Iraq Disarmed: The Story Behind the Story of the Fall of Saddam 9781955055741

Citation preview

IRAQ Disarmed

IRAQ

Disarmed The Story Behind the Story of the Fall of Saddam Rolf Ekéus

Translated by Helena Ekeus Published in the United States of America in 2023 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Suite 314, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB www.eurospanbookstore.com/rienner © 2023 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved An earlier version of this book was published in Swedish as Mellan två krig: Saddams fall och IS födelse, Albert Bonniers Förlag. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ekéus, Rolf, 1935– author. Title: Iraq disarmed : the story behind the story of the fall of Saddam / Rolf Ekéus. Other titles: story behind the story of the fall of Saddam Description: Boulder, Colorado : Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., [2023] | Includes index. | Summary: “The political-thrilleresque, firsthand story of the disarmament of Iraq-and the machinations that ultimately led to the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of ISIS”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022018361 (print) | LCCN 2022018362 (ebook) | ISBN 9781955055703 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781955055741 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: United Nations. Special Commission on Iraq—History. | Disarmament—On-site inspection—Iraq. | Weapons of mass destruction—Iraq. | Iraq-Kuwait Crisis, 1990–1991. | Iraq War, 2003–2011—Causes. | Hussein, Saddam, 1937–2006. Classification: LCC DS79.755 .E34 2023 (print) | LCC DS79.755 (ebook) | DDC 814/.609372—dc24/eng/20220503 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022018361 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022018362 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5  4  3  2  1

Dedicated to all the staff and friends of the UN Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency Action Team for their brilliant work, their courage, and their dedication in a struggle for peace and justice.

Halabja, Kurdish City in Iraq at the Border to Iran. In an offensive

during the Iran-Iraq War, Iranian forces captured Halabja on March 15, 1988. On March 16, Iraq, which felt that the Kurdish population facilitated the Iranian entry, responded by bombing Halabja with chemical weapons (supposedly with deadly nerve gas that kills within 15 minutes). Data on the number of people killed vary between 5,000 and 6,000, mostly women and children. At least 10,000 were injured. Images of the horrific massacre were quickly wired out across the world, provoking disgust and widespread criticism of Iraq and its authoritarian ruler, Saddam Hussein. —Nationalencyklopedin (Sweden)

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

ix xiii

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1 13 37 51 65 97 103 139 171 205 225 237

14

Iraq: Revolution, Oil, and War The Building of UNSCOM Moving to Action The Map and the Reality Long-Term Monitoring and Verification The Saddam Clause Secrets and Lies Hussein Kamel’s Defection Working with Israel Is the Job Done? Say Goodbye to the Weapons On the Path to Disaster The End of UNSCOM, the Beginning of UNMOVIC, and the Second Iraq War Iraq’s Catch-22

Index About the Book

255 285 289 305

vii

Preface

AS THE FORMER EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND HEAD OF THE UNITED Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), I witnessed firsthand the dramatic quest to disarm Iraq and the growing political tensions between Iraq and various international actors during the years 1991–2003. In adopting the 1991 cease-fire resolution following the first war between Iraq and the international coalition (for Kuwait’s liberation), the UN Security Council decided to take direct operational responsibility for Iraq’s disarmament and created UNSCOM. I was recruited to be the executive chairman and head of the commission. It was the first (and, to date, only) time the Security Council undertook the direct implementation of one of its decisions—a task normally handled by the UN Secretariat under the direction of the Secretary-General. My task was to build from scratch an organization with the analytical capacity and the operational capability to carry out the Security Council’s mission to disarm Iraq. The process of eliminating Iraq’s banned weapons programs was not only unique in the UN’s history, but eminently successful despite years of Iraq’s determined resistance, evasion, and denial. During my time as leader of UNSCOM (1991–1997), the Security Council was able to adopt all of its Iraq-related resolutions and make decisions in full agreement. However, despite the growing clarity regarding UNSCOM’s disarmament progress, my efforts to maintain consensus among the Security Council members became more difficult as the US administration’s interest in regime change (i.e., deposing ix

x

Preface

Saddam Hussein) increased, while at the same time other permanent members of the Security Council—France and Russia—increased their demands for corresponding sanctions relief. In July 1997, when I finally left UNSCOM as executive chairman, all of Iraq’s prohibited weapons capabilities had been identified and eliminated. (This was not fully confirmed, however, until the Second Iraq War ended in 2003 and a full investigation was carried out by the US Central Intelligence Agency under the direction of my former deputy head of UNSCOM, Charles Duelfer.) Despite leaving UNSCOM in 1997, I was able to follow its developments until 2003, thanks to my good personal contacts with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and my privileged relationships with the White House, during both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. What is described in this book is a quite radical and innovative experiment in UN governance that could be of historic significance. One individual was given unique power and authority to conduct a disarmament program without UN funding and with oversight only by the Security Council itself. This is a personal account of global disarmament history in the making. It was crafted not for any political agenda, but for the sake of historical factual accuracy and potential lessons for future crises. For instance, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed our world in so many ways, possibly forever. Moscow’s use of war challenged so much of what we took for granted since the end of the Cold War. From the primacy of democracy over dictatorship, to the resurgence of extreme nationalism, the battle for Ukraine has forced the global community to think again. One dangerous aspect of Vladimir Putin’s aggression lies in the indirect threat to use nuclear weapons, something the world thought had died alongside the end of the Soviet Union. In addition, there are Russia’s veiled chemical and biological arsenals. Indeed, Putin has raised the specter of the United States arming Ukraine with such weaponry, hinting that Russia was under that threat. As the world adjusts to the new international landscape, it faces the issue of how to coexist with such weaponry, how to negotiate in the face of such menace, and how to confront and disarm authoritarian leaders and despots who hold chemical and biological weapons. This book represents an insider’s account of how the international community did just that: disarm a tyrant who had invaded a neighboring country, having used such weapons in previous conflicts. It chronicles the successes and the failures of the global community’s attempt to rid our

Preface

xi

world of the threat of masses dying of the kind of nerve agents first used a century before, in World War I. The quest to disarm Iraq took place between two wars—one justified and right, the other a dreadful mistake, a violation of international law that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. In writing this book, I address mistakes made, alongside achievements secured, in the hope that the international community learns lessons as we confront our current turbulent world.

Acknowledgments

I WOULD LIKE TO BEGIN BY THANKING MY PUBLISHER, LYNNE RIENNER, and her excellent team, who have brought this story to the Englishspeaking audience. To David Smith for reading the manuscript, offering his invaluable feedback, and introducing me to Lynne Rienner Publishers. To my editor, Tara Sullivan, for the many hours reworking the translated text. My deepest appreciation to Meg and Tomas Bergstrand and the NTI (Nuclear Threat Initiative) for their generous support. To my former colleagues, Ewen Buchanan, Charles Duelfer, Nikita Smidovich, and Gustavo Zlauvinen, who provided invaluable input based on their own experiences and memories. And my special thanks and gratitude to my dear friend, Ambassador Eric Javitz, for reading the text multiple times and bringing his refined linguistic touch. Lastly, to my daughter, Helena, who took this project on, believing that it was a story that should be shared in English.

xiii

1 Iraq: Revolution, Oil, and War

THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IN IRAN IN 1979, THE EXPULSION OF THE shah of Iran, and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran put into motion dramatic developments in the Gulf region and the Middle East as a whole. Until 1979, the Iranian regime under the shah had in many respects been a partner and ally of the United States. It had maintained stability and security in the region and balanced and countered the Soviet Union’s efforts to expand its influence in the Middle East, which holds the world’s largest oil and gas deposits. Iran was abruptly transformed, however, from a conservative Western-friendly monarchy into a strictly religious Shiite state with extensive expansionary power ambitions. Consequently, the Islamic Revolution had a direct and tangible influence on the strategy of the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia. For the majority of the Arab states, the advent of the Islamic Republic came as something of a shock, not least for Saudi Arabia, which had previously lived without conflict alongside traditional Iran as an Islamic state. The new Iranian regime’s radical Shiite political ideas and its attempt to export its revolution were a challenge to Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Muslim royal family. Moreover, the new Iran deemed Saudi Arabia an unworthy guardian of Islam’s two holiest places: Mecca and Medina. Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, in turn saw the Iranian Revolution’s highly radical Shiite dimensions as a serious challenge to the policy he was pursuing of maintaining order in Iraq based on the secular

