The UNSC & IAEA Report on Iraq's Nuclear Program
Iraq News JULY 30, 1998
By Laurie MylroieThe central focus of Iraq News is the tension between the considerable, proscribed WMD capabilities that Iraq is holding on to and its increasing stridency that it has complied with UNSCR 687 and it is time to lift sanctions. If you wish to receive Iraq News by email, a service which includes full-text of news reports not archived here, send your request to Laurie Mylroie .
I. INTERIM REPORT, IAEA, JUL 27
II. NUCLEAR SUSPICIONS REMAIN, NYT, JUL 28
III. UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS ON IRAQ'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM, NCI, JUL 28
IV. RUSSIA PRESSES FOR RESOLUTION ON NUCLEAR ISSUE, NYT, JUL 30
The KDP envoy who reported to Baghdad on Massoud Barzani's talks with
US envoy, David Welch, [see Iraq News, Jul 27] was Fadil Mirani. Mirani
arrived in Baghdad Jul 20 and returned the next day. Also, Iraq News
has been told that the Tehran-based head of SAIRI [Supreme Assembly of
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq], Baqir al Hakim, was recently given
permission by Khamenei to meet with US officials in Washington.
The discussion in Iraq News [Jul 27] of the timing and nature of the
next Iraq confrontation--Oct or not Oct--prompted a number of exchanges
with readers on the question of uncertainty, strategic deception, and
surprise.
The US is defending Kuwait, and other key points in the Gulf, against
a potential aggressor, Iraq. How often in history has the defender made
an assumption he had no right to make, thinking there was a higher
degree of certainty than was justified by the circumstances? Often,
then, the enemy played to what was essentially a self-deception, turning
it into a strategic deception, and disaster followed.
Thus, Stalin believed Hitler would issue an ultimatum before any
attack on the Soviet Union; made no preparations to counter a German
assault, lest that provoke Hitler; and then misread the warnings of the
Nazi assault.
The US Navy's, Nov 27, 1941 "war warning" predicted a Japanese
attack. But it said against "the Philippines, Thai or Kra Peninsula or
possibly Borneo" and did not include Hawaii.
Israel had Egypt's plans for the 1973 war. But the Israelis assumed
Egypt would not go to war until its air force could counter Israel's.
That would not be before 1975, in the Israelis' estimate. They failed
to anticipate that Egypt might develop another way to counter the IAF,
as it did, with surface to air missiles.
And before Aug 2, 1990, when Iraq massed 100,000 troops on the Kuwaiti
border, many said one Arab state would not invade another. It was even
thought Saddam might be acting out of defensive motives, so the US
sought to reassure him, both the ambassador in Baghdad and the White
House.
And some of those false, or unexamined, assumptions look ludicrous in
hindsight. Iraq News is trying very hard to avoid that mistake. That
the next Iraq crisis will come in Oct is a key assumption, which has
virtually no basis in the information available. It can contribute to a
misplaced complacency between now and then. Moreover, it is linked to
another assumption--that the sole focus of Iraq's effort on sanctions is
to get a UNSC vote to lift them, after a positive, or positive-enough,
UNSCOM/IAEA report.
That, even though in his July 17 Nat'l day speech, Saddam said
sanctions "would not be lifted by a unanimous Security Council
resolution," while reiterating Iraq's May 1 warning and affirming that
it "represents willpower and an alternative strategy."
On Mon, Jul 27, the IAEA submitted its interim report on Iraq's
nuclear program to the UNSC and on Wed, the head of the IAEA's Iraq
action team briefed the UNSC. Iraq News had heard that the Iraqis had
not been very cooperative with the IAEA team when it visited Baghdad,
Jun 29 to Jul 3, and the report seemed to reflect that.
As it explained, "During the June/July 1998 discussions, IAEA again
raised with Iraq the matter of Iraq's declared inability to provide
certain drawings, documents and experimental test data. Specifically,
Iraq has maintained that it no longer has in its possession
weapon-design engineering drawings, the Al QaQaaa drawing register,
experimental data on the results of PC-3 (the cover organization of the
clandestine nuclear programme) related experimental work carried out at
Al QaQaa after 1988, drawings of explosive lenses or the drawings
received from foreign sources in connection with Iraq's centrifuge
uranium enrichment programme. These matters were followed up by letter
of 12 July 1998 from the leader of the IAEA Action Team. In a written
response, dated 16 July, the Iraqi counterpart indicated that it had no
further information to offer other than that already included in the
consolidated version of its Full, Final and Complete Declaration."
IAEA's effort to locate documentary evidence of Iraq's stated
abandonment of its nuclear program was similarly unsuccessful.
Also, the IAEA raised the issue of establishing facilities at the
conveniently located Rashid airbase to support an aerial radiation
survey planned for Sept. Tariq Aziz said they could not use the Rashid
base, but should instead use the Habanniya air base, an hour's drive
from Baghdad.
Also, the Iraqis suggested that the IAEA plan to establish a
"consolidated wide-area environmental monitoring programme" should be
matched by a reduction in inspections.
The Iraqis also suggested that Baghdad should have access to raw data
collected by the IAEA.
The Nuclear Control Institute, commenting on the IAEA report, said
that it "acknowledges a number of important unresolved questions about
current Iraqi capabilities that the Agency had previously avoided or had
played down." As it explained, the report "discusses one of NCI's key
concerns--Iraq's failure to turn over nuclear-weapon components and bomb
designs," as well as acknowledging that "there remains in Iraq a
considerable intellectual resource in the form of the cadre of
well-educated, highly experienced personnel." The NCI noted that the
interim report restored a key point that had been made in the Oct
report, but dropped in the April report--Iraq can build a bomb, it if
it were to acquire the "relevant materials or technology."
Yet the NCI also noted that the report failed to address some key
issues, including "the question of a full-scale model of Iraq's bomb
design, reported by intelligence sources to have been fabricated from
metal parts but never located by the IAEA."
Despite the fairly strong report, after the IAEA briefing to the UNSC
yesterday, Russia twice tried to introduce a resolution shifting IAEA
activity from inspections to long-term monitoring, as the NYT, Jul 30,
reported. That is the first time Russia has done so, and the Russian
move was backed by France and China, while the UK backed the US, even as
further discussion was put off until UNSC member governments
could review the matter.
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