlemen played a key role in most of the sales.

‘‘SMART SANCTIONS’’

The ‘‘smart sanctions’’ proposed by the administration are not likely to improve

the situation in Iraq and could make it worse. The U.S. proposal would retain U.N.

control over Iraq’s oil income, would bar Iraq from purchasing arms, and would bar

Iraq from purchasing sensitive dual-use items; however, it would allow Iraq to buy

almost everything else. The U.N. would stop controlling most of the goods that Iraq

now buys with its oil-for-food revenue.

The U.S. proposal is unlikely to help the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein has deliberately chosen to maintain the suffering of the Iraqi population by refusing to buy

civilian goods with his existing oil-for-food revenue. He has used the suffering, in

turn, to build pressure for ending U.N. control over his oil revenue. In fact, none

of the major players on Iraq’s side in the present debate—Russia, China or France—

appear to be motivated by concern about the Iraqi population and neither does Saddam Hussein. Ordinary Iraqis are only pawns in the struggle for control of Iraq’s

bank accounts.

Under the administration’s plan, Iraq could find it easier to buy what it needs

to rebuild its conventional forces and even mass destruction weapons. Militarily useful items will probably be sent to Iraq under the guise of civilian purchases. In effect, the U.S. plan is a unilateral concession. It relaxes controls on what Iraq can

buy, but asks nothing in return. It does not require Iraq to re-admit U.N. inspectors

or to take any steps toward disarmament. Its main virtue seems to be that it will

diminish complaints from Russia and France that the United States is holding up

too many contracts. Simply diminishing these complaints is not an effective policy.

Moreover, there is no reason to believe that Iraq will cooperate with the new sanctions any more than with the previous ones. Thus, the new sanctions may be a slippery slope, with further reductions of sanctions to follow. The illusion of controls

would be preserved while sanctions continue to erode.

There is also the problem of smuggling: oil is being smuggled out of Iraq; goods

are being smuggled in. In recent years, Iraq’s methods for smuggling oil have grown

more sophisticated and the financing harder to trace or block. The smuggling of

goods has also grown, and become more sophisticated. It now consists of a multilayered infrastructure that reaches back through the highest levels in Jordan, Syria,

Turkey and even Iran. Overall, Saddam’s oil revenue has now reached the levels he

36

enjoyed before the Gulf War. This increased stream of petrodollars has created a

political momentum in Iraq’s favor that will be difficult to stop.

There is a reason, for example, why Jordan has not been policing its borders or

tracking what goes through its free-trade zones. If machine tools stopped coming out

of Jordan, discounted oil would stop coming in. Jordanian middlemen, officials, and

others who live off the discount would be hit hard. In addition to $750 million in

unregulated oil, Iraq directs oil-for-food contracts through Jordan. The money gives

Baghdad enormous leverage.

A similar situation is developing in Syria. Last November, oil began to flow

through a newly repaired Iraq/Syria pipeline, all outside U.N. control, at a value

estimated at $1 billion a year. Although Secretary of State Colin Powell announced

in February a Syrian pledge to bring this revenue under U.N. jurisdiction, Syria has

taken no discernible action. As billions of dollars in unregulated cash flow through

Damascus, smuggling can be expected to explode. And Lebanon, which this past

April was offered a deal similar to Jordan’s, appears to be next. Because Iraq could

sell its oil at a much higher price by operating through the United Nations, Iraq

is obviously expecting something from the slush funds it has created around its borders.

It is not evident how the administration’s new sanctions proposal could change

this equation. The proposal does try to help Iraq’s neighbors pay for more border

guards, but it seems to lack any mechanism for replacing the secret profits now

flowing from billions in illicit oil sales. There is real doubt whether some of Iraq’s

neighbors have the internal coherence to counteract such a large stream of money

to their elites—a weakness that Iraq is now exploiting. Moreover, by removing a

greater quantity of goods from U.N. review, the proposal may actually increase the

opportunities for smuggling in dangerous technology.

Iraq has essentially won the public relations battle over sanctions. The general

public no longer realizes that if Saddam Hussein truly decided to disarm, he could

clear Iraq’s name in a matter of months, end the embargo, and remove any restraint

on the flow of goods to the Iraqi population. He has been rejecting this opportunity,

however, for a full decade. Saddam Hussein obviously believes that his ability to

produce mass destruction weapons is more important than the billions of dollars in

oil income that his country has foregone annually.

In light of this public relations victory, there is no reason for Iraq to see its intransigence as bringing anything but gain. It has achieved much of what it sought—

including an easing and possibly a near lifting of sanctions—without conceding anything. By promising and actually providing financial advantages to key countries,

Iraq has assembled a number of supporters in both the United Nations and the Gulf

region. Therefore, Iraq has little or no incentive to now disarm or cooperate with

U.N. inspectors. Iraq is instead buying its way out of the ‘‘box’’ in which the United

States says it has been confined.

As a result, Iraq’s procurement network, already back in operation, can be expected to fuel new mass destruction weapon efforts at secret sites, just as it did before the Gulf War. These weapon programs are seen by Iraq as essential to its aims

of winning the war of attrition against the United States and dominating the Middle

East region. These programs will not be abandoned unless Iraq’s strategic goals

were to change.

LINKS TO TERRORISM

The September 11 attacks on the United States have forever altered the way U.S.

officials look at terrorism and the countries that support it. A new sense of urgency

can be expected to affect America’s position on every issue touching Iraq, including

the debate over sanctions, Iraq’s disarmament obligations, and the enforcement of

the no-fly zones.

The United States officially considers Iraq to be a country that supports international terrorism. According to press reports, some U.S. officials have pushed for

an immediate attack on terrorist sites in Iraq. Others have been more cautious. Vice

President Richard B. Cheney said on September 16 that the administration did not

yet have evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks. Secretary of State Colin

Powell has argued that time is needed to prepare the diplomatic groundwork for

military action, which should take place at first only in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, reports in the media have pointed to possible ties between Iraq and

Osama bin Laden. On September 19, an American press report cited U.S. intelligence officials as saying that an Iraqi intelligence official had met secretly one year

ago with Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers on the first flight to hit the World

Trade Center. A second press report cited U.S. intelligence officials as saying that

Osama bin Laden had been in contact with Iraqi government agents in the days just

37

prior to the attacks. More recently, the press cited a U.S. official as saying that Farouk Hijazi, an Iraqi intelligence officer who is currently the Iraqi ambassador to

Turkey, met with bin Laden in Afghanistan in December 1998. These reports,

standing alone, do not constitute evidence of Iraqi state sponsorship of the terrorists

who struck America. They do show, however, that possible links to Iraq are being

actively investigated.

Mr. GILMAN. I want to thank our panelists for their excellent testimony. We will now call on Mr. Ackerman for questioning.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Do I understand that

the three of you would answer yes to the question should we take

out Saddam Hussein? Mr. Kemp?

Mr. KEMP. My view is the regime has to be changed. The question is how do we do it, when do we do it, and who do we do it

with? Those are the operational questions that I think—I don’t

think there is any doubt that the longer this regime stays, the

more dangers we are going to have.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Are you suggesting that there is other than a

military option to take out the regime, a public relations effort?

Mr. KEMP. I think you need a multifaceted strategy. And dependent upon what the linkage is between Saddam Hussein and what

happened on September the 11th, clearly if it were a direct link we

would have no option but to consider military force. But in the absence of that, the most important thing we have to do is to pull together an alliance that will take seriously the long-term threat

posed by Saddam Hussein.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Let me zip to the end game of this. It would

seem to me you are indicating putting together a strategy not to

get a democratic or republican convention that screams it is time

for him to go or something and puts up a different candidate, but

you want an international coalition built on whatever kind of evidence that people understand to know that he is a bad guy. And

when they do that, we have won the public relations battle, and

then the military to take him out. Or is there some other way?

Let’s say 99 percent of the world agrees with us, it is time for

him to go, how do you do this? Does it have to be military, or is

there some other notion that anybody has?

Mr. KEMP. I am sure there are intelligence options that have not

worked in the past. I don’t think we have taken them as seriously

as we should. Therefore I would not say military options are not

the only ones.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I am hard-pressed to think of another. If anybody could suggest one—in your answer, Mr. Duelfer.

Mr. DUELFER. I think what Mr. Kemp is suggesting, you can conduct covert activities, but who knows how successful they will be?

Mr. ACKERMAN. What does the covert activity do?

Mr. DUELFER. Presumably you attempt to build an opposition

within Iraq. But as we have seen in the past, that is a highly suspect endeavor. If you want——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Does anybody—part of the same question. Does

anybody seriously think that you are going to go back to the

premise that you are going to get the people of Iraq to oust Saddam

Hussein in his lifetime? Or in the end, is it a military option?

When you say intelligence, when you say covert, when you say

all those things, somebody is going to hit the guy? Is that what we

are saying? Or are we thinking, is anybody seriously thinking we

38

are going to bring enough democracy while Saddam Hussein is

there to get them to—when is the election, by the way? I didn’t notice what the date was.

Mr. DUELFER. He won the last one with 99 percent of the vote.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Fine. So we only have to convince another 49

percent, another 50 percent and we got him. Is there a way other

than the military option in the end? It could be some kind of covert, could be a military of one?

Mr. KEMP. I would argue yes, if you take it seriously and do not

expect instant results. In other words, it is going to take a new culture of creating covert operations once more. And it is going to take

a long time, and it is probably going to take a lot of money.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Mr. Ackerman, I would say that there may be

a lesson to be learned from what we are doing now with respect

to Osama bin Laden. I think we can all see that in order even to

conduct a military operation against Osama bin Laden, a lot of diplomatic preparation is necessary. And so I would think that if you

are going to conduct such an operation against Saddam Hussein,

that you are going to have to go through a similar process of preparation. I am not sure that we can do both at once, but that—I don’t

mean to say that I would be opposed to do that in Iraq; it is just

that I think that is how you would have to do it. You would have

to do the kind of steps that we are doing now with respect to

Osama bin Laden.