1

2

Iraq Disarmed

Baath Party (the Renaissance Party). This served to keep the country’s Shiite Muslim majority in check and to secure a balancing influence for the Sunni tribes in the west and northwest that formed one of his primary power bases. Furthermore, he noted with satisfaction the negative international reactions to revolutionary Iran from the United States and other Western countries, as well as from other Arab states with predominantly Sunni Muslim populations. All of this seemed to provide an opportunity on which Saddam did not want to miss out. In 1980, Iraq’s armed forces under Saddam Hussein’s command launched a widespread attack on Iran, whose army, although numerically superior, was in complete disarray after the revolution a year earlier. Even more provident for this new war was that Iran’s political isolation and growing unpopularity meant that Iraq, in its war efforts, could count on the sympathy, understanding, and support of large parts of the international community. Consequently, the United States provided satellite-based military intelligence data to Iraq. Several Western European states also provided military technology. The Soviet Union sent military equipment, especially large quantities of Scud-type medium-range missiles. The Soviet Union’s allies in the Warsaw Pact also sold various kinds of weapons to Iraq. The Arab states under the leadership of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait mobilized financial aid in the form of a solidarity fund designed to stabilize Iraq’s economy and strengthen its military capabilities. There was only one state that did not stand on Iraq’s side (Ronald Reagan’s bizarre Iran-contra deal aside). Israel provided Iran with special military technology as an expression of its previous strategic thinking, namely, that Iran could be regarded as a potential and natural strategic partner in their dealings with the (Arab) Middle East. Widespread international support, as well as Iraq’s frequent and large-scale violation of international law through the use of chemical weapons, outweighed Iran’s military numerical superiority. In retrospect, it seems bizarre that the international community did not protest or even respond to Iraq’s chemical weapons use. The war lasted eight years. It ended in 1988 without noticeable gain for either of the warring parties. But in political and diplomatic terms, Saddam Hussein was stronger, having received extensive support from the United States and the Soviet Union, despite the still ongoing Cold War, and from the Arab world. With his newly won international status, Saddam Hussein felt he had room to maneuver as he pleased. He now turned his gaze to another Iraqi neighbor, Kuwait. Despite serving as president of the Arab Solidarity

Iraq

3

Fund in support of Iraq in the war against Iran, Kuwait had been systematically pumping oil from their common oil source below the IraqiKuwaiti border against Iraq’s protests. On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein ordered his army to attack, invade, and occupy Kuwait. This action not only took the outside world by surprise, but it was received with dismay and anger. All those who’d supported Iraq in the war against Iran— the United States, the rest of the West, the Soviet Union and its allies, and the Arab states, especially the Gulf states with Saudi Arabia at their head—reacted strongly to Iraq’s violation of the UN Charter and its rules against aggression. Saddam’s calculation that the international community would tolerate the attack on Kuwait turned out to be a serious misjudgment. Already on the day of the attack, August 2, the UN Security Council met and adopted Resolution 660 condemning the invasion, demanding that Iraq immediately and unconditionally withdraw its troops to the positions held the day before the attack.

Iraq in the Middle East Before delving into the Kuwait War and its consequences, I will briefly describe Iraq’s role as a security, political, and economic player in the early 1990s. Iraq, first and foremost, is and has been a geostrategic factor of central importance in the Middle East as it borders Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. The area has been traversed for millennia by armies and traders seeking refuge in the Middle East and those migrating across the Persian plains to Central Asia. What happens in Iraq has a decisive influence on the situation in the Persian Gulf and Syria. But it also impacts the development of Arab-Palestinian-Israeli relations, Turkey (and thus NATO), Saudi Arabia, and, of course, Iran. Iraq has the world’s second-largest oil reserves (after Saudi Arabia), some even say the largest. But Iraq is more than geopolitics and oil. It has long been a center of civilization and education: from Sumer in southern Babylon 3,000 years before the birth of Christ, where for the first time in the history of humanity people could read and write, to the Abbasids, who harvested that knowledge, reinforcing it and passing it on to future cultures and to us. The people around the Euphrates and Tigris have been enriched by trade flows and armies that, through the centuries, passed through the river valleys and created contemporary civilization. At present, too much of that heritage has come to serve destructive purposes. In early 1970, overflowing with oil revenue, Iraq initiated one of the largest national armaments buildups of its time. By 1990, with only

4

Iraq Disarmed

17 million inhabitants, Iraq had built an army of over a million men, equipped with 5,700 tanks, 3,800 artillery pieces, and over 800 fighter aircraft. Just to support this huge war machine, over half a million people were employed by the Iraqi Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), where, among other things, it produced a hundred different types of weapons, including long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction and components. As early as the mid-1970s, Iraq launched its own nuclear weapons program revolving around a reactor, Osirak, which Israel destroyed during an air strike in 1981. That did not prevent Iraq from continuing its clandestine work to try to develop and build nuclear weapons. The fact that Iraq devoted so much of its resources to armaments illustrates how difficult it had become for the international community to handle this relatively small and underdeveloped country. The first major war launched by Saddam Hussein against Iran (1980–1988) cost at least 450,000 lives and racked up an international debt of $80 billion for Iraq. Even the relatively brief and limited invasion of Kuwait cost the country $20–$30 billion. Saddam’s decision to destroy hundreds of oil wells in Kuwait during the war in 1991, whereby millions of barrels of oil were wasted, added more havoc. Of course, Saddam Hussein did not only settle for war against the outside world. In 1989, he waged an aggressive campaign against the Kurdish-populated Anfal area in northwestern Iraq that destroyed nearly 2,000 villages, and he launched a multiyear military campaign against internal opposition in southern Iraq that also damaged that area’s ecosystem.

Kuwait War, 1991 On November 29, 1990, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 678, a US and Arab initiative. The resolution required Iraq to comply with Resolution 660 and withdraw its troops from Kuwait. It also imposed financial sanctions against Iraq (including an embargo on its oil exports) and authorized UN member states, in cooperation with the Kuwaiti government, to take all necessary measures for the liberation of Kuwait. A broad international military coalition was created to impose the resolution’s mandate on the liberation of Kuwait. UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in meetings with Saddam Hussein and Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz tried to persuade them to accept Resolution 678 but to no avail. On January 15, 1991, the international coalition commenced military operations against Iraq, mainly with US air strikes. They were followed by ground military operations beginning on February 24.

Iraq

5

The operations were jointly led by General Norman Schwarzkopf, with an army of over 500,000 US soldiers, and Saudi Arabian Prince Khalid bin Sultan, with 200,000 men from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Morocco. The international coalition defeated the Iraqi army, and Kuwait was liberated. The action ended on February 28, only one hundred hours after the coalition’s ground operations had begun. The Iraqi forces were forced to withdraw from Kuwait. This was confirmed in a primary cease-fire agreement signed on March 3, 1991. At that point, the Arab members of the coalition were unwilling to continue the war against Iraq. For the UN Security Council, the question now arose as to how to regulate the political and military situation that emerged as a result of the termination of the Iraqi aggression. For the US administration and President George H. W. Bush, the central strategy was to create stability in the economically important Gulf region, the crucial part of which was to restore a security balance between the key players to prevent Iran from extending its influence geographically and politically by exploiting a weakened Iraq. An important component of the policy, therefore, was to leave Iraq’s citizens to decide their future political order for themselves. Admittedly, the Security Council’s sanctions in response to the invasion of Kuwait would remain in effect for a time, but Iraq would be allowed to retain its institutions and resources with one important reservation: it would be prohibited from possessing or procuring any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical, and biological, and the missile systems for the delivery of such weapons, including missiles with a range exceeding 150 kilometers. The Bush administration at this stage was not tempted by the idea of a regime change, which would have meant dissolving the secular regime that prevailed in Iraq and threatening the balance between the Shiite majority and Sunni minority. The country was at the time ruled by the dominant secular socialist Baath Party led by Saddam Hussein, himself a Sunni Muslim. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who fought hard against all political opposition, especially against the rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq, but he skillfully avoided confrontations between Shia and Sunni Muslims. In this manner, he was able to safeguard the country from religion-based political antagonism, which could have opened the doors to emerging terrorism in the region. In order to maintain a regional security balance, the disarmament requirement did not put any limits on Iraq’s conventional armed forces. The terms, in principle, were not unreasonable, given that Iraq was already prohibited from owning some weapons in accordance with

