Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=09/30/2002

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01201 SHORT #1

TITLE=WEAPONS INSPECTIONS IN IRAQ?

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0037

CONTENT=INSERTS IN DALET AND AUDIO SERVICES

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: President George W. Bush addressed the United Nations on September 12th, calling on the world body to enforce a decade's worth of Security Council resolutions on Iraq. Within a week, Iraq announced it would allow U-N weapons inspectors in unconditionally. But the fine print of Saddam Hussein's offer contains conditions that might impede inspectors in their efforts to find Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Clifford May is executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. He says that any Iraqi imposed conditions are fatal to the success of weapons inspections.

May: It means that they can designate and have designated what they call presidential sites that don't get any inspection at all, and you can have whole factories building weapons of mass destruction in these presidential sites that will be off-limits.

Host: David Isby is a defense analyst. He says that weapons inspections depend on cooperation.

Isby: Inspections, verification are part of an arms control agreement -- if you basically are going to cooperate. You need a screwdriver to verify an arms control agreement, and you never know exactly what screw in a whole country you have to pull up. So [inspections would work] if Saddam is willing to say, "Yeah, I quit. I may have my dark ambitions, but I'm going to get them some other way." The key thing is both sides are willing to cooperate.

Host: Clifford May says that the Iraqis' past treatment of U.N. weapons inspectors shows they do not take disarmament seriously.

May: You had inspectors sitting in a parking lot, not allowed to go because they were clearly trying to get rid of the weapons and facilities that they were heading toward. You had Iraqi authorities shooting over the heads of weapons inspectors to delay them or to stop them.

Host: David Isby says that the Iraqis' noncompliance shows contempt for the U.N. resolutions that followed the Persian Gulf War.

Isby: They are really standing throwing back in the U.N. all these resolutions, and the U.N. does not have armed forces with which to enforce them. The Secretary General commands no troops.

Host: President Bush does command troops, and while he has made no decision on what should be done to make sure that Iraq disarms, he has said that the threat posed by Iraq must be answered. For On the Line, I'm -------------.