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WASHINGTON INSTITUTE LUNCHEON WITH
ROLF EKEUS,
EXECUTIVE CHAIR, U.N. SPECIAL COMMISSION
TOPIC: IRAQ
MODERATOR: ROBERT SATLOFF, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE
THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
1828 L STREET WASHINGTON, DC
12:35 P.M. EST WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 1997

MR. EKEUS: Thank you, Bob, for this introduction.

Indeed, I had tried when I'd been here before to give a comprehensive presentation of the work of the Special Commission. But, as Bob pointed out, six years have gone, and it becomes too much. I have to -- this time to pick bits and pieces and rush maybe into the present situation. But I would like to encourage during the discussion questions of importance which give - can shed light on the whole complex of issues we are to discuss today.

But let us anyhow recall it was six years ago, fundamentally, that the Gulf War and the -- in April '91 the Security Council adopted this Resolution 687, which we called cease-fire resolution. It was an interesting fact that it was a victorious coalition that did not dictate the conditions for the cease-fire; it was handed over to the Security -- to the United Nations and, there, the Security Council to formulate the provisions. And this was, I think, an interesting step in the history of the United Nations -- to take over such responsibility. But it also puts a lot of responsibilities on the United Nations, and we will see in our discussions that it is not always easy to live up to these responsibilities.

The agent, as Bob pointed out, for implementing a major portion of the cease-fire resolution -- namely, items related to the weapons of mass destruction -- that agent became the Special Commission -- and to carry out that, in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, with regard to the nuclear component.

And the deal presented in the resolution was a very simple one. It just said to Iraq, "Give up your weapons, and we give you your oil." And of course, it is no small deal. We know we can now say that if Iraq had accepted the deal from the very beginning, outset, it would have gained more than -- up (to ?) today, in export income, hundreds -- more than hundred -- $100 billion worth if it would export its OPEC quota 3.3 million barrels a day. And with today's price on oil, it is more a matter of $30 billion a year which is lost in the process.

Of course, Iraq can say, "This is not anything we lose; it is income we don't -- can't make use of. But the oil is in the ground and the money's in the bank." And the real loss is not, therefore, of course, to compare with these numbers.

But anyhow, the deal -- the answer from Iraq was clear -- not in words, but in deeds: There is no deal. This deal is no deal.

It was clear that Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, who decides everything, as we know, also decided to keep -- try to keep both the weapons and achieve a relief lifting of the oil embargo. And the way to do it was obviously to confuse the U.N. inspectors. And I sometimes see in -- even in reputed magazines and responsible writers stating that the U.N. inspectors have been (sort of ?) cheated systematically and lost everything in this process. And of course, this is something I strongly object to. It is totally the opposite, and I will try to explain today what is happening.

It is not in one case, I think, we really have been, in the end, cheated. That doesn't mean -- so what I mean, who is losing here is systematically Iraq. Iraq is losing every day that goes.

In the morning they wake up, Saddam wakes up, without right to export his oil. Now we have this more limited scheme -- we can discuss it later -- but fundamentally not -- he is politically isolated. He has no possibility to develop his economy. The infrastructure is deteriorating. And his people are suffering. When he goes to bed, the situation is similar, only that another day of deprivation has been added to the record. So I don't see much of a triumph or success or strengthening in that (policy ?).

From the very beginning, from the very first days in April '91, it was clear that Iraq -- which road Iraq decided to go. We now can see that in the missile area, Iraq -- we talk about missiles, ballistic missiles with a range above 150 kilometers, which is prohibited. Shorter ranges are permitted. In that area Iraq gave up something like 50, 49 missiles to the inspectors for destruction, but decided to keep some 85 operational Soviet missiles in various configurations, SCUDs, or the prolonged (sic) version -- the various versions of al-Hussein: short al-Hussein and long al-Hussein, and some other variations.

In the chemical area we now see that it was exactly the same pattern. I don't know why they chose one-third, but they gave up one- third and tried to keep two-thirds. For instance, if you take chemical weapons, Iraq gave up something like 12,000 pieces of chemical rockets, 122-millimeter rockets, and kept 26,000.

So -- and in the biological area, there it was a total denial: "We have no biological capability, no biological weapons."

And in the nuclear weapons area, it was different. Iraq had no nuclear weapons, even as, we know, they were moving very close to one -- at least one nuclear weapon in the form of a nuclear missile. But there we had, I would say, a gradual disclosure, a denial of any nuclear program, weapons program, and then, in the process, gradual, so to say, admissions.

Our approach to all these things has been to establish what we call a material balance. That is, on the one side, account for what has Iraq acquired through imports, through development and through production, internal production, and on the other, of course, what remains; that is, what maybe was used in the Gulf War, used up in the Gulf War, what has been used up even in the early war against Iran, when we talk about chemical weapons and long-range missiles, and what has been accounted for in the form of declaration and following up destruction of the weapons.

And the same goes, of course, for the production equipment. As you know, it's not only weapons which are prohibited, but it is production capabilities, production equipment and production facilities have also been declared and to be destroyed.

Well, Iraq decided. We, so to say, have gradually managed to get almost a complete picture on the one side of the balance, what has been acquired. And that is, I think, no small feat. We have to there depend on work with governments, and mostly, I'm sorry to say, the Western governments were the ones providing the technology, the machines, the machine tools and the methods and the blueprints. Maybe others, especially, of course, Soviet Union was a major provider of the missiles themselves, the weapons themselves, concerning bombs, rockets in order to carry weapons of mass destruction like biological and chemical. It was a mix of home-produced bombs -- of home-produced delivery systems and others bought from a number of countries which I'm too polite to mention. (Laughter.)

