Agence France Presse January 30, 2003
US spy machine desperately seeks evidence Saddam
By Francis Temman
The United States spies on everything that moves in Iraq, but the glimpses Washington has promised could be barely enough to keep up a smokescreen, according to several intelligence experts.
Washington plans next week to turn over to the UN Security Council top-secret evidence to back its case that Iraq has banned weapons of mass destruction and ties with terrorist networks, such as al-Qaeda.
"We would like to see undeniable proof" before going to war, said Russia's ambassador to the UN, Serguei Lavrov. US Secretary of State Colin Powell is to make the UN presentation on February 5.
Powell said Wednesday he would deliver a "comprehensive" case that Iraq is continuing to defy disarmament demands but has not said what evidence will be shown.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it would contain newly declassified material from the Central Intelligence Agency. But officials have insisted that US sources in Iraq must be protected.
The United States has many means of spying on Iraq, such as satellite imagery, aerial surveillance, communications intercepts and interviews with Iraqi exiles.
"At this point, you have to make a convincing public case that they are stockpiling" weapons of mass destruction, former CIA counterterrorism chief Vincent Cannistrano told AFP.
"It's pretty clear that whatever Saddam (has) is small quantities and very mobile.
"The problem is that Washington does not have a 'smoking gun', but there is evidence that's very good, showing that Saddam is playing a shell game."
"There is very good intelligence indicating that Saddam Huessein has penetrated the communications at the UN compound in Baghdad," Cannistrano said.
"His intelligence people have implanted technical devices and of course they have local employees working for him.
"That gives the Iraq intelligence service some advance warning, not a lot, but enough so that they can move some things around."
Washington has plenty of means to spy on Iraq from the sky. Six military satellites stare down on the country, furnishing nearly round-the-clock images of sensitive Iraqi sites.
However, the spy satellites cannot see through walls.
"Satellite photography is not of any help here because it just shows things moving around, it doesn't tell you what is moving around," Cannistrano said.
As for exiled scientists, "Defectors are generally unreliable because a lot of them have fabricated stories. They tell us what we want to hear, others what they've heard from second or third-hand (sources)."
Cannistrano added that the evidence of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida seemed "not terribly reliable".
Another matter concerns Washington's unwillingness to share evidence with the United Nations.
"The problem is that if the administration had a 'smoking gun' or knew for a fact where everything was and what the program was up to, one would have thought that UNMOVIC (the UN weapons inspectors) would have been told about it or the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) would have already received the intelligence," GlobalSecurity.org analyst Patrick Garrett told AFP.
Garrett also said US intelligence services have proven themselves to be less than perfect, recalling the erroneous bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999.
"Another example would be the Sudan pharmaceutical plant, that was presented as a chemical facility," he said.
Copyright © 2003, Agence France Presse