Mr. ACKERMAN. So what you are saying, then, Mr. Milhollin, is

that if we build an international coalition of some sort, engage and

win over public opinion internationally to a large extent, then use

the military option once the world is on our side.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. I think that is how you would have to do it. Otherwise it would be the—the costs would be very great just doing

it and doing it unilaterally.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Do you see us in any way during the lifetime of

Saddam’s regime being able to convince the Iraqi people to rise up

and overthrow him?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. I am not an expert on domestic Iraqi politics but

I think any observer can see he has a regime of terror. And it is

very effective. And we know that other regimes of terror in the

world have lasted a long time. So I am quite pessimistic that we

are going to get some kind of an internal revolt that would be successful.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I will yield back my time for another round.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. Mr. Cantor.

Mr. CANTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And if I could just pose

the question about this reign of terror and how Saddam has sustained himself in power all these years, given the trends in the

other countries in the region, and if you will, their fragility, how

is it he has been able to sustain himself so well, if you will, and

what is the state of any opposition within Iraq? And, again, if you

could comment toward the terror side and the sponsorship of any

groups that are conducting themselves in the Middle East.

Mr. KEMP. Well, I would argue, Mr. Cantor, that his first, second, and third priority is to stay in power. Everything he does derives from that. The way he does it is quite simple. He has enough

hard currency from the illegal sale of oil to pay off all the security

39

details he needs, and he is utterly, utterly ruthless about his own

protection. And it is virtually impossible to break into that security

system unless there is some collapse from within.

Now, with regard to his support for terrorist groups, undoubtedly

Saddam has extremely close ties with many of the terrorist groups

throughout the Middle East. But my sense is he is fairly cautious

about having his fingerprints identified with their actions. And

that is why I am dubious that we will ever find any direct compelling link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden and September

the 11th. But I would stand corrected if that evidence comes forward, but it hasn’t been demonstrated so far.

This is a man who knows how to survive. And what we have to

do is to understand that as long as he has access to hard currency,

his ability to purchase all the wherewithal to remain in power and

expand his weapons inventory is going to grow. Therefore, the

problem is going to get worse, not better.

The dilemma we are all struggling with is how do you end this,

absent the sort of coalition we had in 1990 and 1991? Could you

replicate the coalition that we have put together now for Afghanistan? I have great doubts about that at this point in time. But

there is an argument that goes as follows: If we succeed in getting

rid of bin Laden and the Taliban regime, we would have put the

world on notice that we are serious. We may be able to hold together key members of this new alliance, including the Russians,

to then focus on other terrorist problems in the Middle East. But

we should have no illusions that alliance partners are going to go

along completely with our agendas, because they have their own

agendas. The Russians have Chechnya, the Chinese have other

problems, the Europeans have their own list of problems. So it is

going to be a long, difficult operation, but I don’t think it is impossible.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Cantor. Mr. Berman.

Mr. BERMAN. There are a lot of issues to explore. Maybe I will

go from the narrow to the broader. I am fascinated by this notion

that in this period of sanctions, post 1991, the kind of technologies

that have hemorrhaged to Iraq at a time when Russia and all the

other countries with which we have major differences for instance,

or export strategies in the context of Iran, are committed to at least

a certain level of control. Let me just take two examples to understand this. Mr. Chairman is it down to 30 seconds?

Mr. GILMAN. We are resetting the timer. Please proceed.

Mr. BERMAN. First, let’s take this Siemens export. First, what

are the electronic switches for in the context of WMD programs?

The electronic switches you talked about; what are they for?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. They provide a very strong, accurate pulse of

electricity that is necessary to detonate the high explosives that

cause implosion.

Mr. BERMAN. So this is for the nuclear program.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. This is for a nuclear weapon. It is hard to do a

nuclear weapon without one of these. And the ones in the machine

are particularly good for nuclear weapons.

Mr. BERMAN. Now, when a company like Siemens—this isn’t your

fly-by-night little importer-exporter—gets a request from an Iraqi

end user, not for eight kidney stone smashers but for eight elecVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
40

tronic switches—suppose I had to replace switches in a kidney

stone smasher, in a country where the medical conditions are such

that my guess is that kidney stone smashing is not the major priority of an Iraqi government or the Iraqi people at this particular

moment. They have got enough pain beyond the kidney stones.

What happens in the corporate mentality of Siemens or in the export control regime of Germany, that says we are going to let this

go? And that is one issue I guess I would like answered.

The second one is on the fiber optics. I remember the Iraqi air

defense system; I remember the French helping the Iraqis build it.

I remember the Desert Storm coalition knocking it out. You are

telling me they are now replacing their air defense system using

fiber optics. Explain a little more clearly what you mean. What

came from China, what did China get from the United States? So

if you could just address both of those issues.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. I will take the first one first. In the case of Siemens, there is an exception in the U.N. Resolution for medical

equipment.

Mr. BERMAN. I understand that.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. For Siemens to sell the machine, a lithotripter

with the switch in it that would be highly useful to detonate a

weapon, Siemens would have to make a corporate judgment that

the risk is worth taking. I don’t think that is a good judgment.

Then Siemens would have to get an export license from the German government, which then it would have to make the decision

that that is a risk worth taking.

Mr. BERMAN. You are telling me Siemens didn’t even sell the machine with electronic switch?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. They sold the machine with the switches. They

sold six machines with switches, plus two spares. So they sold eight

switches, according to Siemens. That is what Siemens told me.

Whether the additional switches were sold is another question. And

frankly, I think it is a little unclear how many they actually got,

but I think it is pretty clear that Siemens was ready to sell however many the export control people in the German government

would approve.

Mr. BERMAN. Is this a case where Siemens is putting its head in

the sand, knowing there is no practical way in the world that,

given the priorities of Iraq these days, they would want six of these

kidney stone smashing machines, has every reason to believe that

it is the highly valued electronic switches that they want—and say,

ah, but a deal is a deal; we can make some money and we are

going to do it.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. It is hard for me to put myself in the position

of Siemens. But I can say I have been tracking exports and imports, as you know, for a long time. And Siemens is a company that

keeps coming up. For example, Libya has two poison gas plants. In

those poison gas plants there is a process control computer. In both

plants, the process control computer was made by Siemens. I don’t

have my Siemens book with me today, but Siemens is a name that

is quite familiar to me. So I think it is just—Siemens has to stand

before the tribunal of world opinion and decide what to say. I am

not going to make Siemens’ argument.

41

Mr. BERMAN. All right. It is easier to bash them than to bash us.

Go to the fiber optic transfer and tell me.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. In the case of the fiber optics, the company that

provided it, Huawei Technologies, was a very small company until

U.S. companies started doing joint ventures with it and started exporting it sensitive U.S. equipment. And since then it has become

a giant.

Mr. BERMAN. And is this sensitive U.S. equipment on the commodity control list?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Yes, licensed by the Commerce Department.

Mr. BERMAN. So this was approved? Licensed?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Approved. Licensed by the Commerce Department to Huawei.

Mr. BERMAN. Is there any effort in that to control end use and

prohibit retransfers of items manufactured? Or in the area of fiber

optics, do we not care what the companies——

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Some of the exports were of instruments and

computers, not just fiber optics. And the Chinese have not been

very cooperative in allowing us to verify what they do with things

we sell them. So my guess is there is little or no control on what

Huawei does with what we sell Huawei.

Mr. BERMAN. This is interesting and my time is up.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Berman.

I have a few questions that I would like to address to the panel.

First of all, can you tell me what is the state of the economy today

in Iraq? Good? Bad? Growing? Declining? I address that to all the

panelists.

Mr. DUELFER. Perhaps I can address that from personal observation. When I was last there, it was 1998, it was not good, of course.

The average Iraqi was selling his possessions on the street. You

would take a cab and find out it was a university professor driving

it. Perhaps the best measure is before the Gulf War, an Iraqi dinar

was worth $3.50. These days an Iraqi dinar—excuse me, a dollar

will get you 2,000 Iraqi dinars. So we would spend, we used wads

of dinars. You get a wad about an inch thick, and that was the

unit. If you had your personal savings in Iraq, like most of the citizens do, it went effectively to zero.

In the last couple of years, under the Oil for Food program, and

with the illegal oil sales supplementing the incomes of the elite,

from visitors who have been there I understand there are a lot

more new cars around. But again, you have to be connected to the

regime. You can buy anything you want in Baghdad for a price.

You can buy these jet skis to go run up and down the Tigris River

if you have the cash. But you have got to be a loyal member of the

regime to get the cash.

Mr. KEMP. I would put it this way, Mr. Chairman: Iraq is clearly

better off than it was several years ago because oil prices have

risen and Iraq has been exporting more oil. Iraq’s potential for

being a strong economic player is enormous. Iraq’s oil reserves are

second only to Saudi Arabia. Over time, if Iraq were to get out from

under sanctions, and were to start importing all the necessary

equipment to refurbish its oil production capability, it could be up

to 4 million barrels a day, and then return to the growth levels

that it had before Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980. At that

42

time, Iraq was on the verge of an economic takeoff. In those days

Iran had a strong middle class. We are dealing here with a country

that has huge potential, and that is why this enormous potential

in the hands of Saddam Hussein is so potentially dangerous.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you. Mr. Milhollin, a comment?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. No, I have no comments.

Mr. GILMAN. What is the relationship now between Iran and

Iraq? Any comments? Mr. Kemp?

Mr. KEMP. They still have not resolved many issues after the war

ended in 1988, including POWs and MIAs. The Iraqis permit an organization, Mujahedin-e Khalq to operate out of Iraq against Iran.

Iran regards the Mujahedin as terrorists. Iran in turn has made

military forays into Iraq to attack the Mujahedin. Today relations

are not good but they have been getting better.

I think the most serious long-term problem we face is that the

Iranians themselves are clearly thinking, talking, and acting as

though they will go nuclear at some point in the future. And the

security issue that is most important for them is Iraq. So if we do

not resolve the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we

can be guaranteed that Iran will either follow suit or is already following suit.