So anyhow, we have -- I think it was very important, and something which wasn't given for free. When I took up this job in April '91, one of the first things I did was to write a letter to practically all countries with the capability, I think some 75 governments in the world, and asked them, according to the resolution, to come to me and tell us what they knew about what has been provided.

I would say it was a pathetic answer. (Laughter.) Practically no one answered. And so we had to start from I would say zero in the sense of try to -- thanks to -- our inspection activities in Iraq gave us the leads. Then we had to approach governments. Then we -- say, if we find the name of the company on the machine -- because we went to that government and asked to talk to the producer of the machine -- and, of course, there became a lot of nervousness. "Oh, no, it was" -- you know -- "sent through various channels. It was not sold." And then, of course, we were not allowed to talk to the company. And investigations took place. If it was a criminal investigation; if it was too sensitive to give the information to us if it is a criminal process; if it was no criminal process, they could, of course, not give the information to us. (Laughter.) I suppose they were innocent.

So our work had to build this sort of confidence in our ways to approach it. And I think one of the key elements there was the confidentiality. I think we managed to build, over the years, trust in the methods. And the more and more I would say exotic agencies started to deal with us after we established this pattern of capability of handling sensitive material. And you should know that the Special Commission in that sense is a very -- it's a unique organization. It's probably the only one inside the U.N. system, which is subject to systematic counterintelligence and is systematically -- and has to work with -- in an unfriendly environment, and -- if you recall any peacekeeping operation -- is based upon an invitation by the host country.

But we are imposed upon the host country. And we have, I would say, a -- very active activities, a very active effort directed against our work, against our personnel; classical techniques of certain undercutting credibility or threatening, intimidating, and so on, on (some say ?) the daily experiences for our best people.

So -- but anyhow, this confidence-building in the international community has been a decisive factor. It's very interesting for everyone involved, in general terms, in non-proliferation issues, how important cooperation and transparency is. But also how important capability to deal with such information in a very -- in a protective and balanced way I think are key elements for success in such a venture.

The mastermind in Iraq behind -- to carry out Saddam Hussein's order to go for no deal was, of course, Hussein Kamel. And it was no doubt a very interesting development when he defected in August, '95. We saw almost -- there was a trend, I mean, almost feeling, that Iraq was testing to give up at that stage its concealment policy. Autumn '95 was a very interesting period for us because a new openness was shown by the Iraqi side and we had quite radical progress in the investigation work.

However, early '96, it appears that Iraq decided to harden its persistence again. Obviously, somewhere there in January, February last year, a decision was taken to stop the process of cooperation and we ran into the usual policy of blockage.

Our response was to start a completely new campaign, in addition to our other work. But maybe most significant was to prepare a program for systematically focusing upon the concealment policies of Iraq. And it was clear to us and we learned that Iraq developed over the years methods to protect and hide a number of weapons -- what kind of weapons, at that stage and today, we suspect they still keep, and capabilities. Well, we think there are small quantities left. And later on, maybe during questions, I will describe what we have, so to say, found and destroyed, but what remains.

There is a number -- we -- we can't say that we know there remains missiles. But we have not accounted for missiles Iraq has acquired. And that is quite, I would say, a significant number to the degree -- I mean, with the word "significant" -- that it could constitute a force of missiles, a complete missile operation force. This is a very important statement, obviously, as Iraq, we once learned in the process (of ?) autumn '95 and last year, '96, that Iraq prepared their missiles for biological and chemical warfare.

In the biological field, you'll recall that last year we found a number of -- we cleared up, I think finalized the clearing up of Iraq's production capabilities and destroyed the large production facility al-Hakam. But that doesn't mean that Iraq is not still concealing certain biological capabilities. Iraq has not declared completely its biological weapons activities. On the contrary, the so-called full final complete disclosure Iraq is supposed to give to us is full of contradictions, misstatements, understatements. And we again can only draw the conclusion that there is something which is hidden behind the outrightly wrong and misleading declarations.

In the chemical area it's the same problem. I mentioned already the matter of chemical weapons Iraq was trying to hide. I have to hasten to add we have identified most of these hidden elements, and they have been destroyed by now. But still an advanced effort after the Iran-Iraq war had been -- to say Iraq denied any production activity after the 8th of August 1988. But through a fantastic success by our inspectors, who penetrated some of the remnants after the gulf war, some of the bunkers and managed this year -- '96, I mean -- to penetrate into these bombed bunkers and salvage the safe of the director of the (Fana ?) state establishment, the big chemical establishment. And bringing out that safe we found the reports on the quality controller.

And there we could see from day to day the quality of the production of chemical agents, how much had been done and the quality after the 8th of August '88, which Iraq had said was the cut-off date for its production. When we confronted, I had the pleasure to show these documents to Mr. Tariq Aziz in October. He said that this person who was the chief of the quality control was a very young man and very irresponsible, and probably stupid -- (laughter), and that could be the only explanation. That, of course, hasn't satisfied us.

So indeed there are things which are concealed. And the campaign of concealment has been focused against, first of all, the missile hiding, but also to some degree against nuclear, chemical and biological aspects, but the focus has been. And you probably have seen in the media -- this is event since I was here last time -- that we have been blocked.

Why have we been blocked? Well, when we go for concealment, we have figured out that the responsibility for concealment are central security organs of Iraq. It's not the army, and not hardly even the Republican Guard, but something called the Special Republican Guard, at least personnel and groups from that organization is involved, and the security organs are the ones who are responsible, protection of these items.

That means, however, that the same organs are also responsible for the security of the leadership, and that creates, obviously, a political situation and climate of tension and bring a very serious element into the life of our inspectors. We have moved -- we moved in March, the first time we moved against such institutions, locations (guarded and owned ?) by these organs. Not surprisingly, we were blocked. We went to the Security Council and asked for support, and after some coughing and humming, they gave us some support in the form of statements.