6

Iraq Disarmed

international law. By accepting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Iraq agreed not to possess or procure nuclear weapons. Iraq had also signed the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons (albeit without ratifying it). In regard to chemical weapons, Iraq had acceded to the 1925 Geneva Protocol that prohibited chemical and biological weapons use. It is interesting to note that the Security Council had already addressed the issue of Iraq’s possession of chemical weapons. During the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–1988, Iran had made well-founded allegations against Iraq over the repeated use of chemical weapons. However, the Security Council chose not to take any action at the time, so as not to upset Iraq. During that war, Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar took the initiative to send an expert group to the area. The group was able to confirm that Iraq had in fact used chemical weapons against civilian and military targets, in violation of the Geneva Protocol. Several victims of chemical weapon attacks were sent to Sweden for treatment, where further analysis identified the chemicals used. Notably, no chemical or biological weapons were used against the coalition in the Kuwait War, which may be attributed to a warning from President Bush in a letter presented by US secretary of state James Baker at a meeting in Geneva on January 8, 1991, to Iraq’s deputy prime minister (and former foreign minister) Tariq Aziz, who was asked to pass it along to Saddam Hussein. In the letter, President Bush stated that use of chemical weapons against the coalition would lead Saddam and Iraq to pay a terrible price. Tariq Aziz later told me that he returned the original letter to Baker, saying that its tone did not match the expected level of communication with a head of state. Aziz explained to me that he interpreted the threat in the letter to mean that the United States would respond to Iraq’s use of chemical weapons—in the event it resorted to their use—with nuclear weapons, a concern he conveyed to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. The US hard-line position regarding Iraq’s potential use of chemical weapons against the coalition can be traced to the fact that US forces had access to only 150,000 antidotes, while the total US forces in the coalition amounted to 500,000 troops. The other allies were even less protected.

Cease-Fire US postwar posture was translated into concrete terms by Security Council Resolution 687 (1991) adopted on April 3, 1991. The resolution

Iraq

7

was drafted in New York under the leadership of the US ambassador to the UN Thomas R. Pickering, with significant assistance from the British UN delegation. Another key player in the process was the US diplomat Robert Gallucci, deputy head of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs at the US State Department. The details of the resolution were drawn up during lengthy negotiations between the permanent members of the Security Council, where, according to Tom Pickering, the Soviet Union gave strong support to achieve a resolution with the best possible backing of the council members. Council Resolution 687, by its very nature, became something of a formal, quasicontractual cease-fire, ending the conflict between Iraq and the coalition for Kuwait’s liberation. It was not an agreement between Iraq and the UN, which has often been argued. The main components of this arrangement were that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and related capabilities were to be eliminated and that Iraq was to unconditionally undertake not to procure any of these banned weapons. Furthermore, in part, the ban on imports from Iraq, that is, the oil embargo put in place by the Security Council (Resolution 678), would cease when the council determined that Iraq had carried out all the commitments and obligations that the disarmament entailed. Paragraph 22 of the resolution, which linked the arms issue to the oil embargo, became a central element of the political drama that would play out in the years that followed until 1999. Resolution 687 concluded, “When Iraq officially declares that it accepts the terms of the resolution, a formal cease-fire shall occur between Iraq and Kuwait and the member states that cooperated with Kuwait in accordance with Resolution 678,” that is, the resolution that authorized Kuwait’s liberation by military means. Only a few days after Resolution 687 was adopted, Iraq issued such a declaration. Thus, on April 11, 1991, a formal ceasefire in the Kuwait War took effect. The cease-fire resolution expressed the following regarding the weapons issue (paragraphs 8 to 13): Iraq will unconditionally accept, under international supervision, the destruction, removal and disarmament of: (a) all chemical and biological weapons, all related chemical stocks and subsystems and all research, development, support and production facilities; (b) all ballistic missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometers and their components, as well as repair and production facilities; (c) all nuclear weapons or nuclear material applicable materials, and all subsystems, components and related research, development, support or production facilities. Furthermore, within 15 days of the resolution’s adoption,

8

Iraq Disarmed

Iraq will deliver to the Secretary-General a declaration on the placements and quantities of all the substances concerned, as well as the types involved and allow urgent international on-site inspections. Furthermore, Iraq will unconditionally undertake not to use, develop, construct, or procure any of the aforementioned objects or substances.

UNSCOM and the IAEA In the cease-fire resolution, the Security Council decided to establish a special unit, the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), to implement the disarmament and monitoring tasks. This commission was to conduct immediate on-site inspections of the biological, chemical, and missile capabilities declared by Iraq, as well as the facilities and equipment identified by the commission. It was tasked with disposing of all prohibited weapons and equipment and destroying or disarming them. The commission was to further develop a plan for future control and verification of Iraq’s compliance with its obligations under the resolution, a plan that would be delivered to the Security Council for approval within 120 days after the adoption of the resolution. There was only one precedent for UNSCOM: the Inter-Allied Control Commission (IACC), created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1918, which established peace after World War I. The IACC’s function was to devote itself fully to the disarmament of Germany. It was natural in 1918 to make disarmament a central postwar component since many thought the war had been caused by the massive armament programs carried out from the turn of the century until 1914 by the great powers of the European continent—the German and Habsburg empires, the Russian empire, and secular France. World War II, on the other hand, was judged by many to have been made possible by the disarmament policy and armament control that led to a weakening of Europe’s democratic states throughout the 1920s and 1930s. As a consequence of this, the UN Charter, which established the international order after World War II, did not contain a word about disarmament. The new commission was to be led by a chairman with full executive responsibility. It was noteworthy, therefore, that the executive chairman was not, as usual, in the UN system, subordinate to the UN Secretary-General. Instead, the commission and its executive chairman would report directly to the Security Council, a unique case in UN history. Regarding the nuclear dimension, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Hans Blix, with UNSCOM’s

Iraq

9

assistance, was instructed to immediately carry out on-site inspections of Iraq’s self-declared nuclear-related facilities and materials, as well as to oversee and monitor their capabilities. However, with regard to undeclared nuclear facilities and capabilities, it was up to UNSCOM’s executive chairman to identify them and decide on inspections and destruction. Like UNSCOM, the IAEA was also tasked to develop a plan for future control and verification of nuclear-related capabilities, subject to the Security Council’s approval. In the consultations preceding adoption of the resolution in the Security Council, the US pressed for the Special Commission to take full responsibility for the nuclear weapons inspections and the elimination of Iraq’s possible nuclear capabilities. This was based on the IAEA’s complete failure before the war to identify any prohibited activity in its inspections in Iraq in accordance with the NPT, as well as its great (and unearned) praise for Iraq’s “exemplary” implementation of its obligations under the NPT, when Iraq had in fact not only deceived the IAEA’s inspectors but, as shown later, had continued working on a clandestine, welldeveloped nuclear weapons program. However, after French and British insistence, the United States did accept a role for the IAEA. In a compromise agreement, the task of conducting the verifications and drawing up plans for continued control and monitoring of Iraq’s nuclear programs and activities fell to the IAEA director general rather than to the IAEA institution. This circumvented, among other things, the IAEA’s two policymaking bodies, the Board of Governors and the General Conference, both of which exhibited a predilection against intrusive inspections, thereby keeping them from gaining decisive influence over the implementation of the cease-fire resolution. Of course, it was impossible for Director General Blix to personally carry out any control functions. Instead, in conjunction with the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, a group of experts, known as the Action Team, was formed to carry out the mission, which was done with UNSCOM’s assistance. At the same time, UNSCOM was responsible for all financing and operational activities (transportation and equipment) for this group. The Security Council required that UNSCOM and the IAEA cooperate closely, designating UNSCOM as the general coordinator with many support functions in the areas of security, administration, transportation, and financing. The IAEA was tasked with reviewing and verifying Iraq’s declarations of its nuclear capabilities. But the politically important dimension of the mission, especially initially, fell to UNSCOM, or rather its executive chairman, to be solely

