The fall of the Baghdad wall
(Filed: 19/01/2003) The teams of UN inspectors sent to investigate Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction arsenal made a stunning breakthrough last week when they uncovered evidence of Iraq's attempts to build an atom bomb. Con Coughlin and Julian Coman in Washington report
T hursday evening turned into a wild night at the al-Hyatt hotel in Baghdad, for the 150 or so United Nations weapons inspectors who have made it their home.
Jordanian-imported wine flowed, glasses of whiskey were handed round and, as one witness put it, "the men from the UN with their blue baseball caps and grey faces were suddenly smiling".
During their two-and-a-half month stay in Iraq, the inspectors have not developed a reputation for holding late-night parties. Almost all are soberly in bed by 11pm, in order to be up the next day at 6.30 for a breakfast of fried eggs, omelettes or bread rolls. But this was a special occasion.
During the day, the United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic), had made the first significant find since its arrival in Iraq.
At the Ukhaider weapons depot, 90 miles south-west of Baghdad, inspectors had discovered 12 hidden artillery shells designed to carry chemical weapons. "We finally found something shaped like a weapon and not like a test-tube," said one inspector.
But while in public the inspectors were celebrating their discovery of the artillery shells, in private experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna were digesting the details of a substantially more significant find - the blueprint of Saddam's nuclear weapons project.
On the same morning that a team of inspectors had found the 12 artillery shells, another team of nuclear weapons experts had paid a surprise visit to the homes of two of Saddam's leading nuclear physicists who worked for Iraq's top secret for the Ministry of Military Industrialisation (MMI).
The ministry, which is run by Saddam's younger son Qusay, recently replaced the Military Industrialisation Organisation (MIO), the institution which historically has controlled the development of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction arsenal since the mid-1970s.
In their eagerness to get into the scientists' homes, some of the inspectors had been seen jumping over a garden wall.
Once inside they found what one Western official has described as a "highly significant" batch of documents which, on closer inspection, revealed that Saddam's scientists were continuing development work on producing an Iraqi nuclear weapon.
Although these documents are this weekend still being examined by IAEA experts to establish the current state of Saddam's nuclear weapons programme, the discovery could well turn out to be the "smoking gun" that officials in the Bush administration have pinned their hopes on obtaining in order to justify launching military action against Baghdad.
When Saddam submitted his 12,000 page dossier to the United Nations Security Council at the end of last year, the Iraqi leader insisted that Baghdad no longer had any interest in developing nuclear weapons, and that Iraq's nuclear research programme had been discontinued.
The documents seized at the homes of the two scientists, however, confirm what Western intelligence has been arguing all along, that Saddam is continuing with his quest to develop the first Arab atom bomb.
Ever since the inspectors arrived back in Iraq two-and-a-half months ago, Saddam has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal the true nature of his nuclear weapons programme.
Key Iraqi scientists have been given new identities and smuggled out of the country to take up postings in the Far East, and top secret documents have been hidden in the homes of Iraqi government officials.
Saddam's concealment operation had been so successful that the UN inspectors were having difficulty finding anything of any significance.
What made last week's breakthrough possible was a radical improvement in relations between UN weapons inspectors and Western intelligence.
When the inspectors first arrived in Baghdad last November, American and British intelligence officials in particular were reluctant to hand over sensitive information because they were not convinced that they could trust the UN.
Having eventually satisfied themselves that the inspection teams could handle top-secret information, intelligence officers provided the inspectors with the information which resulted in last week's discovery of the artillery shells and the nuclear documentation.
Certainly the discoveries could not have been better timed. Only last Wednesday, during a meeting of a Parliamentary Labour Party that is less and less minded to go to war with Saddam, Tony Blair had taken a hammering from his growing number of critics.
Glenda Jackson, MP, was particularly critical, making the acid remark that the only "weapon of mass destruction" located thus far turned out to be a kitchen knife used to stab a Manchester policeman searching for non-existent ricin. Mr Blair told MPs to "wait and see". Miraculously, the next day, there was something to look at.