We continued with -- armed with those statements and also Resolution 1060, on the Chapter 7, giving Iraq (an active ?) warning in that respect -- continued, armed with this resolution and statements, but we were again blocked.

We tried the diplomatic route. I, in mid- -- on the 22nd of June, Tariq Aziz signed and I signed what we called a joint statement, where Iraq undertook -- that was under the pressure from the Security Council -- undertook in writing to give the commission access to all locations it wanted or wants to investigate. Without such a reservation on our side, we undertook to respect legitimate -- Iraq's legitimate security concerns -- their sovereignty, Iraq's sovereignty and legitimate security concerns.

Legitimate security concerns -- (now ?) the word "legitimate" is obviously very important, as weapons of mass destruction are NOT legitimate. So Iraq cannot evoke a security concern to protect their prohibited chemical weapons or missiles.

(One could ?) -- the question with the word "sovereignty," what kind of role it plays, as I said, there is no exceptions from the right, but it is, in course, a decision to be taken by us when we face such situations.

And I don't want to give an example, but I can say Iraq has a tendency to expand, say, a presidential palace from the very building and the grounds immediately around it into very large areas; so-called presidential areas (will ?) cover now large part of Iraq. (Laughter.) And we will, of course, not accept such things under the sovereignty aspect.

We were hopeful about the -- and we also entered into the joint program of action to -- which contained an effort to put the political control on all activities. That is that Tariq Aziz and myself established more or less a sort of directorate over the operations, in the sense that we meet each second month and that we, at these occasions, make an assessment and we sort of discuss the future.

But -- and one of the key elements in the joint program of action is to establish what we call a material balance, back again to that. So that means what has been acquired should be accounted for fully. And politically, I felt this was an important breakthrough that Iraq admit to that, and we were quite optimistic after these statements.

However, very quickly Iraq managed to square the circle at our next concealment inspection when we were moving again to another place where we had good reason to believe missiles were hidden. Instead of allow us, Iraq instead there blocked us on the road to this, so that we never came to the facility and could invoke our right to enter the facility. So it was a road blockage technique established instead, and our inspectors were stopped with -- so to say, point blank -- weapons pointed directly at them. So there we again were blocked.

We came back to the Security Council, of course, and complained. And you could see the sigh of, so to say, exhaustion in the faces of these worthy personalities making up the Security Council. "Are these guys coming complaining again?" (Laughter.)

And this is a matter which I must say it becomes more and more difficult for us. In an effort to clarify some of the concealment, we decided also last year to excavate missiles, remnants of missiles, that is; destroyed missiles which were secretly destroyed by Iraq, which we dug up in '92 and counted, made a preliminary counting of, and then, so to say, buried them again. We decided last year to excavate these missiles and make a more thorough investigation by taking all missiles out of the country and bringing them here to the United States where we had convinced the Defense Department to give laboratory time at Huntsville Laboratory for an investigation of these 150 -- or remnants supposedly from 150 operational missiles; and to count exactly how many real missiles are there and how many fake are there to be counted as operational -- in that way, through a simple arithmetic process, figure out how many operational missiles have not been destroyed.

Iraq blocked us to carry out. They said we are not allowed to do this. And we, of course, complained to the Security Council. And they felt it was a good idea that I, anyhow, should go to Baghdad in December. So they said let's wait and see what comes out of that. I went to Baghdad in December and had some interesting talks on several issues.

But the matter of removal of these missile engines was not (solidly ?) reported back to the council.

And, on the 30th of December, it issued a statement, which is interesting. If you recall the Resolution 1060 earlier this year -- in '96 -- it's again a rather stiff warning. They deplored Iraq's behavior and demanded that Iraq should comply with our demands. But now they said in this December statement -- 30 December -- that they reminded Iraq about its obligations. (Laughter.)

And it's like I have forgotten to pay my dentist's bill. He (would probably ?) be as polite and remind me of my outstanding bill.

And quite clearly Iraq took the message. And early January, we met serious obstructions now on quite harmless things like requests for documents, the removal of some chemical bombs for investigation; declarations with regard to their Abadhil (sp) 100 Program, the 100- kilometer-range missile program; and so on. And the Iraqis say: "Well, you see, the Council is not backing you. The Security Council is" -- so to say -- "not strong on these issues. And we, therefore, see no reason why we should cooperate with you," because this is the reason which may -- this is an event, which makes us a little disturbed. I think Iraq is totally wrong in its counting of the Security Council's position. But it shows how important this interplay is with what is going on in the field and the council.

So we are, of course, in the process of briefing the members, familiarize themselves with the situation and hope that we will, in the coming weeks and months, get together a -- clear and coherent statements of policies, again because the leadership must be in the hands of the United States, also to take the lead and convince others if it is so that everyone is in agreement that we should account for all these weapons. I can assure you that these states in the regions are very interested and are seriously concerned. They recognize that these capabilities, which remain, at least have not been accounted for, constitute powerful input on the whole stability in the region and, in the broad perspective, also a powerful statement in relation to the energy security of the United States and its allies and the Western industrialized world, in general.

So these are the observations I would like to make as we start, and I guess we will take questions from here on.

MR. SATLOFF: Thank you very much.

Given your half-a-dozen years in dealing with the Security Council, could you offer some insight as to why the change, say, from summer to winter in the approach of the Security Council toward Iraqi noncompliance?