Mr. GILMAN. Any other panelists wish to comment?

Mr. DUELFER. Just briefly. I mean, the relations are bad. When

something would blow up in Baghdad, and if it wasn’t the United

States, it was probably Iran that was in back of that.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Milhollin.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. I would like to add to what Mr. Kemp has said.

Right now I think we have to consider that Iran and Iraq are in

an undeclared nuclear arms race. If you look at Iran, it has Pakistan on one side, which has nuclear arms; Iraq on the other, which

is trying to get nuclear arms. And so the Iranians are under a lot

of pressure to develop nuclear arms.

And if they do, then I think if Iran and Iraq manage to develop

nuclear weapons, then you are going to have to start worrying

about Egypt and Turkey and Saudi Arabia. So nothing is more important than keeping those two countries from getting the bomb.

Mr. GILMAN. Are either one—well, let’s concentrate on Iraq. Is

Iraq trading and exporting terrorism? Any comment by any of our

panelists? Do you have any knowledge of that? Mr. Kemp?

Mr. KEMP. Oh, undoubtedly they are up to no good. I cannot give

the nuts and bolts, but Iraq has a sophisticated intelligence service,

and clearly they talk to other groups around the world who hate

the United States. Exactly how involved they have been in various

terrorist incidents is a matter of debate amongst analysts in this

town. I do not have any conclusive evidence of their involvement

in the recent terrorist attacks against the United States, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past them. I think it is an issue that you

should explore with the intelligence services, because if there is a

link, then we have to regard the Iraqi threat even more seriously

than we have done so far.

Mr. GILMAN. Any of the other panelists? Mr. Milhollin.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. No comment on that.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Duelfer?

43

Mr. DUELFER. Well, I have to limit a bit what I say because a

lot of what I learned was under U.N. auspices, and we had one

function and that was weapons of mass destruction. So when we

would stumble across the other activities of the Iraqi government,

no matter what they were, that was not part of our mandate.

Having said that, we stumbled across a lot in our wanderings

about Iraq, and my view is that there is certainly a lot of support

to terrorist groups, and I would believe a lot of what I have seen

about the types of groups based there and the types of training

that have been going on.

But I think I would have to second what Jeff Kemp has said

about the relationship with this particular act of September 11th.

I frankly would be somewhat surprised if there was a command relationship between Baghdad and that event. Equally, though, I

would be surprised, very surprised, if there were not a relationship

between Iraqi intelligence services and the al Qaeda networks in

some fashion, either through financial, perhaps, expertise and trading information.

Mr. GILMAN. My time has run. Mr. Ackerman.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. I think all three of you

have said in one way or another what Mr. Kemp said directly, and

that is that we have lost the sanctions case and that we have to

take our case to the world.

Moving on from that, trying to figure out how you do that, and

if you can do that, the issue of the nuclear arms race that, Mr.

Duelfer, you just referred to in your former capacity as the Deputy

Executive Chairman of the U.N. Special Commission, UNSCOM,

and then I guess its Acting Director until its abolition. Some of our

friends in the international community, presumably those to whom

we would take our case, being an important part of the world, are

our friends on the Security Council. They have called you and your

associates all kinds of names—I guess being a spy was among the

most kind—for your determined insistence to be able to inspect according to the international mandate the places at which they were

either storing or producing materiel or, indeed, weapons of mass

destruction. They have taken some pretty heavy hits at you, and

I just want to give you your shot.

But having made that available here, I also want you and the

others to address how in the world do we take our case when we

have—where we have China and France and Russia, you know,

permanent members of the Security Council, at least in one case

certainly a leading democracy, certainly in all three cases countries

willing to sell their soul for a prospective market to be able to do

business with Iraq. How do we even think we are going to be able

to take our case to the world court if we need to build this coalition, going back to what we have to do before we change the regime, which everybody says we have to do one way or another?

That is a long, run-on sentence—question. Take the reins and

run with it.

Mr. DUELFER. Let me see if I can find an optimistic note in recent events. I think that September 11th refocused the attention in

a lot of capitals, because I think they quickly realized that the

threat was not just to the United States, but it was to the world

44

economy, it was to the world system in which they all had enormous stakes.

With respect to the U.N. Security Council and the particular case

of Iraq, I mean, I am with you. A lot of these, our so-called friends

and allies, they were getting a free ride with Iraq. They could make

deals, they could criticize the United States, they could criticize

UNSCOM, they could behave irresponsibly, because they knew at

end of the day if Iraq did something nutty again, the United States

would save the day; that the United States forces were there, that

they would contain Saddam and his regime, and so they could have

a free rein.

I think the United States should have gone much further in

terms of holding their feet to the fire. These countries which are

happily making oil contracts with the same people who happily

used gas against their own population, as some of you have pointed

to, they should not be allowed to forget that.

They should not be allowed to effectively convey legitimacy on

this regime through their dealing with it. It was much easier, it

turned out, for the Security Council to modify UNSCOM than it

was to modify Iraq. And let me just interject a thought here. A lot

of people are talking about let’s get Iraq to accept weapons inspectors again. Well, I daresay be careful about what type of weapons

inspectors might be accepted into Iraq, because they may not be serious under the conditions that Iraq might potentially accept them.

But I agree with the thrust of your question. The council, I believe, was behaving irresponsibly. They were taking a very shortterm view. But I think under current circumstances, with leadership, the international community can perhaps refocus. But if not,

we have got to be able to go on our own. We cannot allow ourselves

to be tied up during a visit to Lilliput by some of these people if

they are not going to agree.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Milhollin.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. I think it is true that both the French and the

Russians are motivated primarily by money. That is, the rhetoric

they put out, is that they are concerned for the Iraqi population.

I don’t think that is true. It is just a matter of money. In my experience, the way to counteract people who are motivated by money

is to shame them out of their position.

Now, we haven’t been successful in that. I would say that if we

want to succeed, we are going to have to put leading officials,

meaning the Secretary of State, the President, the Vice President,

out in public; and they are going to have to lay out the case against

Iraq. They are going to have to shame countries like Russia and

France from the positions they are taking. And I have not seen it

happen. I guess I am an optimist. I think you can do it. It is just

that we have not really made it a high priority, and I think we

could.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GILMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Berman.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Can we have Mr. Kemp respond to that?

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Kemp, go ahead.

Mr. KEMP. There are two points I would make here. I think the

previous Administration made a deliberate calculation that they

would give priority on the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, which I

45

think was a reasonable thing to do. They did not want to stir up

the hornet’s nest of Iraq at the same time, because it would have

meant treading on a lot of toes. Now, I agree with my colleagues,

it is a whole new ball game. September 11th has changed everything. But we should not, I think, underestimate the resistance we

are going to get to a more proactive Iraq policy in the region. I

think it may be easier to get the Russians and Chinese on board

now, because they have different agendas and they ultimately see

this as an opportunity to work with us.

But I think for our Arab friends in the region, Iraq remains a

huge dilemma, because there is great support on the street for the

plight of the Iraqi people, which they wrongly blame us for. But as

we all agree, we have yet to reverse that image. And, therefore,

perhaps the first thing we have to do is, while we are corralling

Russia and China in New York, we also have to take the case to

the region to make it clear that we are very concerned about the

plight of the ordinary Iraqi people, and it would be American policy, following the demise of Saddam Hussein and his regime, to

work as diligently as we can to help rebuild the country and to

bring back some semblance of hope to these people.

Mr. GILMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Berman.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Kemp, you think some part of Iran’s motivation

for their nuclear program is the Iraqi nuclear program?

Mr. KEMP. Absolutely; and their chemical program and their biological program and their missile program. After all, Iran suffered

from major chemical attacks from Iraq.

Mr. BERMAN. Yes. Do you think that knowing that, that—or the

absence of that program or the knowledge that program had been

discontinued or that intervening events had taken care of that

problem—would that affect Iran’s decision to pursue those systems?

Mr. KEMP. Well, if you had asked me that a year ago, I would

have probably said it would slow it down. But I think what we

have to accept that which has happened in the last 3 weeks is that

by ending our sanctions on Pakistan, by ending sanctions on India,

after years and years of making nuclear proliferation on the subcontinent a priority of American policy, we are grandfathering

India and Pakistan into the nuclear club. Although the Iranians

are preoccupied with Iraq, they are also preoccupied with Pakistan.

And therefore while I think Iraq is a big factor in their calculations, Pakistan is now going to be high on their agenda of concerns.

Of course, they worry about Israel as well. But fundamentally it

would slow them down, and if we had better relations with them,

it would give us an opportunity to help discuss alternatives with

them. But I am very skeptical that you are going do change their

mind-set at this point in time.

Mr. BERMAN. How would you characterize—I guess at least prior

to September 11th, how would you characterize this Administration’s policy toward Iraq?.

Mr. KEMP. It did not have one. Iraq policy was under review, as

I understand it. I think what is interesting about this Administration’s actions before September 11th is that they had not made any

major comprehensive statement about the Middle East covering the

peace process, Iran, Iraq, energy. There was no major speech. Now,

I understand that they were preparing to do this, if the New York

46

Times is to be believed, irrespective of September 11th. But I do

believe now it will be incumbent upon them to outline a new policy.

Mr. BERMAN. I think that is a great way to build a coalition: here

is what we were going to say before September 11th, and you can

really build your base.

So it is quite clear that a lot of people who now have important

positions in the Bush Administration had very definitive views on

a much more assertive policy vis-a-vis Iraq before they came into

this Administration, but that has not yet developed into an Administration policy. Is that fair to say?

Mr. KEMP. As I understand it, that is correct.

Mr. BERMAN. Gary Milhollin mentioned one way to get people to

stop doing things for money is to shame them. The other one is to

pay them more to do the opposite. Of course, that has the effect of

being a rental, not a good purchase.

In terms of this, how do you think we should approach Russia

in the context of sanctions in Iraq at this particular point, given

obviously the September 11th priorities, accepting your premise of

first things first? How do we envelop Russia into both, as to Iraq

and perhaps as to Iran, particularly as to Iraq?