Even so it is unlikely that last week's discoveries will resolve the fundamental dilemma that is developing at the UN Security Council.
The cat and mouse game between the weapons inspectors and Saddam is not the only one in town. The US administration and chief weapons inspector Hans Blix are also involved in their own private war of position.
During the fruitless helicopter rides to deserted warehouses and the unsuccessful lightening raids in white UN jeeps, a persistent question had preoccupied administration officials in Washington as well as Mr Blix.
What would a "find" - even one as significant as the nuclear weapons dossier - signify? A case for extending the inspections or a licence to go to war against Saddam?
"Last week's breakthrough has become the latest issue to show the divide between Blix and George Bush," said a western UN diplomat.
"During the week, when nothing had yet been found, Mr Blix had said he expected to continue inspections after his report to the UN on January 27 before making another report in March. The Bush administration wants much more flexibility than that for military action."
On Friday, Mr Blix travelled to three European capitals to make his case. Because his nuclear experts were still examining the documents taken from the homes of the Iraqi nuclear scientists, Mr Blix deliberately confined his comments to Thursday's discovery of the artillery shells which, he said, demonstrated that inspections were making an impact.
But the content of both the discoveries was of relatively minor importance. He needed more time, particularly to examine the true extent of Saddam's nuclear capability. His colleague, the head of the UN nuclear weapons agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, talked about a "few months".
Before an hour of talks with Mr Blair at Chequers on Friday, Mr Blix, while making no reference to the significance of the nuclear find, said that he did not consider the shells the "smoking gun" that would justify war.
In Paris, after meeting with the French president Jacques Chirac, he said that the chemical warheads were "not a big thing". In Brussels, he privately told diplomats that the warheads were "empty" and added that he did not think that the United States could prevent an extension of inspections well beyond the end of January.
The Bush administration took an exactly opposite view. Earlier in the week, Mr Bush had said he was "sick and tired" of Iraq's constant deceptions.
On Friday afternoon, after the apparent evidence of yet another such deception, the president's spokesman Ari Fleischer said that the inspectors' findings were "troubling and serious".
Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, then gave stark signals that the end of January could signal the end of Saddam's last chance to disarm.
"Mr Powell believes that a persuasive case will be there at the end of the month that Iraq is not co-operating (with the UN resolution)," said the State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "There's no point in continuing forever, going on, if Iraq is not co-operating."
For some former weapons inspectors, Mr Blix's continued caution has provided an exasperating spectacle. "I'm not sure what the blazes it is that inspectors and the world's diplomats expect in terms of a smoking gun," said Richard O Spertzel, a former head of the UN biological weapons inspections unit.
"If it's loaded munitions, this is a waste of their time. How many filled munitions did we find in more than seven years? None."
Today, Mr Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei meet for two days of talks with Iraqi government officials. Mr Blix will demand an explanation for omissions in Iraq's December weapons declaration to the UN. According to Baghdad's UN ambassador, any "misunderstandings" can be ironed out.
Mr Blix, while in Paris, also called for Iraq to take active steps to demonstrate that it was not playing games with the inspectors. But in Washington there is a distinct sense, compounded by the week's events, that patience is almost at an end.
State Department officials brief that the US will not feel bound to seek a new UN Security council resolution to go to war, if it remains convinced that Iraq is determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
In London, a Labour minister said: "Blair feels the need of a UN resolution more than Bush does. Blair would still quite like it if it could be got. But the UK view is that we don't need it but we'd like it."
The UN weapons inspectors have had their finest hour and deserved a party to celebrate. But none of the "Americans", as ordinary Iraqis like to call them, are in any doubt that there may not be much time left for another triumph.
In an off-guard moment at the end of an exhausting week, Hiro Ueki, an Unmovic spokesman, suddenly gave a wry smile: "Make no mistake. We will be here on January 28. But I'm not sure where we will be on January 29."
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17 January 2003: Chemical warheads found in Saddam bunker |
