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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Washington File

13 May 2003

Iraq Expert Says It's Too Early to Assess Saddam's WMD Program

(Ken Pollack believes Iraqi WMD capability, at least, will surface)
(950)
By David Anthony Denny
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- It is much too early to make a determined assessment as
to what the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq did or did not have in the
way of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), according to Iraq analyst
and author Kenneth Pollack.
Pollack spoke to journalists in London, Madrid and Moscow by digital
video conference May 13. His topic was WMD.
"I think it is still very early in the process," he said. But he added
that the reported discovery of an Iraqi mobile biological warfare
laboratory April 19 "is potentially a very important development."
Pollack noted that the laboratory continues to undergo testing. [The
Pentagon announced May 13 that a second, similar laboratory was found
by U.S. troops in Iraq on May 9, and is also undergoing further
examination in Baghdad.]
"[T]he press reports that we've seen do seem to suggest that this is
exactly what it's suspected to be: that it is one of the Iraqi mobile
biological warfare laboratories which several of the defectors
reported on. But obviously, until the U.S. government comes out and
makes an official statement, I'm not going to go out on a limb and
suggest that I know something that the U.S. government doesn't know.
Because in point of fact, I don't."
Pollack acknowledged that though reports before the war indicated that
Iraq was deploying chemical and biological weapons (CBW), that clearly
was not true. He speculated that the Iraqis may have destroyed their
existing stocks of CBW, but kept the capability to make them -- which
would be consistent with finding the mobile biological weapons
laboratory. The weapons are very easy to make, he said, especially the
chemicals, but once weaponized they are very difficult to store. He
noted that in the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqis mixed the components in
the field to make chemical weapons.
"It's clear that Saddam wanted very much to win the war without
weapons of mass destruction," Pollack said. It may be that Saddam
thought that the war would develop much more slowly than it did, he
said, and it may be that Saddam thought that he would have time to use
his CBW capability if it proved necessary. "As it turned out, he
didn't have the time to do so," Pollack said.
"I think that we will find the [WMD] stuff," Pollack said. "I think
it's simply a matter of time, but I think that we will find, at the
very least, the production capability."
A reporter for Spain's El Pais asked Pollack to assess the transition
in Iraq. He replied that it was inevitably going to be messy and
chaotic, and that replacing a totalitarian dictatorship that was
widely feared and hated would surely release pent-up emotion among the
Iraqis. In fact, Pollack said, he "would have been stunned" if an
Iraqi version of Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution" had occurred.
On the other hand, he faulted the Bush administration for having too
few soldiers to take control of all government ministries, hospitals
and the antiquities museum right away, and for not having a better
plan in place for deciding who would do what once the regime fell. He
noted that U.S. forces understandably did not want to appear to be
"the new occupiers, the new dictators," whereas it is now clear that
it made the Iraqis think the Americans don't really know what they're
doing, and that they wanted and needed U.S. forces to come in and say,
"We're in charge and here are the rules." Pollack drew a comparison to
Yugoslavia collapsing after the fall of Tito because the people felt
uncertainty and decided that meant that no one was in charge anymore.
Pollack believes the United Nations should have a major role to play
in Iraq, because of the resources it can call on and because the
reconstruction of Iraq is going to be a very long process, perhaps
needing five to ten years, and maybe longer. He criticized Russian and
French tactics at the United Nations --- citing their decision to
offer amendments to a U.S.-backed draft Security Council resolution on
Iraqi reconstruction as "deplorable" moves that will simply antagonize
the United States. French and Russian efforts to make changes should
be done behind closed doors, Pollack said.
Pollack also noted that the European Union's Chris Patton had made a
"terrific" statement some weeks ago, to the effect that the EU wanted
to help in the reconstruction of Iraq, but that it must have "that
U.N. imprimatur" to do it. Statements like that, Pollack said, are
very helpful, because they send the right message to the Bush
administration: Our allies want to help, but it means allowing the
United Nations to play a major role.
Pollack is a senior fellow and the director of research at the Saban
Center for Middle East Policy of the Brookings Institution. He is the
author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq," which
he wrote as a senior fellow and director of national security studies
at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was director for Persian Gulf
affairs, as well as director for Near East and South Asian affairs at
the National Security Council (NSC) during the Clinton administration.
He has been a research professor at the National Defense University
(NDU), and served as Iran-Iraq military analyst during seven years
with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He has a doctorate from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a bachelor's
degree from Yale University.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)



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