10

Iraq Disarmed

responsible for identifying and analyzing nuclear weapons–related facilities and inspecting places that Iraq had not declared and kept secret. UNSCOM was also the main recipient of relevant intelligence and other information shared by the member states in support of the elimination of Iraq’s banned capabilities. IAEA’s indisputable expertise in nuclear materials, in particular fissile material, as well as its knowledge of Iraq’s declared activities, inspection experience, and methods, complemented UNSCOM’s weapons expertise. At first, UNSCOM and the IAEA shared the workload of the technical inspection process, but in retrospect, it ended up practically entirely in the hands of the IAEA Action Team in Vienna, led by Maurizio Zifferero, an Italian national who had worked with Iraq on its civilian nuclear program for more than a decade. Blix saw that experience, along with Zifferero’s earlier employment with the Italian Atomic Energy Commission, as an advantage when he appointed him. Zifferero’s extensive involvement in the construction of the Iraqi nuclear program was later questioned in the media, which accused him of being biased—an opinion I did not share. Zifferero’s closest colleagues included David Kay (a US citizen) and Dimitri Perricos (a Greek national who would succeed Blix in 2003 as head of UNSCOM’s successor organization). Kay, who bravely and almost aggressively led two successful initial nuclear weapons inspections, did not become a longtime member of the IAEA Action Team; his intrusive inspection style was strongly opposed in IAEA circles in Vienna. Following the initial crises, UNSCOM’s own Nuclear Weapons Group, tasked with finding undeclared nuclear weapons– related material, was relegated to a more advisory role on substance issues after Iraq’s secret nuclear weapons programs had been identified and eliminated. Operatively, however, UNSCOM’s role remained central to issues of finance, transport, communication, and air surveillance in support of nuclear weapons–related inspections.

Between Two Wars UNSCOM’s operations extended over four distinct periods between the first and second Iraq wars. The first period, which began in April 1991, was characterized by the Iraqis’ absolute denial of the allegations, misleading information regarding the possession of prohibited capabilities, and physical resistance to the inspectors’ operations. At

Iraq

11

the same time, the Security Council increased pressure on Iraq to comply with UNSCOM. The second period, which began in early 1992, marked a year of cooperation as Iraq courteously demonstrated its possession of chemical weapons and missiles. UNSCOM was able to initiate a three-year process for the destruction of Iraq’s vast quantities of these weapon capabilities, but continued cases of resistance by Iraq led to US air strikes in January 1993 against Baghdad. The third period began in 1993. On the one hand, it marked the development of UNSCOM’s and IAEA’s surveillance program to monitor Iraq’s various dual-use research and production facilities. But for UNSCOM it also constituted the beginning of an intensifying search for the biological weapons, the possession of which Iraq continued to deny. When the fourth period began in the fall of 1995, a final account of the prohibited weapons was being completed and the monitoring program was fully implemented. At the same time, in dialogue with the Iraqi leadership, amid war threats, I developed special arrangements for conducting intrusive search operations. However, a political split emerged over the issue of sanctions relief that divided the five permanent members of the Security Council into two factions (Russia, France, China in favor and the United States and the United Kingdom opposed). UNSCOM’s inspections ceased in December 1998, when Iraq blocked inspectors’ access, and a fragmented Security Council could not be united to support UNSCOM. In December 1999, UNSCOM was replaced by a new organization, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which was operational for only about four months at the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003 before the Second Iraq War broke out. That war and the US occupation of Iraq led to the dissolution of the Iraqi social order under Saddam Hussein’s secular dictatorship, followed by severe sectarian confrontations in Iraq. In their wake, external forces such as al-Qaeda, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, emerged and spread in a fragmented Iraq. The second and “unnecessary” war led to the rise of Sunni Muslim terrorism and, as a result, the Islamic State (IS) or Daesh. It was a development that had far-reaching consequences for the Middle East and the entire world.

2 The Building of UNSCOM

I WAS IN VIENNA ON APRIL 12, 1991, WHEN I RECEIVED A PHONE call from my friend Pierre Schori, cabinet secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stockholm. He offered me the position as executive chairman of the Iraq Special Commission. My candidature as the head of the new organization was proposed based on my tenure from 1983 to 1989 as ambassador and head of the Swedish delegation at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, where I, among other things, chaired the international negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention, and I was one of the key actors in charge of the review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). This call naturally led to a difficult discussion with my family. We were living in Vienna, where I was working as Sweden’s ambassador for military negotiations on European security. My wife and our children were enjoying our life in the Austrian capital, where we had moved two years earlier for my work. Security policy negotiations took place in the magnificent Hofburg Palace, where Sweden, along with other neutral countries, such as Finland, Switzerland, and Austria, made significant diplomatic progress. In 1990, I led the negotiations on the principles that would apply to the formulation of a new political order for Europe, the Charter for a New Europe, commonly referred to as the Paris Charter, which was signed in December 1990 at a summit in Paris by George H. W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev,

13

14

Iraq Disarmed

Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, Václav Havel, and Ingvar Carlsson, among other heads of state and government. Preparations were also underway for a new round of negotiations on military confidence-building measures, which would further develop the results of the 1986 Stockholm Conference in the form of a new Vienna document. One of the factors I took into consideration in accepting the job as UNSCOM’s executive chairman was that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq would be motivated to seek a rapid resolution to the dismantlement of its weapons of mass destruction, given that the harsh economic sanctions, in particular the oil export embargo, would only be lifted once its disarmament was resolved. I believed that I would be able to report to the Security Council that Iraq had fulfilled its obligations in a year’s time so the Security Council could then lift the burdensome oil embargo in accordance with Resolution 687. In that spirit, I contacted Pierre Schori that same weekend—just two days after his call—and said I was prepared to take on the assignment. On Monday, April 15, the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament in New York, Yasushi Akashi, informed me that the Secretary-General of the United Nations had nominated me for the position as head of the new commission. On April 19, Sweden’s ambassador to the UN, Jan Eliasson, was able to inform Stockholm that the five permanent members of the Security Council—the United States, the Soviet Union (a short time after that it changed its name to the Russian Federation),* the United Kingdom, France, and China—supported the Secretary-General’s nomination. It was clear from the start that my name was strongly supported not only by the United States and its ambassador to the United Nations (Pickering) but also by Soviet ambassador Julij Vorontsov. The Security Council’s decision on my appointment was published on April 22. On the same day, the council appointed US diplomat Robert Gallucci as deputy executive chairman. That an American became deputy chairman was a natural consequence of the fact that the United States had borne the heaviest burden in the liberation of Kuwait and the defeat of Iraq.

*The events covered in this book coincide with the many changes that took place in the former Soviet Union (or USSR). For the sake of clarity, I refer to the country by the name in use at the time of each event. For all references prior to December 25, 1991, I use the Soviet Union; after that date, it is Russia or the Russian Federation.

The Building of UNSCOM

15

The UN in New York On April 24, I arrived in New York and checked in at the well-known UN Plaza Hotel on First Avenue, opposite the UN building. In the evening I had a drink at the hotel bar with Blix (director general of the IAEA at the time) and Eliasson (Sweden’s ambassador to the UN). After that I took an evening stroll in Manhattan. It felt good to be back in the city where I’d spent so many years in the 1970s and 1980s as a young diplomat. On the morning of April 25, Gallucci and I walked across the street to the UN headquarters. We headed up to the thirty-eighth floor of the UN skyscraper for our first meeting with Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar, accompanied by his closest advisors, people I would work closely with in the coming years. The Secretary-General assured me of his full support for the implementation of my assignment, a promise that, like so much else with him, surely was well meant but would not fully materialize. The Secretary-General made it clear that he did not intend to interfere in my work in any way. In his extensive memoirs about his time as Secretary-General, UNSCOM was not mentioned one single time. I was pleased with the prospect of having total autonomy. At the same time, from the very beginning, I realized that the UN Secretariat would not roll out the red carpet to the Special Commission. In 1991 UNSCOM was, and would remain, a body viewed as operating in secret and independently, contrary to the prevailing UN culture of support and cooperation with member states. Only the Security Council could formally govern the commission, and only on the condition that the major powers agreed. Consequently, UNSCOM would be completely free of the UN’s own internal hierarchies and departments. After the meeting with the Secretary-General, Gallucci and I returned to the cramped cubicle assigned to us on the thirty-first floor, furnished only with a table, a chair (one you would expect to find in a kitchen, not an office), and a telephone, which did not work. It was there that I met my new personal secretary, Olivia Platon, a UN staff member from the Philippines who was reassigned to UNSCOM from the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs. With her insider knowledge of administrative intrigues in the UN house, she would become an invaluable asset to me in the cultural clash as our new organization later integrated into the UN Secretariat’s maze. It was clear to me that some form of concrete cooperation with the UN system had to be implemented so that UNSCOM could establish