Mr. KEMP. I think this is an opportunity to get Russia to support

the smart sanctions proposal, which I think against a lot of expectations, the Administration had been successful in getting France

and China to agree to.

Now, if you get Russia on board as well, we can still argue the

utility of smart sanctions. But one thing I don’t think we can dispute is that this would put the onus once more on Saddam Hussein

to make the case that sanctions are hurting the Iraqi people rather

than his own behavior.

We have had this terrible problem of being blamed for the misery, and I think the smart sanctions give you a way out of that.

This is a more useful avenue to approach with the Russians than,

for instance, trying to get them to stop their nuclear cooperation

with Iran or their arms sales with Iran, which I think involves a

lot of money and a basic strategic partnership.

Mr. BERMAN. So just to finish up, in a way—if we are going to

focus with Russia on something, focus on their position vis-a-vis

Iraq, not Iran?

Mr. KEMP. That would be my priority. Others might disagree,

but that is what I would say, yes.

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Berman.

Mr. Kemp, why do you feel that the targeted sanctions approach

advanced by Secretary Powell, along with other measures he recommended, would have any measurable impact on the Iraqi regime

and on the economy of Iraq?

Mr. KEMP. Well, I am not sure it would. A lot will depend upon

how successfully it is implemented. You not only need to get the

Russians on board in New York, you have to have cooperation in

the region, because the leakage right now, the black marketeering

that goes on across the Turkish border through Jordan, through

Iran’s waterways, is legion. And my colleagues have both discussed

this. You have got to at the same time convince the regional players that it is in their interests to cooperate with more border conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
47

trols. Whether that is possible or not, I don’t know. I would have

said before September the 11th, it was going to be difficult to get

Russians and it would be difficult to get regional support. I would

say after September the 11th, we have a fighting chance. But it is

not going to be easy.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Kemp, do you agree with Mr. Duelfer that Saddam cannot be deterred through classical deterrence methods?

Mr. KEMP. It depends what you mean by deterred. From doing

what? I think he is deterred from using military force against his

neighbors. I think he is deterred from using overt military force

against Israel, absent some regional conflagration. I do not think

he is deterred from using force against his people and conducting

sort of covert operations that we may know nothing about. I don’t

think he is deterred from that.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Duelfer, given that there have been no inspections for nearly 3 years now, is there any evidence that Iraq is rebuilding its WMD programs?

Mr. DUELFER. There was continuing evidence, even when we

were inspecting in Iraq. It was not stuff we could take to the Security Council and say this is proof, but there was certainly evidence

and that has not abated. There are Iraqis who leave Iraq regularly,

and curiously enough, some of them were involved in the weapons

programs, and they will relate what they were involved in, and

their activities continue to this present time.

Mr. GILMAN. Is there any evidence that during the Gulf War that

Iraq used some chemical weapons against our forces?

Mr. DUELFER. We looked at that pretty closely, and we saw no

definitive evidence that they used chemical weapons. There were

some chemical weapons plants in storage bunkers which were

blown. But our understanding, and certainly the Iraqis’ claim, was

that they did not use them. And, of course, we pressed them on

that, and fundamentally the reason they said they did not was because Saddam thought he would be toast if he did.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Milhollin, your testimony seems to stop short

of saying that Iraq is actually rebuilding its WMD programs, referring instead to the rebuilding of facilities and the potential for reconstituting of these programs. Is there any reason why you drew

those distinctions?

Mr. MILHOLLIN. Well, we have evidence that certain facilities are

being rebuilt, and we know those facilities were used in prior days

for illicit purposes for making weapons of mass destruction. But as

far as I know—and I haven’t been privy to any information that

proves that the sites they are rebuilding are actually being used to

make chemical or biological weapons, for example.

Saddam has learned a lot about our intelligence capabilities over

the years. And getting accurate information from on high is harder

than it was before. So the reason I stop short is just because I don’t

want to make a statement I cannot support. But I guess I would

make one point, though, that the fact that Iraq has foregone scores

of billions of dollars in oil income rather than disarm, I think

shows you the extent of commitment to weapons of mass destruction. It is safe to assume that what we cannot see is what we

should be worried about.

48

Mr. GILMAN. I have one last question to all of our panelists.

There have been some reports suggesting Iraq may have been

aware of or involved in the September 11th plot. There was some

report that they met with an Iraqi intelligence person before they

undertook their attack. What is your assessment of those reports,

and what has been the relationship, if any, between Iraq and al

Qaeda? Mr. Duelfer?

Mr. DUELFER. Well, let me take—I would be surprised, again, if

there were not a relationship between al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence and Iraqi expertise. Iraq has certainly maintained contact

with all kinds of nefarious actors and organizations. But I am not

sure I would say that because an Iraqi intelligence officer in

Prague met with a guy who turned out to be conducting one of

these activities, I don’t think that would necessarily be evidence

that they were connected with September 11th. Iraqi intelligence

officers are all over the place. They are in New York. They are everywhere. There are a lot of people who meet with Iraqi intelligence officers, whether they know it or not.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Kemp?

Mr. KEMP. Yes, I would keep an open mind on this Mr. Chairman. We are in the process of conducting the most intensive intelligence investigation in history, and sooner or later if there is a

connection, we will find it. So far, I have not seen any evidence

that that exists, but I would not rule it out.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Milhollin.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. I do not see any evidence of the contents of any

of these meetings, so without that, I don’t think it is possible to

know whether the Iraqis knew about the event before it happened

or whether they had any role in it.

I think, though, that we have to assume—well, on an optimistic

note, I guess I could say that Saddam right now seems to be doing

pretty well. He is escaping the embargo. If we want to make an assumption, we could assume it would not be prudent for him at this

time to be connected with an attack on the United States. But like

all assumptions, that could turn out to be wrong.

Mr. GILMAN. One last question. Some do not want to pursue or

oppose the overthrow strategy and try to disparage the opposition’s

unity and fighting capability. What is your assessment of the capability of the opposition to overthrow the regime of Saddam? To all

the panelists. Mr. Duelfer.

Mr. DUELFER. I think they should be incrementally given the opportunity to prove themselves. The INC and others they were in

Iraq when it was not pleasant to be in Iraq. And I think that a lot

of people unfairly criticize them. But incrementally they can be

given a chance to prove themselves, and if they demonstrate

progress, give them some more support.

Mr. KEMP. That is my view, that is what I said in my formal testimony. And I think you need to have some military personnel testify on this, because I cannot judge how good they would be militarily, but I agree it has to be incremental, they have to prove

themselves first.

Mr. MILHOLLIN. I agree with Mr. Duelfer.

49

Mr. GILMAN. Well, gentlemen, we want to thank you for your testimony and for giving your time to appear before our Committee.

The Committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 2:52 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

(51)

A P P E N D I X

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY MR. GARY MILHOLLIN

Letters from Readers

Commentary Magazine

October 2001, pp. 3–6

SANCTIONS

TO THE EDITOR: In their much-publicized article, ‘‘Shopping with Saddam Hussein’’ [July-August], Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz display a remarkably simplistic

and somewhat disingenuous approach to the ongoing efforts to circumvent UN economic sanctions. There is no doubt that these sanctions are violated almost at will

by Iraq in order to obtain material that would otherwise be denied under the existing embargo. Yet it is a somewhat fantastic leap to say, as the authors do, that any

UN inspection regime, including the recently collapsed ‘‘smart sanctions’’ advanced

by the United States and Great Britain, would have ‘‘little hope of stopping the

Iraqis from sneaking in what they need to rebuild their weapons sites and sneaking

out the oil to pay for it.’’

To justify this bold assessment, the authors claim that ‘‘even when the

UNinspection regime was in place, the Iraqis had already figured out how to do just

that.’’ But the fact is that the inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) had implemented an extremely effective mechanism for tracking

and monitoring Iraq’s clandestine procurement efforts.

The critical fact is that none of the numerous transactions cited by the authors

was conducted in violation of relevant UN resolutions. With the exception of the

foiled endeavor by Wi’am Gharbiah to bring in Russian ballistic-missile components

in 1995 (and even in that case the evidence points to a rogue operation rather than

one orchestrated by the Iraqi government), Iraq was not prohibited from possessing

any of the material in question, so long as it had been disclosed under the provisions of Resolution 715 (ongoing monitoring and verification) or 1051 (export-import

control) prior to arrival in the country. And all items were indeed declared to

UNSCOM within the required reporting period.

From 1995 through 1998, as a weapons inspector for UNSCOM, I ran a series of

counterproliferation operations known collectively as Operation Tea Cup. The interception of Gharbiah’s shipment in Jordan was the first, and most public, manifestation of this operation, and only UNSCOM, with its strong intelligence relationship

with friendly governments, could have pulled it off. For nearly three years, Operation Tea Cup yielded similarly impressive gains, terminating a contract for a glasslined reactor suitable for both civilian and military activity and tracking down other

equipment useful in chemical production processes.

In September 1997, in cooperation with Israeli intelligence, I traveled to Kiev to

meet with the head of the Joint Intelligence Center/National Security and Defense

Council of Ukraine for the express purpose of investigating the activities of Yuri

Orshansky, a figure mentioned by the authors. Although they contend, without any

supporting evidence, that Orshansky delivered goods to Iraq subsequent to a series

of protocols signed in 1995–1996, my investigation showed the exact opposite: no

material brokered by Orshansky or anybody else was delivered to Iraq from

Ukraine. I put more faith in my factually supported findings than in the speculative

musings of Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz.

But creative interpretation seems to be their modus operandi. Take the following

passage:

52

Before being forced out in 1998, the UN inspectors compiled a series of confidential reports detailing what they knew about Iraq’s foreign suppliers.... What they recount is an ongoing effort to build weapons of mass destruction.

