NPR Weekend Edition October 19, 2002
Have Satellite, Will Spy
Iraq is one of the most photographed countries in the world -- from hundreds of miles up. Every few hours, a satellite passes overhead, gazing down on swimming pools, mosques, houses -- and military facilities. The satellites reveal warehouses, too, but it's hard to tell if they hold chemical weapons or baby milk. Analysts need extra clues, and reliable ones are hard to come by. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports for Weekend Edition Saturday.
Iraq says it has no weapons of mass destruction, but the world is doubtful. An independent organization called Global Security is one of a handful of groups outside the military trying to assess the situation.
Tim Brown, an analyst with Global Security, says the goal is to give the public direct access to information as Iraq and the United States edge closer to war.
"You have the official government view, and then you have the Iraqi view, and then somewhere in between, there's the truth," he tells Kestenbaum.
Last month, United Nations weapons inspectors said there was new construction at an old Iraqi nuclear site. Brown posted on the Web commercial satellite pictures showing the new buildings. Soon after, to his surprise, an Iraqi official was waving those very pictures around, denying the charges and offering tours to journalists to disprove the claims.
The tours turned out to be brief and revealed little, says Kestenbaum. But what was interesting was that the pictures seemed to have provoked action.
On the afternoon Kestenbaum visited Global Security, Julian Borger, the U.S. bureau chief for the British newspaper The Guardian, brought in maps sketched by an Iraqi defector. The defector claimed to have worked on chemical weapons, and the maps purportedly provided the locations of weapons sites.
Borger and Brown pored over satellite images to try to find a match with the map. Satellite confirmation might mean the defector is telling the truth.
They did find an image that seems to mesh with a map that described a nuclear lab under a park. Brown located what could be the park, but that doesn't prove there's a lab. Brown's considering posting it on the Web; he's looking for a reaction -- or confirmation -- from the U.S. government. Or Iraq.
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