MR. EKEUS: Well, I must say that I think there is an overall complacency in the sense that fundamentally the situation in Iraq is under control. I totally, as I say, skipped the very important fact that the Special Commission is not only looking for concealment but, together with the IAEA, we have now in the recent years established a monitoring system over the whole Iraqi industry, its chemical activities, biological, medical, food processing and so on, in every area where Iraq would -- should theoretically be able to reestablish and reawaken its weapons program. And this is a system which is based -- where we have a center in Baghdad monitoring, where we have some 100 experts, scientists and process specialists and supported by aerial surveillance, communication specialists and so on.

So it's quite, I think, a good system, and they feel satisfied that under present circumstances, Iraq will not be able reestablish this capability without being detected. Of course, they can throw us out, so that would be a (quick move ?). But at least under present circumstances, I think there is the feeling that the situation is under control and there are other problematic areas on the global scene which one has to keep in mind. So I think this is first of all -- I think we are victims of our own success, to some degree.

MR. SATLOFF: I would like to turn the floor over to questions. If I could also just inform you all we're testing a new audio system today, so if you can't hear in the front to the back, then if you could just, you know, put your hand to your ear and I'll be able to tell whether or not the system is working properly.

First, Jessica Matthews (sp).

Q I was struck by your comment that in the fall of '95 you started focusing systematically on policies and methods of concealment, and I wondered whether UNSCOM's work has produced insights and lessons that are applicable to the work of Western intelligence agencies in other countries, whether, for example, if you had the power to amend the NPT and the CWC and the biological convention, that there are things that you've learned in this exercise that could improve -- and the MTCR -- that could improve all those efforts?

MR. EKEUS: Absolutely. I've been rather optimistic about the possibility to have broader and more generic, if I may say so, arms control or non-proliferation regimes. The key, I think, is -- even for Iraq, with this relatively advanced country and focus so much resources into the technology of the weapons, but even there they are dependent -- Iraq is dependent upon pieces of equipment, material to be bought. If one identifies such key components in the production area, it is easy to mention what it is -- which can be dual items, not prohibited, necessarily, but dual-use items. But the -- it appears that it (crops up ?) in the process of trade.

Iraq, for instance, has a system of some 15 companies positioned in Jordan and they are employing some 600, 700 people. And they are, of course, actively involved in procurement activities. But it appears that it is not that difficult to get a hold on trade of such items. Normally what sticks out is the size of the item. You know, if you buy material for biological production, for instance, and you buy a big fermenter, the question is again, why -- you just go and look; why is this fermenter, so to say, have that size? Or you buy growth media in an inordinate amount -- because the civilian use has its limits.

And you see that type of orders which have -- not because of the inherent -- what it is in itself, but in its quantity, in its size you detect a lot of things. And we feel that the export -- we have established an export-import mechanism for Iraq which the Security Council adopted, Resolution 1051. This mechanism started to come into -- it became operational the last autumn. That gives an obligation to every state to report to the special commission items which are not prohibited but which could be used to -- for production of weapons.

One could believe that Iraq should protest very aggressively against such a regime. This no doubt increases inside in this -- and Iraq had, of course, a balancing problem. But I think the answer is given to me by the director of the Department of Trade and Industry in London. He said "But if you put this regime into place, it will be easy for us to trade with Iraq on relatively sensitive items. Then it would be for us to trade with another country," so to say semi- advanced country suspected for weapons additions, prohibited weapons, biological, chemical, what it is.

Because a decision maker in London would be sure he will report this matter will be declared and the -- it can be through an international mechanism one can then assure oneself that this item which is sold is not used for prohibited purposes. And therefore you can gladly give licenses. And in that sense you can expand trade on sensitive material.

And that's what I used to call the big trade-off. That's transparency and trade. Through transparency, that gives security that weapons of mass destruction are not produced and acquired. And the transparency gives possibility to general trade to transfer of technology, another -- (inaudible) -- so to say, transfer of technology and transparency, because what we see now a trend is the opposite. We have to now what -- the natural thing we try to cut off, diminish the possibility of transfer of technology, sensitive technology because we are afraid of the spreading of weapons of mass destruction.

And that means that we also cut off countries from developing their economy and their technology -- countries, maybe, who are on the starting point to move up and become industrialized, advanced industrial countries themselves.

We now see a cooperation -- (chuckling) -- I would say constipated cooperation -- between technically advanced states, members of MTCR, Australia Group, (and where we are ?), and we try to cut off the big rest from participating in this work.

But we can break -- if we can break this whole, so to say, sad, negative trend in the other direction and say, "Let's be open about it; transfer (technology ?)," but that would mean the big deal for those countries to acquire this technology. They have to accept transparency, international inspection, openness. And you see, that is the opposite. (As you ?) not only attack the MTCR states, the Australia Group, I should equally (attack ?) those other countries I know from -- I would say "bitter," but long experience in CD, for instance, in Geneva, who say, "No, we cannot accept transparency, and no foreign inspectors, no openness." So this is the unhappy situation we are in today.

Q (Could we just ask you ?), does UNSCOM have a mandate to report to the Security Council its conclusions about how existing arms control regimes need to be strengthened in light of this experience? Or is that beyond your --

MR. EKEUS: Well, of course we -- one key element to get the major Western industrial countries to accept this arrangement was that we protected sort of inside the international unit we established ourselves with IAEA. We protect this or, say, if a delivery comes from Britain to Iraq, we don't tell the Germans about the price and the amount, or we don't tell the Japanese about that. And the Japanese -- we have, of course, (company ?). So that is one thing.

I (just added ?) this, but on your specific question, the council is not interested -- you can't expect them to approach real security issues. They're dealing with the problems of immediate crisis. It's a crisis-management group. But preventive security policy, I think, is far outside the reach of the council, unfortunately.

MR. SATLOFF: Bob Friedman (sp)?