These reports, in truth, recount no such thing. While the many inspections exposed the leakage of the sanctions regime, nothing was discovered that could point

to an effort to rebuild Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

My reading of these documents provides a much more realistic assessment. Take,

for instance, the report of the combined Missile/Export-Import team inspecting the

Karama State Establishment (Iraq’s major ballistic-missile facility) on May 27,

1997. During this inspection, Dr. Hamid Khalil Ibrahim, a leading Iraqi missile scientist, told the team that no foreign goods had been received since May 1996. The

team then asked Dr. Hamid (as he was known familiarly) about precision machine

tools that Iraq had declared to UNSCOM in December 1996. These tools, of Italian

manufacture, did not fall under the technical specifications set forth in Resolution

1051, and so were deemed legitimate (despite having been brought into Iraq in violation of sanctions). The same held true for seven boxes of production tools (of Romanian origin) for gyroscopes, and a British-made grinding machine.

The inspection was conducted in a very thorough manner, and concluded as follows: ‘‘No proscribed activity or details were observed.’’ This phrase is repeated

throughout the documents UNSCOM produced concerning Iraq’s compliance with its

obligations under the Ongoing Monitoring and Verification (OMV) plan. In fact,

since the implementation of Resolution 1051, the inspectors uncovered not a single

example of proscribed export-import activity. How Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz

can assert the contrary escapes me.

None of this is to deny today’s harsh reality that goods are pouring through the

defunct, and discredited, regime of economic sanctions. Is Iraq using the oil-for-food

program to support such activity? Of course it is. One of the last major operations

I carried out under Tea Cup was aimed at disrupting efforts to obtain ballistic-missile technology and production capabilities from Aerofina, a Romanian military-industrial company. In the end, none of the activity turned out to be of a proscribed

nature, but intercepted conversations between the Iraqi team, headed by Dr. Hamid,

and his Romanian intermediary pointedly referred to the oil-for-food program as a

means of facilitating the transfer of goods from Romania. He said: ‘‘We would use

the oil-for-food agreement. The Jordanians don’t ask why, so we could call it ‘electrical parts for sewage system,’ ‘pumps for irrigation,’ ‘coolers for water pumps,’ ‘ma- chine tools,’ ‘instrumentation for pipelines,’ or ‘raw materials.’ ’’ Clearly, then, the Iraqis were, and probably still are, violating the economic sanctions by misrepresenting goods as part of the so-called humanitarian relief effort.

But such violations do not automatically translate into schemes for acquiring weapons of mass destruction; in linking the two, Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz are mixing apples and oranges. Nor does the failure of one program (sanctions) automatically translate into the failure of another (inspections). In fact, the history of

UNSCOM’s work shows just the opposite: despite the failure of the sanctions regime, inspectors were able to keep a tight lid on Iraq’s ability to rebuild its past

prohibited programs.

Unfortunately, on-site inspections have been tossed into the garbage heap by

those U.S. policy-makers who seek not the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass

destruction but rather the removal of Iraq’s president. It was the mixing of these

two disparate objectives that ultimately condemned UNSCOM, and their continued

mixing ensures that the United Nations Monitoring and Verification Inspection

Commission, UNSCOM’s predecessor, will never be allowed back on the job. Yet the

fact is that inspections did, and can, work.

If the authors were sincere, they would try to help formulate a policy that might

result in a resumption of inspection activity. That they chose instead to denigrate

the process by distorting facts shows that they are motivated by concerns other than

nonproliferation. This is a shame, and does a grave disservice to a cause they purport to champion.

SCOTT RITTER

Delmar, New York

GARY MILHOLLIN and KELLY MOTZ write: Scott Ritter both misunderstands our

article and makes a series of claims that are patently false.

Mr. Ritter begins by stating that none of the secret missile deals we described was

‘‘in violation of relevant UN resolutions.’’ He also contends that ‘‘Iraq was not prohibited from possessing any of the material in question’’ as long as it was declared

to the United Nations.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. UN Security Council Resolution 661

barred the sale to Iraq by any nation of ‘‘any commodities or products,’’ with only

53

two exceptions: ‘‘supplies intended strictly for medical purposes, and . . . foodstuffs.’’ Resolution 661 was passed in 1990 and was in force when the deals we described were carried out. Does Mr. Ritter believe that gyroscopes and other missileguidance components are food? Or medicine? Does he think that Saddam Hussein

bought them to make sandwiches or bandages?

Missile parts are also munitions—that is, arms. As such, they are also barred

from sale to Iraq by UN Security Council Resolution 687, adopted in 1991 and in

force during the period we discussed. Resolution 687 not only bans the sale of ‘‘arms

and related . . . components’’ to Iraq, it bans even the ‘‘promotion or facilitation’’

of such sales. There is no question that both Resolution 661 and Resolution 687 expressly forbade the deals we described. As a former UN inspector, Mr. Ritter must

know that.

That Iraq was not prohibited from possessing any of the imported material is also

false: the illegal status of the import followed the goods into the country. Mr. Ritter

tries to obscure this point by claiming that Iraq ‘‘declared’’ all the items it illegally

imported. He is misleading the reader: in fact, Iraq declared its secret imports only

after the UN inspectors had discovered them independently. Seized Iraqi documents

make it clear that Iraq intentionally did not declare illegally imported items, ‘‘in

order to avoid problems.’’ This, too, Mr. Ritter should know perfectly well.

Citing secret missile contracts with the Romanian company Aerofina, Mr. Ritter

claims that none of Aerofina’s deals with Iraq ‘‘turned out to be of a proscribed nature.’’ Yet Aerofina agreed to supply missile-engine parts, gyroscopes for missile

guidance, the tools and equipment needed to produce these items, and the equipment needed to test them. Iraq claimed that these purchases were made for shortrange missiles, which it is permitted to develop on its own. The crucial fact, however, is that a total arms embargo under Resolution 687 is still in effect on the sale

of any missile parts to Iraq—whether for short- or long-range missiles. Thus Mr.

Ritter is wrong again: the Aerofina deals were indeed ‘‘proscribed.’’ They were proscribed when they occurred, and they are proscribed today.

In his letter, Mr. Ritter himself admits that Iraq violated the UN sanctions ‘‘almost at will.’’ How he can say that and simultaneously assert that no UN resolutions were being violated is something only he understands.

Mr. Ritter takes considerable pains to argue that none of the goods brokered by

Yuri Orshansky, a Ukrainian middleman, was actually delivered. As a criticism of

our article, this is disingenuous. We ourselves pointed out that the UN inspectors

were ‘‘unable to find any of the equipment’’ they suspected Orshansky of brokering.

What we did say was that, in interviews with us, the inspectors offered two possible

explanations for this outcome: either Iraq bought the equipment and hid it for future use, or Iraq may have been only shopping and comparing prices. We deemed

the latter possibility unlikely after so many trips, so much consultation, and so

many contracts for specific items. We think it more likely that secret imports from

Ukraine are helping Iraq rearm today.

Perhaps Mr. Ritter’s most surprising assertion is that ‘‘nothing was discovered [by

the UN inspectors] that could point to an effort to rebuild Iraq’s weapons of mass

destruction.’’ Mr. Ritter himself, while a UN inspector, went to great lengths to penetrate Iraq’s elaborate system of concealment and deception, which employed thousands of persons with no other purpose than to hide Iraq’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. His present claim is contradicted by his own experience.

There is little doubt that Iraq is still concealing its weapon programs. The strongest evidence is its refusal to admit UN inspectors. This refusal is causing the continuation of the trade embargo, which in turn is costing billions in lost oil revenue.

Saddam Hussein obviously thinks that concealing his weapons is more important

than feeding his population.

It is untrue that we ‘‘denigrate’’ the inspection process, as Mr. Ritter accuses us

of doing. We think the best outcome in Iraq would be to have fully empowered inspectors return and complete the job of disarmament. Unfortunately, the UN’s effort

to monitor Iraq’s imports was never intended to stop illegal sales, and was never

effective in doing so. Instead, it was established to allow Iraq to import dual-use

goods and to insure that they were used for legitimate purposes. Now that the inspectors are gone, Iraq is free to use its imports, legal or illegal, for any purpose

it wishes.

Finally, Mr. Ritter seems to be confused about which government is responsible

for getting UN inspections—in his words—‘‘tossed into the garbage heap.’’ By attacking the U.S., he is fingering the wrong culprit; the Iraqi government is solely

responsible for prohibiting the return of inspectors. Worse, by blaming the U.S., Mr.

Ritter is implicitly condoning Iraq’s continued flouting of UN resolutions. This curiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:39 Dec 14, 2001 Jkt 075563 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\MESA\100401\75563 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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ous stance, when added to his other invalid claims, leads one to wonder whose side

he is really on.

U.N. Sanctions Didn’t Stop Iraq From Buying Weapons

By BARBARA CROSSETTE

The New York Times

June 18, 2001, p. A6

Two American arms control experts, combing through unpublished reports by a

disbanded arms inspection commission, say they found evidence that Iraq continued

to buy prohibited weapons or parts long after United Nations sanctions were imposed in 1990.

Many of the purchases appear to have been made in Central and Eastern Europe,

the experts, Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, and Kelly Motz, a project researcher, say in a new independent

report. They found documents concerning illegal sales or potential sales by companies in Ukraine, Belarus and Romania. Among the purchases made by the government of Saddam Hussein were missile components and high-technology machine

tools.

In the past, United Nations arms inspectors for Iraq had been reluctant to identify countries in public reports, in part because there have also been suspicions of

illegal trading by companies in Russia, a powerful member of the Security Council.

The report by the Wisconsin Project, to be published on Wednesday in the magazine Commentary, appears as the United Nations Security Council is debating a

new ‘‘oil for food’’ program for Iraq that would lift most restrictions on sales of civilian goods to Iraq.

The Council is stymied over American insistence that, given Iraq’s past subterfuges in acquiring weapons of mass destruction, the plan must include an extensive

list of items that could only be sold after a review to make sure they were not intended for military use.

‘‘What this shows is that Saddam’s procurement network is alive and well and

has been working steadily despite the sanctions,’’ Mr. Milhollin said in an interview

on Thursday. ‘‘To stop it, we need to do better.