16

Iraq Disarmed

itself as an institution, thus a physical presence was a good start. Already on the second working day, I was welcomed by my old friend Martti Ahtisaari (later president of Finland), whom I knew from our work together on the development of a joint Nordic policy on the Vietnam conflict. At the time, he was the head of administration at the United Nations. At the meeting, I requested office space in the thirtyeight-story UN building. The administration’s response was that there was no place available in the UN building. Instead, Ahtisaari suggested that UNSCOM be housed in a large office building opposite the famous Plaza Hotel in the southeast corner of Manhattan’s Central Park, far from the UN building abutting the East River. When I objected and pointed out that UNSCOM fell directly under the Security Council and had to have daily contact with UN headquarters, it was suggested that I hire a limousine for trips to the Security Council meetings. I ultimately succeeded in convincing Ahtisaari that the proposal was impractical and inoperable. Ahtisaari summoned his closest advisors and instructed them to immediately provide me with suitable premises in the UN building. The response was “yes, sir,” but nothing happened. Even Finland’s future president didn’t have the authority to provide our new organization with the necessary workspace. Platon, on the other hand, was able to quickly identify the decisionmakers in the UN bureaucracy who actually decided on the distribution of working spaces and offices. And soon the new commission was granted access to a suitable office space on the thirtieth and thirty-first floors of the United Nations building. I, personally, was assigned an office with large windows and a beautiful view of eastern Manhattan. As a result of my long experience in international negotiations and my judicial training in Sweden’s civil service, I was fully aware that establishing and leading a controversial task like disarmament in connection with a major international conflict required very special competence in questions of international law. That is why, on the first working day, Gallucci and I contacted the UN legal counselor Carl-August Fleischhauer of Germany and requested that he recommend a person suitable for the position of legal advisor for such a complex institution as the Special Commission. In memos from his time at the United Nations, Fleischhauer later wrote, “I was visited by two people, a Swedish white-haired pastor and an American cowboy in leather boots.” Somewhat condescending, Fleischhauer suggested that rather than recruit a legal advisor I should send him a memorandum every single time I came up against a legal issue. He would then, after thorough

17

Per-Anders Pettersson

The Building of UNSCOM

A complicated communication system: New York–Bahrain–Vienna–Baghdad.

evaluation, provide me with a suggestion regarding the most appropriate manner to handle the problem. I declined this proposal. Instead, I succeeded, on my own, in recruiting John Scott, a former UN deputy legal counselor—a stroke of luck as it would later turn out. Throughout my years as UNSCOM chairman, John came to guide me through the UN jungle with his brilliant intellect. He also helped me develop elegant solutions to complex issues in my daily dealings with Iraq. Fleischhauer’s only contribution to my work before he left the UN to become a member of the International Court of Justice in The Hague was to propose a legal inquiry aimed at limiting UNSCOM’s ability to obtain assistance from the UN Secretariat. However, with the help of Security Council members, we succeeded in blocking his proposal.

Financing Perhaps the strangest thing about the creation of the Special Commission was that neither the United States nor any of the other members

18

Iraq Disarmed

of the Security Council were concerned about the financing of its operation, which would, of course, include complex inspections, modern technology, scientific research, advanced transport arrangements, and the need to guarantee staff safety. According to normal UN practice, it was up to the UN General Assembly and its subsidiary bodies to estimate the amount needed to execute a Security Council decision on, for example, a normal peacekeeping operation. But in the case of UNSCOM, the funding was left open because the United States did not want to turn such a politically charged question into a power play within the framework of the various interest groups in the General Assembly and its financial committees. Understandably, the Secretariat was vague in its estimate of the cost of implementing the weapons portion of Resolution 687, which it considered could end up somewhere between $100 million and $1 billion. Instead, funding initially came from independent grants. Alternatively, according to the Security Council, member states were free to use Iraqi financial assets for UNSCOM’s financing, which, as a result of the Security Council’s decision, were frozen in various countries’ banks and institutions. However, in many cases these frozen funds could not be accessed because Iraq had debts that exceeded its assets. In this context, it should be emphasized that much of UNSCOM’s expenditure was covered because the salaries of many of the experts, scientists, and administrators involved in the commission’s operational activities were paid by their respective governments. However, the governments’ contributions did not cover travel costs. The same also initially applied to the costs of aviation operations, transport aircrafts, helicopters, and U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Furthermore, UNSCOM was responsible for the costs and salaries of the IAEA Action Team and was obliged to pay the UN rental costs, up to 13 percent of its budget. The Security Council normally handed over the financing of its decided operations to the General Assembly, but this time the council did not relinquish its financial responsibility. It fell to me to find viable solutions to cover the commission’s financial needs. I regularly traveled to countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates to ask for financial support. The peculiar financing structure meant that, as sole decisionmaker, I was also personally responsible for covering the costs of the entire operation. At one point when I only had money on hand to cover two months of operations and at the same time had to sign a number of sixmonth contracts with arms inspectors, my concern about my own finances was evident.

The Building of UNSCOM

19

After a couple of years, in 1995, there was a change in the system, when the Security Council decided to ease the oil embargo in its Resolution 986 and allow part of Iraq’s oil export revenues to be set aside for continued funding of UNSCOM and the IAEA Action Team’s operations. Despite all the difficulties, the fact that neither the SecretaryGeneral nor the UN Secretariat could use the funding to influence the handling of the substantive issues was important in ensuring the independence of the executive chairman.

Cooperation with the Security Council Already on the first day at work, I had a meeting with the president of the Security Council for the month, Belgian ambassador Paul Noterdaeme, partly to inform him of my plans and partly to listen to the sentiment within the Security Council and the assessments there. With this talk I established a practice of meeting with the current president of the Security Council on the first working day of the month in accordance with the principle of rotation among its fifteen members. For me, it was clear from the outset that an intriguing power play on the Iraq issue would develop in the Security Council as it was the world’s most powerful political body with the authority to make binding decisions for all UN member states. My own role in this context would turn out to be unique: The council declared that the Special Commission (UNSCOM) constituted a body subordinate to the Security Council. As its executive chairman, I alone would plan and direct the commission’s activities on the basis of the Security Council’s resolutions and any instructions thereof. UNSCOM thus became the first subordinate body ever created by the Security Council. Consequently, I could not be required to receive instructions from any other institution or political actor. Not even the UN Secretary-General had the powers I had as the commission’s executive chairman. This did not prevent me from maintaining good personal relations with the three Secretaries-General during my time as commission chairman: Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and Kofi Annan, whose advice and recommendations I often sought. In retrospect, the Special Commission has remained a unique organization. Not since UNSCOM has the Security Council had a “subordinate organization.” Everyone was aware that every one of the five permanent members of the council—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France,

20

Iraq Disarmed

and China—had the veto power to stop any decision and that they, therefore, often were the object of courtship by the actors whose cases were up for decision. This also applied to me, and I arranged meetings with these actors in various constellations: the five permanent members, the three representatives of Western countries, or four of the five members (except China, which kept a careful distance at all times). Perhaps most important, though, were the individual contacts with the superpower ambassadors. Pickering, one of the most accomplished diplomats of his time (and still active in diplomacy), followed my work with meticulous accuracy. When a break occurred during a Security Council session on a topic other than Iraq, he regularly took the elevator from the Council Chamber to my office on the thirty-first floor to stay informed of recent developments. Pickering was regarded by his colleagues in the US State Department as the country’s foremost diplomat. The only problem for him was that Secretary of State James Baker seemed to think that Pickering received too much positive attention in the US media. Baker was, therefore, keen to send him far away from New York and Washington. Instead of being appointed head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Pickering was sent to India as US ambassador in 1992, an undeniably remote post. Jim Woolsey, my colleague from the Vienna negotiations on European military security, was appointed the head of the CIA. Pickering’s later successor was Madeleine Albright, who would eventually become secretary of state in the Clinton administration. Albright and I had a relationship that was not completely conflict-free (but more on that later). She preferred to summon me to her office opposite the UN headquarters instead of coming to my offices. Although contrary to UN protocol, I accepted this and walked obediently across the street to the US delegation’s office when my presence was requested. The ambassador of the Soviet Union was Julij Vorontsov, an astutely honed diplomat who was constantly in good spirits and seemed to see it as his job to support me and the commission when quarrels arose. Vorontsov would later move to Washington as Moscow’s ambassador. He was succeeded at the United Nations by Sergei Lavrov, who later become Russia’s longtime foreign minister and with whom I developed a good and stable relationship. Britain was represented in the council by David Hannay, a cocky and humorous English diplomat with a subtle manner, always prone to complicate already complicated situations. His French colleague JeanBernard Mérimée represented French national interests, which in his case were not always completely free from France’s own pecuniary