Q There seems to be a coincidence in dates. The Iraqis, as you mentioned, went back to a hard line in January 1996 -- the same

time that Yevgeni Primakov became the foreign minister of Russia. I wonder if you could share with us if, over the course of the last year -- speaking, of course, diplomatically and off the record -- (laughter) -- the Russians have been less helpful in your in your efforts and both in terms of personnel under your command and in the Security Council. Or has it continued as it had been earlier?

MR. EKEUS: Well -- (laughs) -- this is a very risky question to answer, Paul, as you can imagine. It is a little confusing --

MR. SATLOFF: It'd be a lot riskier if you were in Moscow. (Laughter.)

MR. EKEUS: Well, I am going to Moscow, and I have a meeting with Mr. Primakov set on the 7th of February -- (laughter) -- so I will probably get his reaction to my answer then. (Laughs.) (Laughter.)

But it is clear that -- one would say, if one put oneself into the clothes of a senior Russia official and were thinking about this issue -- -- What is in the Russian interest? -- well, Russia has, according to its own calculation at least, to expect payments. Iraq owes Russia some $7 billion worth for weapons deliveries and other delivery items. Iraq has promised that when they get relief from the oil embargo, Russia will be up front. They, of course, said the same to the French -- (laughs) -- and to others. (Laughter.) But so that will be a later question; who will be up front.

But I think the judgment -- Will there be a (lifting ?) -- how do these countries support Iraq, to which degree are they prepared to support Iraq's position. And that creates an enormous dilemma for Russian diplomacy because I think the logical things -- and I think the French have adopted that -- the logic is that put maximum pressure on Iraq to cooperate with us and give up these remnants of these prohibited items; simply that is, why should one have chemical weapons in a time when we hopefully soon have a convention? Biological weapons there is already -- (word inaudible). So put pressure on them in order to get the situation that the Security Council will be confronted with a decision to lift the oil embargo. And there will be enormous pressure to lift the embargo if the weapons issue is cleared. That is how the resolution is drafted. I don't say that the U.S. happily will accept this invitation. But it will be a very, very interesting situation at that stage. So that would be logical.

But, on the other side, if Iraq today has a policy of both trying to keep the weapons and get the embargo lifted, and you undertake to support that policy, you are coming in a different situation. I mean, I can imagine that you would get sweaty palms just thinking on how to deal with such very complicated situation. And I think what we can do -- what I will try to do is to help them on the decision-making process next Friday. But we will see how that works out.

MR. SATLOFF: Tony Cordesmann (sp).

Q Rolf, you mentioned that there was a significant missile capability they might retain, and that they might retain biological weapons.

I wonder if you could give us at least a rough estimate of how many missiles they might retain and what your concerns are with the number and types of biological weapons they may still be concealing.

MR. EKEUS: On the missile, I don't want to give numbers. You recall that when I was asked to, so to say, not -- to give a presentation to Sam Nunn's committee in Senate, I said six to 16. This was just to give a broad framework. As you know, in December we had in the meeting between Tariq Aziz and myself in Baghdad devoted especially to counting the missiles, and we went out, so to say -- we went away from our normal principles. Normally we -- (inaudible word) -- from Iraq to make its presentation and we verify the correctness; but we turned the table upside down and said, all right, we are prepared to show why we have come to these conclusions that there is a number of missiles, and we would like to hear the reaction on it.

This seminar was a very -- I would say almost dramatic seminar. There was, I would say, give and take, and it was not in a friendly atmosphere, a very tough atmosphere, discussion. And it ended that I came out with a feeling there are more missiles than I suspected when I was going in.

Since then, we have had an excavation exercise, as you've probably seen in at least the wire reports -- I don't think it's hit the newspaper -- but in Iraq, on the initiative of Iraq, because they learned a little of how we are counting. And we found there remnants of four operations in missiles. But that doesn't change in any way our continuing concern that there is -- there are missiles.

And what I have to add -- I said missile force, which is a change of language from what I had last time. I said missiles. What I mean with

missile force is that we -- and that came out clearly from the seminar in December, and Iraq had to admit. Iraq has an organization to operate these missiles. They're are operating capable. Iraq would deny that, but that's our feeling. They have all the elements -- I mean, transporter, launchers, of course, (filling ?), rocket fuel. They have all the necessary -- every piece of what is necessary to constitute an operation force is available in Iraq.

So that was first of all our concern, that they can activate that.

Of course, then on the biology field, Iraq admitted, in '95, in autumn '95 and '96, further that they had missile warheads, and these missile warheads to be filled with biological agent. It has declared that 25 such warheads were filled in the moments before the war broke out, the Gulf War. Of course, Iraq says since then they have destroyed these, and the filling, of course, is also destroyed. These missiles were filled with some anthrax and some with botulinum and some with an old agent called aflatoxin, which is not so immediate. It's a cancer agent that creates liver cancer, but it takes some years to get that function. But the other ones were, of course, more immediate, classical weapons.

However -- of course we are watching not only that, we are watching, of course, bombs for biological. And Iraq admitted that they had produced and filled a number of bombs with biological agents before the Gulf War. However, there we are in disagreement; we feel that they have more sophisticated bombs than they have declared to us. And I don't want to go into more detail what kind of sophistication because we don't want to give Iraq all the cards.

Furthermore, there is spraying devices which we are concerned about in the biological area, to be hooked upon some of the airplanes they have. That means, of course, to have dried agents preferably to liquid agent, and a dried agent is not easy to produce. And there we are still -- it's a quarrel to which degree they have succeeded in making the right size, the rather small size you need for a particle size to get them functioning. So they don't function as in agriculture, which falls down on the ground, but it stays, so to say, in the atmosphere so you can penetrate the lungs. There, these devices we also have not -- (inaudible).