‘‘There are a lot of companies out there willing to break the embargo, and they’re

also going to be willing to take advantages of weaknesses in this list, which means

the list ought to be as strong as we can make it. Given his proclivities to divert

things and to stop selling oil for his people in order to leverage us out of controlling

his money, if there are going to be mistakes made, we ought to make them on the

side of being more careful about what he is allowed to buy.’’

The sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990, after it invaded Kuwait. The oil for

food program allows Iraq to sell oil to alleviate suffering of the civilian population

under the sanctions. The United Nations monitors expenditure of the profits, with

part going to Kurds in the north and reparations for the Persian Gulf war.

France, Russia and China are objecting to the American list of items that would

have to be reviewed under the broadened program.

They contend that some items, beyond clearly prohibited arms, are unnecessarily

restrictive and will prolong hardships in Iraq that the new oil-sales plan was intended to alleviate.

Some independent experts say United States intelligence agencies are trying to

keep certain items out of Iraq that it could use to make American eavesdropping

harder, if not impossible.

In negotiations this week in Paris and New York, the Americans agreed to trim

the list somewhat, diplomats said. But continuing disagreements over its scope it

could cause the Council to miss another deadline, July 3, for establishing the new

oil-sales program.

In their article, Mr. Milhollin and Dr. Motz dismiss the debate over the new plan

as largely irrelevant. ‘‘The new proposal—whether adopted by the U.N. or not—has

little hope of stopping the Iraqis from sneaking in what they need to rebuild their

weapons sites and sneaking out the oil to pay for it,’’ they wrote. ‘‘For the truth is

that even when the U.N. inspections regime was in place, the Iraqis had figured

out how to do just that.’’

Iraq continues to argue that it has disarmed as required by the Security Council

and that sanctions should be lifted without further preconditions. Russia and

France, the Council members with the closest ties to Iraq, say that while an automatic lifting of sanctions is not possible, Iraq should be told clearly what it still

needs to do so that sanctions can at least be suspended as soon as possible.

55

A United Nations commission was set up after the gulf war to monitor Iraq’s

weapons, but the inspectors were withdrawn in late 1998, in advance of American

and British bombing of Iraq. It was that commission’s documents that Mr. Milhollin

and Dr. Motz reviewed.

A new arms inspection system was established, but this week its director, Hans

Blix of Sweden, told the Security Council again that inspectors from his new United

Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission must go to Iraq before

a suspension can be considered. Mr. Hussein has barred them.

‘‘The completion of both the inventory of unresolved disarmament issues and the

identification of the key remaining disarmament tasks,’’ he wrote in a report to the

Council, ‘‘will only be possible after the commission’s experts have commenced work

in Iraq and have been able to assess what changes may have occurred during the

almost two-and-a-half years when there have been no on-site inspections or monitoring in Iraq.’’

Among the examples drawn from the documents of the now defunct United Nations Special Commission was a case that began in 1995 when a delegation of Iraqi

specialists from the Badr State Establishment, which made sophisticated machine

tools, arrived in Belarus with a shopping list that included diamond-cutting tools.

They can be used for making precision parts for nuclear weapons and long-range

missiles. Those tools and other materials were bought outside United Nations rules,

the authors say, and shipped to Iraq by way of the Jordanian free-trade port of

Aqaba.

As late as 1998, before arms inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq, the Wisconsin

Project article says, United Nations experts saw high-technology lens-making machinery from Belarus being unloaded in Iraq. In Ukraine, the Iraqis wanted to acquire whole laboratories, with training assistance and computer software. The Iraqis

say they never made the purchases, and United Nations inspectors never found evidence of them at missile sites or other places.

Ukraine continues to be publicly active in Iraq, however. This year, according to

news reports from Kiev, more than 100 Ukrainian companies, some selling space

and aviation equipment, exhibited their goods at a Baghdad trade fair.

The New York Times

April 29, 2001, Sunday, Late Edition—Final

Copyright 2001, The New York Times Company

SECTION: Section 1; Page 16; Column 4; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 1274 words

HEADLINE: Document Reveals 1987 Bomb Test by Iraq

BYLINE: By William J. Broad

BODY: Iraq tested a bomb in 1987 that cast a radioactive cloud in the open air

and was designed to cause vomiting, cancer, birth defects and slow death, according

to a secret Iraqi report on the weapon’s construction and testing.

Radiation sickness from the bomb, the document said, would ‘‘weaken enemy

units from the standpoint of health and inflict losses that would be difficult to explain, possibly producing a psychological effect.’’ Death, it added, might occur ‘‘within two to six weeks.’’ The bomb, 12 feet long and weighing more than a ton, according to the document, could be dropped on troop areas, industrial centers, airports,

railroad stations, bridges and ‘‘any other areas the command decrees.’’

While the existence of Iraq’s effort to build a radiological weapon has been known

for several years, the 1987 report sheds light on the secret effort. The New York

Times obtained the document from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control,

a private group in Washington that said it acquired it from a United Nations official.

Radiation or radiological weapons, sometimes known as ‘‘dirty nukes,’’ are the

poor cousins of nuclear arms. Their conventional high explosives scatter highly radioactive materials to poison targets rather than destroying them with blast and

heat. Their effects on people can range from radiation sickness to agonizingly slow

death, which is why military experts often see them as ethically bankrupt.

‘‘It shows what kind of guy we’re dealing with,’’ said Gary Milhollin, the group’s

director, of the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein. The bomb, he added, was ‘‘nasty stuff

meant to kill people over a long period of time’’ and thus, he said, ‘‘crossed the line

into moral barbarism.’’

It was basically a dud, however, Mr. Milhollin said, and that caused the Iraqis

to scrap the project. The radiation levels were considered too low to achieve the grisly objectives.

56

The episode nonetheless ‘‘shows Iraq’s intention’’ to develop weapons of mass destruction, he added. The official who disclosed the document, Mr. Milhollin said, is

‘‘concerned that Saddam is going to get the bomb.’’

The United Nations rarely discloses documents gathered in Iraq, but David

Albright, formerly a nuclear inspector in Iraq, said he had seen the document and

that it he did not doubt it was authentic.

He and other experts agreed that the document, which is to be posted on a Web

site Monday, gives away no secrets that could aid weapons development and no indication that the project was a resounding failure.

Nuclear experts say Iraq today has neither programs to develop radiological weapons nor the reactors needed to make radioactive materials for them, and no fuel for

nuclear arms. The reactor used in making the prototype radiological weapon was

itself bombed during the gulf war in 1991, and inspectors tried to keep Iraq from

resuming its nuclear efforts for years afterward.

But today the inspectors are largely gone and American experts worry that Iraq

may be quietly shopping for bomb fuel and parts on the international black market.

‘‘There’s growing concern that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program

and will make steady progress because it knows so much already,’’ said Mr.

Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, an arms

control group in Washington.

Iraq’s testing of its radiological weapon was done in 1987 as it waged a war of

attrition against Iran and considered the radiation bomb as a way to cripple enemy

forces. The document said the work was undertaken by Atomic Energy Agency and

the Al Qa-Qa and Al Muthanna centers of the Iraqi Military Industrial Commission.

To make the radioactive materials, Iraqi engineers prepared special metals to irradiate in a reactor at Tuwaitha, Iraq’s primary nuclear site. The document said the

metal was mostly zirconium, which is often used in atomic reactors because it resists corrosion. The zirconium mixture also included hafnium, uranium and iron.

Zirconium was chosen, the document said, because a production process for it already existed since the metal was used for incendiary bombs. When finely powdered,

the metal ignites spontaneously in air.

The half-life of zirconium 95, the document said, was 75.5 days. This relatively

short period of radioactive decay, it said, ‘‘helps to dissipate the effect of the bomb

after several weeks so that it is difficult to track, analyze, or recognize.’’ The brevity,

it added, gives ‘‘the desired biological effects’’ while making it ‘‘possible for our units

to go to the bombed area without great danger after this period has expired.’’

The document has many diagrams. They show at the bomb’s core a thick threefoot lead case, shielding workers from its radioactive rays, that held the zirconium.

This leaden case fit inside an eight-foot casing that held fuses and explosive charges

and was capped by tail fins four feet long.

The weapon and its parts were tested three times in 1987, the document said. The

first sought to see if the thick lead case holding an irradiated charge could be blown

apart, in order to discharge. It could.

The second test was of a bomb sitting on the ground. ‘‘The explosion was awesome,’’ said the report. ‘‘We saw the blast wave moving out of the center of the explosion in the form of a circle moving at great speed.’’ The radioactive cloud rose

more than 600 feet.

In the third test, the Iraqi Air Force dropped two bombs, which again produced

huge clouds. ‘‘We must point out,’’ the report said, ‘‘that a significant part of the

fallout went with the cloud into the air and it was not possible to follow this small

amount of radioactive matter by means of the portable equipment.’’

Radiation readings on the ground were rather low, in one case ‘‘290 times above

the highest level allowed nationally for foodstuffs.’’ The document reported no readings taken in the air—a critical oversight for a weapon meant to hurt and kill people largely through the inhalation of radioactive particles.

The main flaws of the weapon, the report said, were that its radioactive charges

lost strength quickly. The irradiatiated charge had to be used within a week. Calm

weather was also essential. Another drawback, it said, was that the work had to

be done in strict secrecy, ‘‘even with regard to those doing the work, so as not to

give rise to psychological feelings leading to hesitation because of a fear of radiation.’’

A final problem, it said, was that an alert enemy might come to realize that the

exploding bombs packed a lingering punch, allowing the future development of defensive precautions. It even suggested that satellites might be able to spot radiation

from ‘‘a concentrated strike,’’ a feat that seems unlikely.

Iraq gave the document to the inspectors and the United Nations apparently referred to it in a April 1996 report of the United Nations special commission set up

57

to monitor Iraq’s disarmament. ‘‘Iraq declared,’’ it said, ‘‘that no order to produce

radiological weapons was given and the project was abandoned.’’