The Building of UNSCOM

21

motives. China’s head of delegation, Qin Huasun, kept a low profile but remained a discreet but clear supporter of me and the commission in times of crisis. With regard to power play within the Security Council, it should not be forgotten that it is the nonpermanent members who held the voting power, that is to say that they were necessary to achieve the minimum nine votes required for a formal decision of the council. As I have already mentioned, I used to meet privately, one on one, with the current council president on a monthly basis, which over time gave me direct personal contact with each of the council members. But as far as Iraq was concerned, I dedicated a significant amount of time to talks and meetings with the Arab UN ambassadors, where I was greatly assisted by Egypt’s chief delegate ambassador Nabil Elaraby, a close friend of mine since our joint time in Geneva at the Conference on Disarmament in the 1980s. Elaraby also organized regular meetings for me with the Security Council members from the NonAligned Movement. In doing so, I had ample opportunities to respond to the many harsh, unjustified attacks directed at me and UNSCOM from Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s closest supporters. Another line of support was organized by the permanent representative of the Netherlands to the United Nations, Robert Van Schaik, who invited me to regular luncheons with a group of nonpermanent but frequent council members such as Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, India, and Brazil, where I was given the opportunity to describe the disarmament work and clear up any misinterpretations and misconceptions. Perhaps one of the most crucial roles for me as UNSCOM chairman was to systematically and continuously strive to keep Security Council members well informed of our work, thus helping the council reach unanimous agreement to support the commission in the frequent crisis situations that would occur over the next seven years. When the agreement collapsed in 1998, after my departure in 1997, it also resulted in UNSCOM being disbanded, an extremely unfortunate development that ultimately contributed to the Iraq War in 2003 and its disastrous consequences. But perhaps most important were my meetings with the representative of the Iraqi government in the UN, Ambassador Abdul Amir al-Anbari. Our initial meeting took place on my second working day at the United Nations. Usually, we would spend a lot of time together, mornings and evenings in the UN building, in an atmosphere that was, if not hostile, definitely chilly. Interestingly, a few years later my personal relationship with al-Anbari’s successor, Nizar Hamdoon, would become both warmer and more constructive, even in extremely stressful security situations.

22

Iraq Disarmed

Not surprisingly, in my first meeting with al-Anbari, he described in fiercely critical and bitter terms the cease-fire resolution, which he believed was a brutal and one-sided dictate of the United States and Saudi Arabia, in particular the continued financial sanctions, something that would seriously affect the civilian population and would not be lifted until the weapons inspectors completed their job. I took the latter observation very seriously, and it was something that I weighed heavily during my entire time as UNSCOM’s executive chairman. After the 2003 Iraq War, the United States was able to lay hands on a number of tape recordings of Saddam Hussein’s deliberations with his cohorts. I was understandably interested as they were able to provide information on Baghdad’s assessment of UNSCOM’s and IAEA’s operations in retrospect. For me it was not only vain but practical to study the translated printouts, including those where the discussion concerned me, especially their speculation about my plans and intentions. In addition to Saddam’s personal interventions, it was Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz who was the most talkative with drawn-out comments, something I could recognize from my own conversations with him, often accompanied by General Amer Rashid and Foreign Minister Muhammed al-Sahaf. Even before he fled the country, Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel had an influential role in the internal deliberations. Complicating my interpretation and analysis of some of the transcripts was that the date the conversations were held was not always specified, but often given my knowledge of the Iraqi dramaturgy I could place the texts in their proper context. (I will address this in greater detail later.)

Organizational Introduction The first concrete task for our small group—Bob Gallucci, John Scott, Derek Boothby (from the UN Disarmament Department), and me—was to work out what the Security Council called a “status agreement” that would outline detailed rules for Iraq and the obligations and rights of the commission. The deputy executive chairman and I, as executive chairman, would be granted complete diplomatic privileges and rights in accordance with international law. The rules would also grant UNSCOM and the IAEA Action Team rights such as unlimited freedom of entry and exit for personnel with accompanying equipment, transport vehicles, and materials; freedom of movement in the country without warning and unrestricted access to facilities designated for inspection

The Building of UNSCOM

23

by UNSCOM; access to documents and data; the unrestricted right to conduct interviews of Iraqi personnel; the right to install camera surveillance of production activities and take aerial photographs; and the right to destroy prohibited materials related to biological and chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, and long-range missiles. On May 6, the Secretary-General sent the text of the agreement to the Iraqi foreign minister. Iraq at first protested and refused to sign it, but after a week or so of negotiations with Ambassador al-Anbari, Iraq agreed and accepted these rules and rights by signing the status agreement, a first and modest achievement for our group. Now all Gallucci and I had to do was build an organization from scratch that would carry out our historically unique mission with extremely sensitive scientific and technical components. But, perhaps the most difficult challenge facing us was operating in a politically complex and physically dangerous environment. First, a group of commissioners typical of the United Nations was created based upon the principle of geographical distribution. Most of the members had significant seniority with backgrounds in military and academics in defense research, including laboratory managers. They came from Norway, Japan, Nigeria, Poland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Australia, Austria, the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Indonesia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, and China. As can be seen, the participants were predominantly from Western countries with more technical weaponry skills. At the same time, it was clear that nations such as Egypt, Syria, Libya, Argentina, Brazil, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam, with significant knowledge about weapons of mass destruction, preferred not to flag their possession and knowledge of the banned weapons and, therefore, were not willing to participate in the Special Commission. The commission members were able to contribute their thoughts and comments twice a year at the meetings held for that purpose and were thus given a more cosmetic role. Nevertheless, those members with especially pertinent insight and relevant experience to our mission were later given key roles in the commission.

Headquarters The second component of the commission’s structure—those performing heavy planning and operational functions—worked from the commission’s offices on the thirtieth and thirty-first floors of the UN building.

24

Iraq Disarmed

From the outset, I was determined to gather and develop superior objective and scientific expertise. During my posting as head of the Swedish delegation to the Conference on Disarmament, I had worked with Johan Molander, a talented Swedish diplomat. In the disarmament negotiations in Geneva, he found ample opportunities to craft elegant diplomatic solutions to politically charged issues of great interest to both major blocs, and he contributed to giving Sweden an influential role in a series of complex multilateral negotiations. Furthermore, Molander had previously worked at the IAEA in Vienna as a political advisor to Director General Hans Blix, who would later become my partner in the elimination of Iraq’s nuclear capabilities. I called Molander at his home in Geneva and invited him to work with me at UNSCOM as a political expert and advisor. The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave its approval, and five days later, on May 1, we were able to meet in New York with Bob Gallucci and John Scott for lunch, where we made a list of the names of suitable recruits. I was also able to bring on board Johan Santesson, a scientist from the Swedish Defense Research Agency (formerly FOA, now FOI), who contributed outstanding insights into questions about chemical and biological weapons. By the time I was commissioned at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament between 1984 and 1987 to lead the negotiations on the Convention on Chemical Weapons, the secrecy surrounding these weapons had been so guarded that my two scientific assistants Santesson and Johan Lundin (also from FOA) barely shared the key details with me. I finally succeeded in convincing them that I did in fact need access to all the chemical weapons secrets. Because Swedish FOA chemists commanded considerable respect, I was later able to recruit Åke Sellström to UNSCOM’s group of the world’s leading experts in biological and chemical weapons. At a meeting with Soviet UN ambassador Julij Vorontsov, I managed to convince him to recruit Nikita Smidovich, a young official of the Russian Foreign Ministry and somewhat of a diplomatic prodigy. Smidovich had demonstrated unique talent as a Soviet delegate in the negotiations at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament, especially in the Conference on Chemical Weapons, but also through the process of seeking to establish a verification system linked to the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons. Together, Vorontsov and I managed to convince Smidovich and the Russian authorities that he should join our team. With Smidovich, Gallucci, Scott, and Molander, I had a core group in New York that could start preparing the inspection and monitoring