We have concerns they have -- I would say the whole radius there has been tested and appears to be in the picture.

MR. SATLOFF: I must admit that's truly frightening.

Rocky Danziger (sp).

Q You invited the question on the (Belarus ?)-United States, and I am happy to oblige.

MR. EKEUS: Well, as you know, it was a matter which the Security Council addressed already in 1991, when it adopted two resolutions, 706 and 712, allowing Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil. And the revenues from that should be for food and medicine to Iraqi people. The distribution should be carried out, according to these two resolutions, by the United Nations.

So Iraq chose to not accept them from what they call sovereignty reasons. Obviously, it's clear that they politically didn't like this. However, in the meantime, it played. And some other well- meaning persons and institutions, governments, supported Iraq, saying: "Look here. The sanctions are hitting the Iraqi people. They are getting -- difficulty with food." I don't know starving, but at least malnutrition -- I think it's indisputable -- and problems with regard to medicine input.

But what we have to add that, in the meantime, Iraq has had -- used considerable resources for acquisition of weapons as late as '95. I think I told you that Iraq imported very costly high-quality missile-guidance systems that you remember some we fished up in the Tigris, which were thrown there when they tried to hide that, and others were blocked in cooperation with the government of Jordan. So a lot of money went to other things than to food and medicine. That's clear.

But anyhow, the Council decided, as a response I think to the concerns by NGOs and others, to soften up the conditions of 706, 712; so with 986 want to -- fundamentally the same resolution again, but said that Iraq shall -- should be allowed to (be) responsible for the distribution of the goods, but there should be a sort of observership by the United Nations. This covers roughly one-fifth of Iraq's capability -- because now it is a six-month arrangement only.

But the council has stated that if -- they are intending to prolong this arrangement for another period of three or even six months when we come toward the end of this.

As I say, it corresponds to something like now it's $2 billion worth of oil per six-month period. And this amount should one-third, roughly, go to the compensation commission which pays out money to the victims of the Gulf War. A large number of people there have big claims. And two-thirds will go to food and medicine. (Audio break.)

(In progress following audio break) -- the grade of intrusiveness of these monitoring. And now we are in the process of still trying to interpret the memorandum of understanding. And so we have still some problems with the full control aspect of it.

But money is starting to come in to the escrow accounts, started specifically for this purposes. So it looks like functioning. But -- and I think this is a wise decision, and it's a very (helpful ?) decision, and that helps the Iraqi people so they are not deprived.

MR. SATLOFF: (Charles Krauthammer ?).

Q (Off mike)?

MR. EKEUS: Iraq declared 50 missiles to us, which our inspectors destroyed in summer '91. According to Iraq's present situation, a couple of weeks after our destruction, the destruction took place, they destroyed, in secrecy, the rest, the 85 missiles or 85 -- it depends how you count them -- let's say 80-some missiles. And the question of course I put to Iraq now, and everyone is now putting in his mind -- I put it to Tariq Aziz in December -- is why seek the destruction? Why didn't you hand over them to us if they only are to be destroyed so that we could actually account for them? Of course they couldn't answer. (They said ?) confusion. (Laughter.) But I said all their figures -- they did before, you wanted to manipulate these things. And that is the big deal now. We made a preliminary counting.

And I must -- you take of course the -- (inaudible) -- part of that, we were in a sense, they said, it was in March '92, Iraq detected that we were very unhappy with the 50 they had given us. It was not enough. So in March they approached me and said, Well, it's so, we have also 85 others, and we have destroyed them, so don't worry. And so what we did then was of course go to these destruction sites and excavate them. And it looks very neat and clean, because one site -- they say, Here are 21 missiles -- we excavated, we found 21. Here is 18 -- we excavated, there were 18. And of course our inspectors were very happy and reported this is going very fine. And so we counted these numbers.

Now of course we had also continued work. We had detected that there was something fishy. (Laughter.) Well, we maybe should have understood that from the beginning. But it was fishy, and it was growing more and more clear that Iraq had manipulated these burial

places and the excavation by planting first of all training missiles -- there is a certain low-quality training missile which should then be counted as in operation. So if you say the 21-site place didn't contain, when we investigated further, 21 operational missiles destroyed, but say there were 17 operational missiles and four training missiles.

Furthermore, Iraq had the technique to account for missiles which had been tested -- operational missiles, tested, and we had of course counted -- (inaudible). And they took remnants of the tested missiles and put it into the burial site, and then we counted -- the idea was we should count that as another operational missile. So we counted the same piece of metal twice --

Q (Off mike.) (Laughter.)

MR. EKEUS: So fundamentally it is that -- Iraq has admitted these of course. And there are other manipulations with these missiles, including that Iraq destroyed a missile by exploding it. That was of course a mistake -- they should have melted it, because it's more difficult to count then.

But what we detected, that was a (fuselage ?), but when we looked closer many of these missiles were not destroyed as missiles, but they were in pieces, and the engine was destroyed separately, which meant that Iraq could take off turbo pumps which they cannot produce themselves and very difficult to import with the present MCTR arrangement. So they dismantled crucial elements which then could be used in Iraq's own homemade engines, because Iraq can make engines, but there are many important elements for missiles. It's not enough with an engine. So this was also one of the ways these secretly destroyed were manipulated.

And another way was to plant homemade engines, Iraqi-made engines into one of these burial sites, and where we excavate we counted these as (operational Soviet ?). The gain, minus one. But the fact -- but it shows (close in analysis ?) that we want to go to, that these were Iraqi-made engines. Then we asked where is the Soviet-made ones, the real ones, so to say.

