The Advertiser February 07, 2003
IRAQ'S SECRET WEAPONS; Damning evidence
By KIM GAMEL in New York and IAN McPHEDRAN in Canberra
Most experts say the US evidence against Iraq is conclusive, as KIM GAMEL in New York and IAN McPHEDRAN in Canberra report.
THEY were fuzzy, long-distance images that made our worst holiday snaps look professional. But experts say within the grainy satellite photographs presented to the UN Security Council yesterday by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, is a goldmine of evidence which condemns Iraq's President Saddam Hussein.
Intelligence analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, Steven Aftergood, says the conclusions can only be drawn from the images with an expert eye and other related background evidence. "I'm certain that his (Mr Powell's) account is accurate. There is an art to the interpretation of satellite imagery that requires a certain amount of experience and also access to a massive database of relevant images," he says.
Tim Brown, a senior associate at the Washington military institute, globalsecurity.org, points out that the original CIA images would be of far better quality than those reproduced in newspapers.
"For security reasons, they would not have shown the full resolution images because they don't want to give away their capability," he says.
"So they would have made them look much fuzzier and that may be why it was so difficult for the untrained eye to identify objects."
One specialist quoted in London's Guardian newspaper was unconvinced. Syracuse University space-imaging expert Mark Monmonier, says: "Of course, what they're apparently looking for is not easily revealed on high-resolution space imagery. So much depends on intelligent inference - but inference none the less."
Washington's Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute expert Jonathan Ban says the chemical decontamination truck shown at one of the alleged chemical weapons' sites is compelling evidence.
"It would be the practice for the Iraqis to have a decontamination vehicle beside the bunker and some kind of building monitoring for leakages," he says.
"If you accept the US analysis - and I do - one blob on the image is the decontamination truck and the other is the security building, there's a high possibility that there were chemical weapons inside."
Mr Ban, a chemical weapons specialist, is highly critical of Iraq earthmoving work at one of the sites. "At the very least, this does show evidence of cover-up activity," he says.
One image which interested missile weapons experts showed a large missile engine test stand. International Institute for Strategic Studies senior fellow Gary Samore says: "It shows that Iraq is still interested in long-range weapons."
Australian National University terrorism expert Clive Williams says the Powell dossier - including the photographs, tapes and written material - did not provide a knockout blow but it provided further strong evidence of Iraq's deception.
"There has never been any doubt that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons," Mr Williams says.
British defence experts were divided on the impact of Mr Powell's speech.
DEFENCE analyst with the Royal United Services Institute Ellie Goldsworthy says the level of detail presented by Mr Powell helped build a damning picture.
Mr Powell made "a very good case, it was credible and convincing," she says.
"The case is now made for material breach of the UN resolution."
But another specialist at the institute, William Hopkinson, says: "I doubt very much whether (Mr Powell's presentation) will convince many people on the Security Council to change their minds."
Political and international reaction to the evidence was predictable. The elaborate 80-minute "sound-and-light" show, as some diplomats referred to it, received mixed reviews from the 15-member Security Council audience.
The four other veto-bearing members of the Security Council stood by their earlier statements, with Britain supporting the US position, France opposing it and Russia and China urging for UN inspectors to be given more time.
Military and scientific experts expressed the most alarm over Mr Powell's evidence that Iraq still pursued nuclear weapons.
Mr Powell told the Security Council Saddam had two out of the three key components needed to build a nuclear bomb, and since 1998, he had actively sought to find the third - fissile material.
An expert with the Natural Resources Defence Council in Washington, Robert Norris, says the Powell evidence "confirms that Saddam Hussein is trying to reconstitute his nuclear program".
Director of the Wisconsin Project in Washington, Professor Gary Milholin, says: "What Powell said was entirely credible."
"When you have the knowledge and a workable design (for a nuclear bomb), you can never say you have eliminated the program." Mr Milholin was especially interested in Iraq's procurement of aluminium tubes which could be used for making a bomb.
"He was also specific about the procurement activities."
Other experts cited Mr Powell's evidence of links between Iraq and terrorists as damning.
Mr Powell accused Iraq of harbouring Abu Musab Zarqawi, an al-Qaida operative linked to the murder of a US diplomat in Jordan and poison plots in a half-dozen European countries.
An analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Jonathan Stevenson, describes the link to Zarqawi as "significant" but notes that Mr Powell failed to tie Iraq to any previous al-Qaida operation.
France's top terrorism investigator, Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, says he was unaware of any direct link between Iraq and al-Qaida.
It may not take long to find out with certainty.
Clive Williams believes the next phase of the US campaign will be war - and it will start probably two or three weeks after UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix presents his next report, which will be on February 14.
Copyright © 2003, Nationwide News Pty Limited