The Building of UNSCOM

25

activities. Meanwhile, I concentrated on utilizing the contact network I developed in the UN in New York in the 1980s and in the context of the Geneva Conference on Disarmament, to hand-pick staff among government delegations’ weapons experts and scientific advisors. I turned directly to friendly governments to ask that they lend UNSCOM the experts on my list of recruits. This model for recruiting experienced specialists with international status became a guarantee of quality, experience, and cooperative ability. We received prompt and enthusiastic responses to our requests for staff. What appeared to be attractive to many scientists working mostly theoretically and/or at the laboratory level was that UNSCOM would work with “real weaponry” in a challenging and dangerous environment—a true scientific reality. For me, quality and competence became the sine qua non for recruiting staff. It was a matter of course, given the complex nature of the tasks, that UNSCOM could not follow the UN regime, which dictated geographical and political balance in the recruitment of personnel. The personnel in the operational department were given dual functions: first, to plan future inspections from the New York headquarters based on reports from UNSCOM’s weapons inspections and from information obtained from intelligence data; and second, to build a team for each individual expedition adapted to the purpose of that inspection and lead those inspections in Iraq in many cases. Some of those who became chief inspectors of chemical capabilities were Horst Reeps from Germany, Cees Wolterbeek from the Netherlands, and Igor Mitrokhin from Russia. The dangerous and complicated destruction of chemical weapons was led by Ron Manley from the United Kingdom. Major players in the biological weapons inspections were Richard “Dick” Spertzel and Diane Seaman from the United States, David Kelly and Hamish Killip from the United Kingdom, Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack from Germany, and Rod Barton from Australia. Terrence Taylor from the United Kingdom came to lead the destruction of the al-Hakam biological weapons production facility. The missile group, led by Smidovich, included Achim Biermann and Norbert Reinecke from Germany, Patrice Palanque and Didier Louis from France, and Scott Ritter from the United States. The latter, a young former US Marine officer, ended up attracting a great deal of attention and created numerous problems, if not for me, for my successor Richard Butler. Finally, the nuclear weapons group included Dave Dorn from the United States and Michel Saint-Mleux and Jacques Baute from France. (Baute, after a strong analytical and operational effort with us, came to play an important role in the IAEA Action Team together with

26

Iraq Disarmed

Mohamed ElBaradei.) The group had the special task of collaborating with the Action Team in Vienna to solve the arms issue with special knowledge on nuclear weapons outside IAEA’s organizational scope, given that it was focused purely on civil nuclear power and nuclear material development. Administrative personnel were recruited mainly from UN permanent staff. As I mentioned earlier, my personal assistant Olivia Platon, who had several years of experience working at UN headquarters, had access to important UN and UNSCOM information normally difficult to access inside the UN system. She liked living in Manhattan because, in her words, “New York is such a quiet city.” When I asked what she meant she simply said, “compared to Manila,” her Filipino hometown. (Her husband, a political leader in the Philippines, was shot to death when he was about to hand out candy to children at one of his rallies in the election campaign for the mayoral race in 1995. Understandably, for her, New York was indeed a quiet city compared to Manila.) She continued to work with both of my successors: Richard Butler and Hans Blix. UNSCOM’s deputy executive chairman Robert Gallucci, a cheerful, quick-thinking recruit from the US State Department, brought nuclear weapons expertise and considerable experience from serving in the Middle East. Together with legal expert John Scott and political advisor Johan Molander, Gallucci skillfully handled major and difficult challenges in the construction of UNSCOM. Unfortunately, both Gallucci and Molander decided to move on, after only a year’s work—Gallucci to lead the US delegation in the nuclear weapons negotiations with North Korea, and Molander to new duties in the Swedish Foreign Ministry. Gallucci was succeeded by Pierce Corden, a nuclear physicist and one of America’s foremost experts on multilateral disarmament issues, and later by Charles Duelfer, a US intelligence specialist who, after the Iraq War in 2003, was given the leading task of evaluating the remnants of Iraq’s banned weapons (which turned out to be nonexistent). Molander’s successor was a young British diplomat, Tim Trevan. Molander and I had the opportunity to get to know Trevan when he was a member of the British disarmament delegation in Geneva. He later came to write a both factually true and entertaining book about the disarmament of Iraq, Saddam’s Secrets. Trevan’s successor as my diplomatic/political advisor became the Argentine diplomat Gustavo Zlauvinen, with invaluable insights into disarmament issues, including experience with the IAEA. My executive group also included the administration manager Alice Hecht and a press officer, Ewen Buchanan of the UK, and even-

The Building of UNSCOM

27

tually a young professional historian, Stephen Black, who in addition to handling the large mass of documentation subsequently developed a natural talent for investigative inspection activities. The UNSCOM headquarters came with three main components: the executive office with me as the executive chairman, the operations department, and the Information and Assessment Unit (IAU). The operations department was initially led by an American disarmament expert, Doug Englund, with experience from the US-Soviet missile negotiations. Over time, Smidovich was given overall responsibility for the operations department in addition to his special missile responsibilities. For the planning of inspection operations there were four specialist groups, one for biological and one for chemical weapons, one for missiles and one for nuclear weapons. The latter group had the task of supporting the IAEA Action Team, from New York, with their expert knowledge of nuclear weapons that was not available in Vienna. Each specialist group had to plan and organize the weapons inspections and then carry them out in Iraq, among other things by recruiting the personnel for each specific inspection, as well as getting the expertise, equipment, and necessary technology. The purpose of the inspections was to verify, on the one hand, Iraq’s own declared capabilities, and on the other, find the undeclared capabilities and facilities that I, as the executive chairman, was to specifically designate for inspection and then evaluate the results. Another step was to identify weapons materials and facilities for destruction, and to monitor and implement their elimination. In support of the operational planning and implementation of the inspections, it was up to the IAU to deliver to me the data collected in the form of reports from previous inspections and other sources, which would then be provided to our weapons experts in the operations groups at the New York headquarters. The IAU received, analyzed, and processed the intelligence data submitted by governments to the commission. It also compiled this material with the information from the inspection activities and Iraq’s own declarations regarding its possession of weapons-related material. In addition, there was the overhead imagery material that UNSCOM collected, which IAU’s photo interpreters had to process. In the early summer and autumn of 1991, UNSCOM and the IAEA gained access to operationally useful intelligence from a couple of governments. Later, UNSCOM’s own inspections also generated material. Moreover, IAU’s compilation and analysis were almost singular in determining the direction and development of the inspection work. The IAU had the sensitive task of evaluating the intelligence material provided by

28

Iraq Disarmed

governments and other sources and linking it to UNSCOM’s own inspection data, to then tie everything together in its database. For UNSCOM, it was extremely important that weapons data and intelligence sources did not leak. Effective data protection was a prerequisite for governments to share intelligence material with UNSCOM. We, therefore, built a culture of absolute confidentiality. All our staff signed an employment contract or consultancy contract with UNSCOM (and the UN) through which the person concerned undertook not to disclose any form of data to any individual, government, or journalist, without first obtaining permission from me. In order to disclose the UNSCOM data to a government there would have to be special reasons, namely, to enable a partner to evaluate the quality of the intelligence collected. Assessing the quality of the intelligence data collected became one of my responsibilities, in consultation with the head of the IAU. The employment contract also included that consultants (the administrative designation of my employees/inspectors) were not allowed to seek or receive any instructions regarding their duties from any government or other authority outside the UN. It was striking how all my staff throughout my period of operation (with one exception) dutifully and fully lived up to these contractual requirements. However, it must be said that the US and British governments were not happy that I, by creating my own “intelligence” unit, made myself independent of the great powers’ spy networks. The first chief was Canadian Geoff St. John, who after a while was succeeded by Rachel Davies from the British intelligence service. Davies, with outstanding leadership talents, intelligence, and an ability to handle complex data and all the dimensions of spy art, operated up to and during UNMOVIC’s and Hans Blix’s entry into the arena. This smart group also included Australia’s Roger Hill and the department’s only nonAnglo-Saxon, Frenchman and missile specialist Patrice Palanque. With all these unique personalities, UNSCOM developed a distinctive organizational environment. Rarely has such a remarkable group of people gathered under one roof: nuclear physicists, biologists and chemists, weapons technicians, military logisticians, computer experts, site investigators, explosive ordnance specialists, intelligence experts, photo interpreters, and diplomats from the East and West (and some from the Southern Hemisphere). A collegiality and mutual solidarity emerged. The staff often met with a circle of international scientists and specialists who were regularly called to participate in or even lead the more complicated field activities in Iraq. I established as a practice that at

