Posted on 05/11/2003 7:17:59 PM PDT by FairOpinion
CAMP DOHA, Kuwait May 11 — U.S. weapons hunters empty-handed after seven weeks of field work are still operating without translators, have had almost no contact with Iraqi scientists and can't tell what's missing from looted sites where suspected weapons of mass destruction were thought to be hidden.
Some of the problems are logistical. Others seem to be the result of limited manpower and expertise. In interviews with The Associated Press, military planners involved in the search said they were working to solve them.
While the basic work structure will continue, they said, several elements are expected to improve now that former U.N. inspectors are joining the operation and its command is switching to the Pentagon.
Experts say the changes are desperately needed if the Bush administration is to prove Iraq had the chemical or biological weapons the White House said it went to war to destroy.
"I can't imagine how they could get much accomplished without interpreters and translators, this is basic stuff," said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. inspector and a bioweapons expert with the U.S. Institute for Peace.
The current teams also haven't been tagging or cataloguing sites nearly all of which were looted by the time the teams arrived. In every case, they have been unable to determine what, if anything, might have been taken at any given time.
Lt. Col. Michael Slifka, an arms control expert who helped put together the Site Survey Teams, said the teams were conceived to be rapidly sent to suspicious sites. Securing those locations from theft wasn't considered in advance, he said.
"I certainly didn't expect the Iraqi populace to go in to places like this and loot things."
Several of the most sensitive sites are being guarded by U.S. troops, but their presence is likely making the areas appear even more valuable. There are reports of civilians finding back ways into the sites to remove more items.
Some help is expected next month when the weapons teams, which have been operating under the command of field artillery Col. Richard McPhee, are folded into the Iraq Survey Group a new, Pentagon-led team of some 2,000 people charged with investigating everything from potential war crimes committed by Saddam Hussein's regime to alleged terrorist connections with al-Qaida.
But the change in command will not mean beefing up the size of the search teams. In fact, two officials said the field teams under pressure from Washington and overburdened by a mammoth list of suspected weapons sites could become smaller.
Currently there are five operational Site Survey Teams staffed by a small number of weapons experts, soldiers and Special Forces who handle initial assessment missions. Any potential finds are analyzed by one of two Mobile Exploitation Teams.
None of the teams were assigned translators. Slifka said they were trying to correct that but that expanding the overall staff size wouldn't be necessary if Iraqis come forward with key information, as Washington hopes they will.
"If we get the cooperation of the Iraqis then we're probably going to be in good shape," Slifka said at Camp Doha, Kuwait, a dusty desert base that was command center for land forces during the Iraq war.
But that cooperation hasn't been forthcoming.
Few scientists have offered information, and U.S. officials have said even senior Iraqis in custody are continuing to insist the country wasn't secretly developing weapons of mass destruction in recent years.
Slifka could think of only one example in which an Iraqi scientist had led a team to an area where materials for a weapons program were said to have been buried or destroyed. But the site yielded no conclusive evidence and much of the scientist's claims have not been verified.
Some team members and even officials back in Washington have begun to doubt actual weapons will be found. Instead they now talk of finding evidence of infrastructure that could have been used to quickly produce unconventional weapons.
Still, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that weapons of mass destruction may still be in the hands of Iraqi special units and could be used against coalition forces.
"Were they full-deployed and could they have been brought to bear on us, or are they still perhaps out there somewhere in some sort of bunker and could have been used?" Myers said in Qatar during a tour of the Persian Gulf. "We are trying to run that one to the ground."
McPhee's 75th Exploitation Task Force, which is headed home once the survey group sets up, began with a list of 900 suspect sites, 90 of them deemed high-priority. Of the top sites, 75 have been examined, McPhee said Thursday.
Slifka said each team is currently visiting one site a day far fewer on average than U.N. teams conducted during their stint which began in late November and ended shortly before the war began March 20.
Even as the United States was drafting the U.N. resolution last fall that sent chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix and his teams back to Iraq, it was already planning for their failure, Slifka said.
"There was a concern that the Iraqis would be grudgingly compliant and that as a result the U.N. would eventually pull out and report that the Iraqis were not being completely compliant and forthcoming and that we would then need a capability of our own to try and find the Iraqi WMD program."
Still, a number of American and British weapons experts who served on the previous U.N. inspection regime not led by Blix are being included on the U.S. teams. The former inspectors know many within Iraq's scientific and military community and are familiar with years of evidence and intelligence gathered during the 1990s.
The United States provided Blix with some intelligence which didn't yield results. The best leads, however, were followed up unsuccessfully by the 75th XTF.
Even so, Slifka said he wouldn't be disappointed if the teams didn't find anything. Just understanding the roots of Saddam's efforts something never fully achieved by the U.N. teams would be an accomplishment in itself.
"Eventually we'll put some sort of arms control measures in place, set up monitoring and teach a new Iraqi government how to do it themselves."
Ahhhhh....Pat Buchanan,
Nevermind.
Palestinians should be treated as equals, Israeli policy has been a horrible mistake.
I am an Objectivist who believes that the Constitution is the finest framework that the mind of man has conceived with which to achieve individual and collective greatness.
But being objective, I am also cognizant of the FACT that one of the two major parties will be the future stewards of that document.
That being the case, I most often vote Republican but belong to no party.
No sense in being a damn fool about about the whole thing.
Why don't you oppose the Republicrat attack on the Constitution? If you truly desire change how can you vote for the duopoly?
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