The document is to be posted Monday at www.iraqwatch.org, a new initiative of

the Wisconsin Project. The main supporter of the Web site is the Smith-Richardson

Foundation, a private group in Westport, Conn., that specializes in issues of national security.

Mr. Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project said that the radiation effort was clearly

a flop, despite the report’s upbeat language.

‘‘When you read this, you get the impression that the guys in Iraq were trying

to put best face on the results, to exaggerate them,’’ he said. ‘‘But if you look at

the figures, it’s obvious it didn’t work.’’ http://www.nytimes.com

The New York Times

July 3, 2001, Tuesday, Late Edition—Final

Copyright 2001, The New York Times Company

SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 1; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 1451 words

HEADLINE: Effort to Recast Iraq Oil Sanctions is Halted for Now

BYLINE: By Barbara Crossette

DATELINE: United Nations, July 2

BODY: Facing a Russian veto in the Security Council, the United States and Britain today abandoned efforts for now to change the rules for permissible trade with

Iraq.

The plan would have expanded civilian trade while tightening controls on smuggling oil and prohibited weapons, depriving President Saddam Hussein of an excuse

that it was the sanctions alone that were hurting the Iraqi people. Russia, with

strong commercial interests in Iraq and a long history of military and diplomatic

cooperation, had introduced its own resolution, which reopened the issue of lifting

the sanctions imposed in 1990 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. A Russian veto would

have killed the American and British proposal for the foreseeable future.

The United States and Britain decided to abandon the fight for now and to seek

an extension of the current ‘‘oil for food’’ program for five months. A month’s extension on the program’s current mandate runs out at midnight on Tuesday.

The decision not to force a showdown, after winning agreement for the plan from

China and France and thereby isolating Russia among the five permanent Council

members with vetoes, was a setback for the Bush administration, which had made

a new policy on Iraq a high priority.

With a postponement of five months, Iraq would emerge with what it wants in

the short term—the status quo. That could bolster hard-liners in Washington who

have always contended that diplomatic efforts were wasted on President Hussein

and that more direct methods are needed to keep Iraq from posing a threat to other

nations.

Ambassador James B. Cunningham, the American representative on the Council,

said in an interview that the United States was in no way ‘‘shelving the policy.’’

Mr. Cunningham said the United States agreed to the five-month extension because it was the better of two choices: Washington could have risked a veto or decided instead to buy more time to get the Russians to join the consensus. He said

there would be more high-level meetings with the Russians over the next few

months and those opportunities would be used to press the case for the resolution.

‘‘It strikes us as illogical for the Russians to take this position when it is so clear

that there is a basis in the Council for an agreement—an agreement that would

help the Iraqi civilians,’’ he said. He called the postponement of the new oil plan

‘‘a defeat for the Iraqi people.’’

American officials have said in recent weeks that they have been mystified by

what the Russian motivations may really be and have often have been sent mixed

signals about what Russia’s real concerns are. Diplomats said China’s decision to

accept the outlines of the American and British plan was important because it indicated that the Russian position was difficult to understand and had virtually no

support.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s ambassador, said after a brief Council meeting

this morning that it was important that the resolution creating the new oil sales

plan—which the British introduced and took the lead in fighting for in the absence

of a new permanent American ambassador from the Bush administration—remain

on the table. He described it as ‘‘broadly supported and very much alive.’’ Forcing

Russia’s hand would have killed the plan with a veto.

58

Calling Russian opposition to the proposal ‘‘unjustifiable and negative,’’ Sir Jeremy said that ‘‘preserving the validity of that resolution means, in the view of the

United Kingdom and most members of the Council—perhaps all members of the

Council—avoiding a crash over the next couple of days because that does damage

to the draft resolution.’’

An end to sanctions is Iraq’s basic goal, since sanctions have introduced United

Nations supervision of Iraqi trade and, under the oil-for-food program, Iraqi profits,

placing them in an escrow account under United Nations control. Iraqi smuggling,

and illegal oil sales to neighbors that the United States tolerated to keep allies like

Turkey and Jordan happy, are now giving the Iraqis $1 billion or more outside the

system.

Contrary to Iraqi wishes, however, Russia does not argue for lifting sanctions immediately, but says the embargo should be suspended after Iraq allows arms inspectors, who have not been allowed to work in Iraq since late 1998, to return and resume monitoring. The United States and Britain have insisted that this is not an

issue to be raised within the context of a new oil-for-food plan.

In December 1999, a separate Security Council resolution laid out the steps Iraq

must take not only to allow inspectors to work but also to meet certain crucial disarmament tasks, still to be determined. The Security Council has required Iraq to

eliminate its weapons of mass destruction.

Ambassador Sergey Lavrov of Russia turned that argument around today, saying

it was the American-British proposal that had strayed from the essential purpose

of selling oil to buy civilian goods and materials to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure.

‘‘We consider that this proposal is not just extending or improving the humanitarian program; it’s about giving the program some new functions, and this requires

a very thorough study,’’ he said. He added that the Western proposal was ‘‘linked

to the sanctions policy and the disarmament policy.’’

‘‘Our government position has always been consistent, and we’re in favor of renewing the program and improving the humanitarian operation,’’ he said.

Iraq stopped exporting oil several weeks ago to protest the possible passage of the

British and American plan, denying itself, and presumably the Iraqi civilian population, millions of dollars in income.

Finding a way to prevent Iraq from gaining propaganda advantage from the unquestioned deprivation most Iraqis—though not Mr. Hussein’s inner circle—suffered

from a decade of sanctions has always been a problem for the Security Council and

its member governments. The United States said in introducing the new plan that

it wanted to rob Iraq of an excuse for its own failure to spend money on the civilian

population in need of medicines and a wide range of public goods and services.

Shortly after the 1991 American-led war to free Kuwait, a United Nations team

visiting Iraq warned that there was a catastrophe in the making, as the embargo

cut off most trade links with the outside world. In August of that year, Iraq was

first offered an oil-for-food program, but turned it down, demanding an end to sanctions instead. Not until 1995 did Iraq agree to an oil sales program supervised by

the United Nations. It began functioning late in 1996, and was broadened three

years later to remove the limit on oil sales.

Since 1996, most recently aided by high oil prices, Iraq has exported over $43 billion in oil. The United Nations deducts part of the profits to compensate victims of

the Iraqi war against Kuwait and a share for the Kurds in northern Iraq who had

suffered intense persecution, including poison gas attacks, by the government in

Baghdad. Iraq is now free to spend the rest of the money on a wide range of imports, and nearly $25 billion in goods have been ordered. The new British-American

plan would have removed remaining restrictions on civilian trade.

A sticking point, however, was a list the United States wanted to annex to the

Council resolution, which would enumerate certain weapons banned under existing

international agreements and some other ostensibly civilian goods that could have

military purposes. The list of so-called ‘‘dual use’’ items was not prohibitive; it called

only for a right to review purchases of those goods.

Last week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was able to persuade the French

and Chinese to drop their objections after the list was whittled down. What remained to block passage of the resolution, in addition to persistent Russian opposition, was the question of how to compensate Iraq’s neighbors—Jordan, Syria and

Turkey—for loss of oil supplies Iraq had been selling outside the system at reduced

prices.

That illegal trade, to which the Security Council at first turned a blind eye, became more of a concern as oil prices rose and the Iraqis were accumulating money

that could have gone into illegal arms.

59

Iraq threatened to cut off all oil to its neighbors if they joined the United Nationssupervised system. Jordan, in particular, said its economy would be devastated by

such a move.

Then a month ago, Iraq stopped all exports of oil anywhere to protest the Security

Council’s move toward revamping the oil-for-food program and its decision to put off a vote from June 3 to July 3. Iraq has lost $1.3 billion it could have spent on

consumer goods and services. http://www.nytimes.com

The New York Times

June 30, 2001, Saturday, Late Edition—Final

Copyright 2001, The New York Times Company

SECTION: Section A; Page 3; Column 1; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 929 words

HEADLINE: Plan to Modify U.N. Sanctions Against Iraq Bogs Down, Powell Says

BYLINE: By Jane Perlez

DATELINE: Paris, June 29

BODY: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell won support from France and China

today for a plan to loosen restrictions on trade in civilian goods with Iraq, but he

said that continued resistance from Russia made it unlikely that the proposal could

be adopted at the United Nations by a deadline next week.

Secretary Powell said Moscow had refused to ‘‘engage’’ on the issue and continued

to insist that its commercial interests would be harmed. The proposal, supported by

Britain and the United States, would revise the ‘‘oil for food’’ program under which

Iraq may sell oil to buy civilian goods, allowing far freer trade in most civilian

goods. But the Security Council would also compile and enforce a list of imports it

would insist on inspecting to preclude the import of arms or items that could be

used for military purposes. The Bush administration has also promised to devise

methods to cut off the smuggling of Iraqi oil.

Sanctions were imposed on Iraq after it occupied Kuwait in 1990, and these would

remain in force until Baghdad allows arms inspectors to return. The United Nations

would also continue to administer Iraqi oil profits.

The United States and Britain first proposed the changes in May to counter President Saddam Hussein’s accusations that sanctions were to blame for the suffering

of ordinary Iraqis.

But objections from Russia, as well as France and China, led to an extension of

the current system for a month, to July 3.

As Secretary Powell landed here, a State Department spokesman said that China

and France had agreed to the list of items that would have to come under review,

leaving only Russia among the five permanent members of the Security Council still

resisting.

The official said Secretary Powell, who ended his trip to Israel and the Palestinian

territories this morning, had spoken to the French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine,

and the Chinese foreign minister, Tang Jiaxuan, in a last-minute effort to win passage in the Security Council.

If the United States proposal fails by the deadline on Tuesday, it would represent

a major setback for Secretary Powell, who took over at the State Department intent

on convincing the Bush administration that his approach was the correct one to

keep Mr. Hussein under control.

More hawkish officials at the Pentagon have argued that even if the modified

sanctions passed at the United Nations they would have little effect in curbing Mr.