So that is the whole scheme why we wanted to move these engines out and make it sort of an investigation of each one of them, so we could count how many are planted, whether they are Iraqi-made, earlier tested or training which are planted there to give the impression that they were operational.

MR. SATLOFF: Judith Kipper (sp)?

Q (Off mike) -- I wanted to ask you a question that is more political but technical. Since the -- (inaudible) -- for oil question has been taken care of -- (inaudible) -- ? In the last year or so there were a number of issues for oil -- there were a lot of problems -- (inaudible) -- in the family. And

I wonder if that's reflected itself in the -- (off mike) -- what you are describing as -- (off mike)?

MR. EKEUS: I think indeed it is not in itself alone the problem for our -- reason for our worries. But it is linked to other events, as you indicated, as the policy appears again to be to keep the weapons and get the oil. These limited oil deals, in spite of all the nervousness and concern which preceded the acceptance of these deals, it looks like Iraq sees that one could maybe expand on that oil deal for instance, and increase the amount for the next period and to gradually move in the direction of a complete lifting of an embargo, and in that sense also undercut the (role idea ?) with embargo, which is to link it to weapons.

So there is hope in Iraq, as I was told, that next year, that in '96, in our meetings, next year, '97, you will see a breakdown, if I may so -- "breakup" maybe is the right word -- of the unity in the Security Council, and you will see a weakening of the support for you. And that is probably the policy which is now -- one hopes that these will not be solved technically through accounting of everything, but it be solved through political fatigue and political attrition. So that is an element of it, that gives some of it -- I don't say alone it is.

MR. SATLOFF: Leonard Kohl (sp).

Q The thing that I get disturbed -- (many of us ?) -- is this sense of openendedness about this. What more powers would you think you would need or others would need to see an end to this continuation of a chronic problem?

MR. EKEUS: Well, I would like to indicate that the situation isn't good for Iraq. I indicate also that the monitoring system in place, including the export-import mechanism, makes us confident that we have very good hands on Iraq's capabilities.

What we need is a continuing support -- political backup so that there is the will and stomach to keep us there, because the situation in a sense isn't bad from our point of view. We have the time, if we have patience. The only thing which makes me nervous is just if there would be a deterioration of the political situation, because Iraq is obviously searching for ways and means to undercut us, to put doubts in the credibility of our personnel, to get governments to sort of say -- put into doubt our consistency and fairness. And this is an ongoing struggle. I spend, I would say, more than 50 percent of my time on diplomacy, on political issues and dialogue with governments, and pedagogic exercises than on sort of running the operation. Of course that's -- if it needs a lot of time on a daily basis, if we are challenged every day -- this morning we had problems, yesterday we had a problem. And we have to, you know, settle that -- blockage with flying problems here -- threats there and so on. So it is an ongoing activity, but it is a sound one and we will stick together I hope.

MR. SATLOFF: (Inaudible.)

Q (Off mike)?

MR. EKEUS: Well, in the first place, the (question of material breach ?) is considered nowadays a very important legal issue. As you will recall, a couple of times in the operations or work the Council declared that Iraq was in material breach. What does that mean? It means according to the established interpretation that if the Council finds that, that means that the provisions making up the cease-fire have been broken, and Iraq is therefore breaking the cease-fire, I would say, treaty which is -- (inaudible) -- the resolution, as you know, is adopted by the Council and then accepted formally by Iraq. Because the coalition delivered by withdrawing from Iraq and ending the war situation. And Iraq had to deliver to say they were coming -- (inaudible) -- giving up their weapons and other things, recognizing Kuwait and so on. So that was the problem -- the coalition's part was already delivered, they had -- but the other deal, we had to wait for Iraq to come. So on a couple of occasions they decided -- and it was considered that if that means that a serious material breach is a break of the provisions of the cease-fire, which make it possible to bring it back to the Resolution 678, which is what we call the War Enabling Resolution, the resolution by the Security Council that made it possible for the military actions directed against Iraq.

So at least the interpretation was done by some members -- the United States and others -- that if you have material breach you were free to take military action against Iraq under -- fundamentally under 678. The one is 678 and the other is 687. That's the problem -- 678 is war and the other is peace, if you want to say so. (Laughter.) And therefore this matter was raised now when Iraq blocked our team -- especially when they blocked us after the undertaking to give us complete access. There was not support in the Council for that idea, so it had to be put aside. So therefore we -- if there is a finding of material breach, it does not mean one is obliged to

take military action, but it is a situation where there is, I would say, international (fund ?) -- there is law foundation for such action. That is, concerning 986, then the connection is very, very complicated to see. I don't think there was a direct link really between our work and the -- (inaudible) -- it's more the impact after it has been put in place where we see some sort of arrogance and nonchalance from the Iraqi side, in hopes of maddening, complicating -- you know, confusing. And that's the thing -- because of lack of attention, political attentions, they run (knee deep in the sand ?). So --

Q (Off mike)?

MR. EKEUS: I understood the question from the first one -- (laughter) -- but I want to avoid to answer that, for diplomatic reasons. (Laughter.)

MR. SATLOFF: Ken Zimmerman (sp).

Q Well, there was a -- there have been recent reports that Iraqis sent a high-ranking military delegation to Moscow on the 20th of December particularly for discussing a large contract with the Russian Air Force -- (inaudible) -- large number of -- (inaudible) -- battle tanks. When you go to Moscow next week to speak with Mr. Primakov, would this be something you would have on the agenda? I know that conventional weapons do not necessarily fall under the resolution, but is this something you're concerned about? And what would be UNSCOM's role eventually if such a deal would be concluded?

