Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=3/5/03

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=GARY SAMORE

NUMBER=3-570

BYLINE=REBECCA WARD

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

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INTRO: The U-N Security Council remains divided over Iraq's cooperation in getting rid of weapons of mass destruction. Britain, the United States and Spain have introduced a new draft resolution that would pave the way for military action. Russia, France and Germany favor giving weapons inspectors more time.

Gary Samore was a special assistant to President Clinton in the late 1990s and is now the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He tells VOA's Rebecca Ward that Iraq's strategy of providing just enough cooperation to keep the Security Council divided appears to be working.

MR. SAMORE: I think the decision they've made to begin the destruction of the al-Samoud missiles, per the order from Hans Blix, and Baghdad promising to provide additional information to account for chemical weapons and biological weapons will probably be enough to strengthen the conviction of France and Germany and Russia that the inspections are beginning to produce positive results and that war should not be resorted to.

At the same time, I don't think Baghdad has made a fundamental decision to disarm in accordance with 1441, and I think Washington and London will continue to be dissatisfied with the level of cooperation and to argue that the inspection process is not working because Baghdad is not really serious about disarming, and so therefore the Council should authorize the use of force.

MS. WARD: You were around for part of the U.N. inspections under President Clinton in the late nineties. How would you rate Iraqi cooperation from then to now?

MR. SAMORE: I think that Iraqi cooperation follows a clear pattern. When they are faced with the threat of force and strong unity in the Security Council, they tend to be more cooperative. When the threat of force does not appear to be there, or if the Council is badly divided, they tend to be less cooperative. And if you look at the period of cooperation, the ups and downs from 1991 to 1998, that was clearly the case.

In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, when Iraq was very weak, when the U.S. still had very strong forces in the region, they were quite cooperative. Starting in the mid-nineties, though, as the Security Council became much more divided and as the threat of force appeared to fade because the U.S. was occupied with other military issues -- in particular, in the Balkans -- Iraq began to feel free to start to erode the freedom of the inspectors. And that ultimately led to the collapse of the inspection system in 1998.

I would say the current level of inspection cooperation is very similar to the level that we saw in the early nineties, when Iraq was very weak and there was a very strong threat of force. But the problem is that if in the future that threat of force should begin to fade or if the Council continues to be deeply divided, then I would expect once again to see Baghdad looking for ways to begin to restrict the access and the authority of the inspectors.

MS. WARD: Despite the division of the U.N. Security Council and world opinion, the United States and Britain, as you say, appear to be on a war footing. And I wonder if they know something that the rest of the world doesn't.

MR. SAMORE: I don't think there is any smoking gun information out there. I think it's a question of how you perceive the threat and, therefore, how seriously you think you have to respond to Iraq's imperfect level of cooperation. I think President Bush and Prime Minister Blair believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat to security because of its insistent pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and its connections to terrorism. I think other countries, like France and Russia and Germany, think that the threat of Iraq can be reasonably contained through inspections and sanctions and that the links between Iraq and terrorism are actually very weak.

Because of that difference in perception, there is a fundamentally different view toward whether or not war is justified. And I agree with you that Washington and London appear intent on going to war unless there is some really dramatic, and I think very unlikely, change in Iraq's behavior.

And I'm afraid to say that the other countries on the Council that oppose war are likely to continue to hold that view. Which means that, I think unfortunately, there is unlikely to be a second resolution in the Security Council. And I think that the war will take place under very disadvantageous political conditions, with the Security Council and the transatlantic alliance and Europe being deeply divided.

HOST: Gary Samore served as Special Assistant to President Clinton and Senior Director for Non-Proliferation and Export Controls at the National Security Council from 1996 to 2000. He is now a Senior Fellow for Non-Proliferation at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

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