Hussein and that the better route was to try to dislodge him from power. Secretary

Powell, who arrived here this evening from Amman, Jordan, said he discussed the

sanctions revisions with King Abdullah during lunch with him today. Jordan initially gave Secretary Powell its support in his quest to modify the oil-for-food regime, but two weeks ago the Jordanian government publicly said that the changes

would cause a $1 billion loss in annual revenue, a financial burden too heavy to

carry. Jordan is a major route for the smuggling of Iraqi oil.

‘‘The Russians have strong commercial interests they feel are not protected,’’ by

the American proposal, Secretary Powell told reporters as he flew here to meet

Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz of Saudi Arabia. The secretary said the Russians also had a ‘‘different view’’ on whether Iraq had complied with inspections of

their weapons of mass destruction. Asked if the Russians were using this occasion

to deliberately embarrass the Bush administration, Secretary Powell said, ‘‘I don’t

think it is necessarily a flex your muscles, mano a mano thing with the United

States.’’ But he said Washington had not directly dealt with the Russian president,

Vladimir V. Putin, on the issue.

60

Moscow, Secretary Powell said, was ‘‘always looking for a solution that Iraqis

would agree to.’’ The Iraqis have demanded that all sanctions be lifted. Further,

Secretary Powell said, Russia had a ‘‘good understanding’’ of the extent of Iraq’s program of weapons of mass destruction but the United States tended to be ‘‘more vigilant.’’ Russia and China have argued for a much leaner list than the United States has

wanted. France and Russian have also wanted to open the way for some foreign investment, particularly in Iraq’s oil sector.

As Secretary Powell and his State Department diplomats worked the Iraqi issue

at the United Nations, they were severely hampered by the spill-over effect of the

Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Arab governments have become increasingly nervous

about public outrage in their streets over the perception that the United States is

backing Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. Aside from the possible political

costs in Washington, Secretary Powell could also face a further breakdown in the

sanctions regime in Iraq if the United Nations’ effort fails. Putting the best face on

it today, the secretary of state said, ‘‘I think what we have succeeded in doing is

bringing a political consensus together over the last five months from what was political disarray at the beginning of the year.’’ Iraq had demanded that all sanctions be lifted without conditions. And according

to moderate Arab diplomats, Mr. Hussein has run an effective campaign in the last

month persuading Arab countries not to go along with the American proposal. One

of the intentions of Secretary Powell’s early initiatives on Iraq was to curb the criticism in the Arab world that the United States was trying to intentionally impoverish the Iraqi people. But that American appeal got buried as the Palestinian uprising gathered steam early this year and highlighted the plight of Palestinians.

http://www.nytimes.com

The New York Times

May 17, 2001, Thursday, Late Edition—Final, Correction Appended

Copyright 2001, The New York Times Company

SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 3; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 1334 words

HEADLINE: U.S. and Britain Seek to Restore Trade with Iraq

BYLINE: By Barbara Crossette

DATELINE: United Nations, May 16

BODY: Britain, backed by the United States, will propose next week that the

United Nations lift the 11-year ban on international trade with Iraq, British officials

said today.

The long-awaited British-American proposal, if adopted by the Security Council,

would prohibit only the sale of a specific list of arms and weapons-related items to

Iraq. But the plan would require Iraq to let international arms inspections resume

before any sanctions could be lifted, and it would reject Iraqi demands to return to

Baghdad the control over money Iraq earns from oil sales. That money would still

be deposited into a United Nations-supervised escrow account, to be drawn on for

imports. Iraq has already said it would accept nothing short of an end to the embargo, and it expelled international inspectors in 1998, so it is likely to reject the plan

as inadequate.

‘‘The measures that we are proposing in effect will mean the end of sanctions on

ordinary civilian imports into Iraq,’’ a British official said today. ‘‘We are trying to

agree on more focused controls on Iraq’s weapons and illegal oil exports,’’ he said.

Although the new proposals, representing a fundamental shift in the way the

United Nations will deal with Iraq, were developed jointly, Bush administration officials appeared reluctant to comment publicly on the plan, leaving the British alone

out front today.

The administration’s approach has many critics in Washington, especially among

conservatives who believe Mr. Bush should increase pressure on President Saddam

Hussein in the hope of bringing down his regime. But Mr. Bush, in an interview

with The New York Times in January, likened the Iraqi sanctions to ‘‘Swiss cheese’’

and went along with a proposal by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to focus on

enforcing sanctions on military transfers.

‘‘You undercut all sanctions if you try to stop everything,’’ one State Department

official said. ‘‘It simply doesn’t work to try to lock up the country, especially when

so many other countries are willing to turn the other way when goods are smuggled

across the border. So it’s time to try a different approach.’’

The proposal comes several years after deep fissures developed in the Security

Council over the usefulness or ethical justification for the sweeping embargo that

61

the Security Council imposed under the last Bush administration and which the

Clinton administration demanded it keep in place. In recent years, rising oil prices

also gave Mr. Hussein enhanced economic power that helped reduce his diplomatic

isolation, as old and new trading partners joined in calls for a lifting of sanctions.

A long and difficult council debate is expected. The other permanent members of

the council with veto power, China, France and Russia, which have argued for a

quicker suspension of sanctions, did not comment on the proposals today.

In Washington, Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said that the

administration was in ‘‘a sort of intermediate stage’’ of consultations with Security

Council members and nations near Iraq. ‘‘We don’t have a proposal at this point to

present.’’ Mr. Boucher did indicate, however, that the administration supported the plan in

principle. ‘‘The goal of this process is to control effectively Iraq’s ability to buy weapons, to control Iraq’s ability to threaten its neighbors, especially to control Iraq’s ability to threaten its region with weapons of mass destruction,’’ he said. ‘‘So, on

the one hand, you will have a set of controls that do that. On the other hand, we

will smooth out the process and enable civilian goods to reach the Iraqi people.’’ The British official briefing reporters said that the basic plan was ready to be presented to the Security Council as a resolution as early as next week. ‘‘We’ve been consulting other Security Council members and key states in the region, and have proposed some ideas, and so far we are receiving a reasonably positive response,’’ the British official said.

Ambassador James Cunningham, the acting American representative on the

Council, said today that he hoped to see the resolution adopted by the end of this

month, but refused to discuss the proposal in detail.

A review and renewal of the existing ‘‘oil for food’’ program in Iraq is due by June

4, and British and American officials would like to replace that with the new plan

at that time.

There has been a steady erosion of the isolation of Iraq, as neighboring countries

and other nations began to increase trade and send flights to Baghdad’s newly reopened airport. At the same time, Arab nations and other opponents of sanctions

continue to criticize them for causing unacceptable hardship to the Iraqi people. ‘‘Under this system, Iraq will be able to meet all of its civilian needs,’’ the British

official said. ‘‘If our proposals are adopted by the Security Council, Iraq will have

no excuse for the suffering of the Iraqi people.’’ The new plan for Iraq marks another stage in a long-running attempt by the Security Council to deal effectively with an Iraqi government noted for its record of

trying to create nuclear, chemical and biological weapons before and possibly since

its invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait in August 1990.

After the war to free Kuwait that followed in early 1991, Iraq was told by the

Security Council that it would remain under a strict embargo on oil sales and weapons purchases until it had been fully disarmed to the satisfaction of United Nations

inspectors. Goods like food and medicine were never included in the embargo.

By the end of that year, when much of Iraq’s arsenal was being destroyed but

it was clear that Mr. Hussein was neither going to cooperate with the inspection

system in ferreting out undeclared arms nor use what money he had to alleviate

civilian hardships, the Security Council offered Iraq the chance to buy more civilian

goods through controlled oil sales. Iraq refused, and it was not until 1996 that a

revised oil-for-food program was accepted.

That program has been steadily expanded, until Iraq is now free to import a wide

range of goods and equipment. But it is still required to present a list of proposed

purchases to the United Nations periodically. That rule would now be lifted.

Under the new British-American proposal, Iraq is still required to readmit arms

inspectors, who have not been allowed to work in the country since 1998, and to

be declared free of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons or components as well

as missiles with a range of over 150 kilometers. Until then, the sanctions imposed

in 1990 and reaffirmed repeatedly since remain in place.

The proposal requires that two concrete lists of prohibited weapons and weaponsrelated goods be drawn up, one for weapons of mass destruction and the other for

conventional arms. Such purchases could not be made by Iraq, and questionable

contracts could still be referred to the Council’s sanctions committee. That panel,

the British official said, could deny a sale entirely, exercise a line-item veto or ask

that United Nations monitors track the ultimate destination and use of a suspect

item in Iraq.

In general, the new proposals rely heavily on United Nations monitoring, which

could be problematic. Britain and the United States have pressed for more monitors

in Iraq, but this has been rejected by some of Iraq’s supporters. The Iraqi government could simply bar monitors.

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The free flow of civilian goods into Iraq would place a heavy responsibility for vigilance on Iraq’s neighbors, since arms inspectors of the United Nations Monitoring,

Verification and Inspection Commission are concerned about the possibility of Iraq’s

hiding material for arms programs in civilian shipments.

On a recent visit to the Middle East, General Powell discussed these next steps

with countries in the region. Diplomats say that Jordan, Turkey and Syria would

have to be reassured that they would not suffer economically if they cooperated with

the United Nations. http://www.nytimes.com

CORRECTION-DATE: May 18, 2001, Friday May 19, 2001, Saturday

CORRECTION: An article yesterday about a proposal by Britain and the United

States to lift the 11-year ban on international trade with Iraq misstated the reason

for the departure of international inspectors there in 1998. It occurred—that December, before the United States and Britain began bombing raids on Iraq—because the

United Nations feared that they might be harmed or taken hostage. They were not

expelled.

Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about a proposal by Britain

and the United States to lift the 11-year ban on international trade with Iraq misstated the reason for the departure of international inspectors there in 1998. It occurred—that December, before the United States and Britain began bombing raids

on Iraq—because the United Nations feared that they might be harmed or taken

hostage. They were not expelled.

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