MR. EKEUS: Well, if you talk about so-called conventional weapons, that's one thing, it's a different matter. But if you talk about weapons, including spare parts for air, tanks, and so on, that is specifically and separately prohibited, and this is also separate. I would say there is a separate arms embargo in Iraq outside the weapons of mass destruction. And I think that will be fascinating to see the debate in the Security Council between those who would hope to deliver weapons to Iraq and those who do not want to go along with that -- (the day comes ?). But first of all they have to clear the weapons -- (inaudible).

And, no, we will not -- I will not raise such issues in Moscow. We of course look upon the -- we will emphasize the importance of putting pressure on Iraq, and Moscow's central role is to influence Iraq -- the weapons of mass destruction.

MR. SATLOFF: Bob Lieber (sp).

Q I have an operational question -- (off mike) -- turning to Iraq's military capability, Saddam remains invincible. But in the -- (inaudible) -- Saddam were to reinvade Kuwait, to what extent are the -- (inaudible) -- that you talked about? (Off mike.) To what extent are -- can you keep those operational in the event a conflict were to occur in the coming months or years?

MR. EKEUS: We -- as we indicated, we had a feeling that there are important and essential items not accounted for. Say, in the chemical weapons field, we don't believe that the (VX ?) agent as such necessarily -- we don't say it's excluded -- it's stored in Iraq. It has to be stabilized, as you know, and certain technology to keep stabilizing an agent to not generate into something quite innocent. But there are production capabilities in Iraq which we fear can be activated. I've said before that I don't think Iraq can activate such without being detected by us. I didn't say we specifically -- we are -- I mean, we are some middle-aged scientists, you know, we can't prevent things from happening -- but we can observe it's happening and report that this is happening and say that it's wrong.

But it is -- so there is -- I think Iraq could activate it, provided we were thrown out or we were denied a presence there. But we still have a very powerful -- I mean, we talked about material breach just a few minutes ago. There are important political and diplomatic talks available if the international community would like to make use of it. So I think these scenarios I think should be dealt with if there is attention enough on the Iraqis.

Q (Off mike)?

MR. EKEUS: I don't -- no, I don't think so, whether they need to do some mobilization effort in -- concerning the weapons of mass destruction. But, as I indicated, we are concerned with the missiles, but the missiles should then be transferred back to the military unit. It is not run by these (organs ?) I talked about -- concealed by the (organs ?) -- but they must regularly be transferred to the other -- (inaudible) -- military so they can -- (inaudible) -- back again.

MR. SATLOFF: Paul Wolferitz (sp).

Q I'd like to ask a question about -- (off mike). (Applause.) That actually relates to question, because it's one of the things that worries me and a lot of other people, which is what happens in the longer term. It isn't just -- (off mike) -- but even more serious -- (inaudible) -- what happens if at some point the Iraqis really are -- (off mike) -- 687 is appropriate? (Off mike.) Then instead of having to fear there was -- (off mike) -- all we'll have to have is one -- (off mike) -- and make sure that they don't -- (off mike) -- they could do whatever they'd like to do. Maybe it's an impossible question, but do you think it could occur in a very real form -- (off mike)?

MR. EKEUS: No, that's very important, because this is a daily question Iraq is putting to us, if we were to clear up everything -- can you assure us that the embargos and sanctions will be lifted? I think from the U.N. point of -- the United Nations -- I have said I cannot see any way out from such an interpretation with regard to the oil embargo, because the language is clear that the weapons -- if the Security Council agrees that the issue of weapons of mass destruction has been settled through a monetary system in place, and no more items are concealed or retained by Iraq which are prohibited, then the prohibition against the import from Iraq shall no longer be in force. That is close to a paragraph from the resolution, paragraph 22.

If the Council then decides to act according to that, which I personally think they should do -- I can't see any way out from that -- but I know this is contested mostly by the United States government. But others will press this issue very, very hard, and there may be a difficult situation. But now we talk so theoretically.

It is quite clear that Iraq then will be in a position, if the embargo is lifted and sanctions in general are lifted, to challenge, by starting its weapon program, and push us aside, our inspectors aside. And what can the Council do? There is a very small prospect that you mentioned -- there will be a veto against reenforcing the embargo, because of the enormous economic interests involved in keeping the embargo off and not keep it on. So I think those should reflect upon that, and I think Washington, because of it is not officially prepared to think in those terms, that it is not ready to entertain the idea. But other allies of Washington are reflecting upon the situation.

And what you hear in the discussion is that the Council could suspend the oil embargo, which means that -- and that suspension will be conditioned upon regular reporting from the Special Commission and the IAEA if its applicable -- say each second month. We have a similar construction -- had a similar construction with regard to sanctions on Serbia. That means that regularly -- once, say, each second month, if the Council then is reported that, Well, Iraq is behaving fine, there is no problem, the suspension will stay. There is no more embargo, the embargo is suspended. But if it is reported that it's a violation on the way, Iraq is acquiring prohibited items, that will be enough with one vote to block the continued suspension.

So if you understand me, is that there will be a proposal by the president of the country -- can we continue next month, two months, suspend the embargo? Yes, everyone is in favor -- it is suspended. Can it continue? One vote against will veto -- can then block this suspension and the embargo is ultimately put in place and can be implemented by those who have the resources to implement it. That is one, and probably one of the most probably scenarios in the case of Iraq decides to move towards giving up its weapons.

MR. SATLOFF: I need to apologize to Phoebe and Charlie and -- (inaudible) -- and the rest that I am not able to get to today. You can tell, Mr. Ambassador, by the number of people who have stayed until 2:00 how intently interested everyone in Washington is with this issue. And I can't underscore more than -- (inaudible) -- which has already said the deep respect and high regard that we all have for your efforts. And we look forward to having you back here in the future to give us a further progress report on this effort. Thank you. (Applause.)