The Building of UNSCOM

29

0930 every day, the staff would assemble for a meeting, a “morning prayer,” to review immediate problems, which were rarely few, and to build a common sense of responsibility, insight, and loyalty to the tasks assigned by the Security Council. Given the exceptionally complex nature of the assignment and its scientific, technical, and political dimensions, it became very important for me to learn in depth and to understand all aspects of the daily challenges, while giving my staff the opportunity to see their assignments in a wider political context. The morning prayers took place in a special tiny, eavesdropping-shielded room. I like to think they were especially important in creating an understanding of the philosophy and principles and values that governed our work. They were greatly appreciated by the staff and helped to develop a special sense of belonging in relation to our joint mission. For me, it was of enormous importance to be part of the thought activities that developed in our circle of talented and committed individuals. From my office on the thirty-first floor, my closest staff focused on the political dimension of our mission, relations with Iraq’s leadership, the intrigues in the Security Council, strategic planning of operations, and aggressive media pressure, while employees on the thirtieth floor did the day-to-day work, collecting intelligence and organizing inspection operations. The headquarters staff was normally around forty people, and the number of home-based staff for call-in inspections amounted to a few hundred. Due to the highly sensitive and politically complex aspect of our work, our headquarters on the thirty-first floor were surrounded by unusual arrangements and security controls. As I received more or less well-founded suspicions of eavesdropping directed at my office, I also organized a weekly sweep for possible eavesdropping equipment from the office. I set up my private residence in New York at the Beekman Tower Hotel on the corner of 49th Street and First Avenue, in other words, a few steps from UN headquarters. It was a popular place for Scandinavian diplomats who visited New York in conjunction with the fall sessions of the UN General Assembly. During my first years as the UNSCOM chairman, I rented an apartment on the hotel’s eighteenth floor, consisting of a very large living room, one bedroom, and a kitchen. Since my wife and children stayed in Vienna for another two years while awaiting the final Iraqi disarmament solution, I had to handle every aspect of organizing my subsistence at Beekman Tower. A big advantage was that I had cleaning help as part of the rent, and an even bigger advantage was that, during the intense media coverage of the commission and its activities in the UN building, I could organize discreet meetings on my hotel floor with

30

Iraq Disarmed

various political actors, in particular the Iraqi UN ambassador or visiting Iraqi politicians and diplomats. To somewhat compensate for long periods of loneliness at the hotel, I rented a piano that provided great pleasure while practicing without disturbing neighbors, thanks to the hotel’s thickly insulated walls. The hotel had friendly and efficient staff, which made life easier. But even there I had to be diligent about security. A case in point is the morning I walked about one block from the hotel on my way to my office at the UN when I realized that I forgot my glasses at home, so I turned around, walked into the hotel, took the elevator up eighteen floors, and stepped into the apartment where I discovered the hotel’s sympathetic bellboy digging for documents in my trash can. He fled frightened (without any documents), and I had no choice but to report the incident to the FBI. The young man was dismissed from the hotel. On Friday afternoons, when staff from the UN Secretariat and our American colleagues at UNSCOM would set off for their homes to spend time with their families and other weekend activities, I began a routine of going over to the bar in the UN Plaza Hotel to evaluate the events of the week with my closest staff over a drink. The regular participants were Tim Trevan, Olivia Platon, Rachel Davies, and Nikita Smidovich. Given that the task of eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities was initially seen by me (and the Security Council) as a short-term mission of one to two years, the Swedish government decided that I could formally retain my position as ambassador and head of the Swedish delegation in Vienna on the negotiations on military confidence-building measures, while holding the post of executive chairman of the Special Commission. The task of leading Sweden’s delegation in everyday life, therefore, fell on my deputy, Erik Pierre. Together with the delegation’s diplomatic counselor Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, a group of experienced defense lawyers, and officers from the Stockholm Defense Staff, Erik carried out a solid and successful job of negotiating new versions of the Vienna document on military confidence-building measures. My wife, Christina, and two of our children also initially stayed in the ambassador’s residence at Linnéplatz in Vienna, where I often made stops on my trips from New York headquarters to the Middle East and Baghdad, stops that I would use for consultations with Hans Blix, the director general of the IAEA, and the Action Team. Only after two years did we realize that the UNSCOM mission would take more time, but we still did not know for sure how much more. My family finally moved from Vienna to New York in 1995. I left the Beekman

The Building of UNSCOM

31

Tower, near the UN, and moved to an apartment in a well-maintained building on 87th Street and Third Avenue. This meant a lot of long morning walks—forty-five blocks—down to my office in the UN skyscraper on 42nd Street and First Avenue.

Air Support An important success for UNSCOM was achieved when, during the first few months of operations, I succeeded in convincing the US government to make its prime high-altitude plane, the U-2, available to the commission for ground reconnaissance. The Iraqi authorities as well as the media came, much to my annoyance, to constantly refer to it as the “U-2 spy plane,” which was not a correct designation because the plane operated entirely legally under a mandate issued by the Security Council. As a result, I became personally responsible for utilizing this American aerial photography reconnaissance plane. The plane operated from approximately 21,000 meters of altitude (i.e., twice as high as an intercontinental passenger flight) and with varied surveillance, using two different types of cameras: a so-called sweep camera that could cover large ground surfaces, and a high-precision, high-resolution camera. The latter meant that we could specify exact coordinates, enabling the pilot to aim the camera at the precise target of interest. This could involve examining facilities that would be targeted for inspection, or discovering redevelopments, new construction, or special operations in connection with suspected weapons-related facilities or laboratories. The sweep photos were apt for identifying structural changes such as road construction, excavations, or transport activities that could have relevance to prohibited weapons programs. UNSCOM’s U-2 plane operated from a US base in Saudi Arabia and formally followed my command as UNSCOM commander. The U-2 operations included about seventy-five people, including four pilots, all located at the base in Saudi Arabia. The pilots were UN certified and the plane was UN labeled, which meant that it was in principle legally inviolate. I visited the base on several occasions and was always impressed by their work. To reach its operational height, our U-2 plane was extremely light with significant wing width and was equipped with two light wing motors and only two wheels, one front and one rear. This meant that at takeoff both wings of the plane had to be supported by a vehicle on either side that was traveling at

Iraq Disarmed

Henry Arvidsson/UNSCOM

32

UNSCOM’s high-altitude plane for aircraft surveillance, U-2, based in Saudi Arabia.

high speed parallel to the aircraft body until the plane could lift off. After completing the mission, the plane had to be supported once back on the ground. With its two wheels in bicycle position, the support vehicles came from behind at high speed and were able to drive in under each wing to support the plane until it stopped. The support vehicles then backed away and the plane could be tipped to one side or supported by thin, wheeled sticks. The targets for the U-2 operations were determined by me based on proposals from either the IAU or the heads of the respective weapons groups in New York and in consultation with the IAEA team in Vienna. Forty-eight hours before each mission to Iraqi territory, my office formally notified Iraq’s UN ambassador stating which border section between Saudi Arabia and Iraq would be used for in-flight (but obviously not the flight route inside Iraq), requesting confirmation within twelve hours. As a rule, Iraq responded in a timely manner, while formally protesting the “border violation of its own territory” in a diplomatic note to the president of the Security Council, who in turn routinely noted the protest without further action.

The Building of UNSCOM

33

After the U-2 operations commenced in the summer of 1991, they continued with about two flights per week. The footage was delivered from the base in Saudi Arabia directly to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to be delivered to our UN office, usually every Friday afternoon, after development and processing. I hired two photo interpreters (from the French Armed Forces) who side by side with a weapons inspector or analyst reviewed the image sequences. The review then served as a basis for both the IAU assessment of otherwise obtained intelligence material, for the planning of inspections, and for my own political analysis. UNSCOM also got its own helicopter unit stationed in Iraq early on. It initially consisted of two large helicopters (CH-53G) operated by a German army crew. It was given extensive tasks, such as speedily transporting equipment, ground vehicles, and inspectors to distant inspection destinations from the Rasheed airbase outside Baghdad and supplementing the U-2 images with additional photos taken during its reconnaissance flights. The problem during the first couple years was working with helicopters designed to operate over a European forest and mountain landscape, which were suddenly tasked to function in a sandy desert environment. As the German helicopters tended to break down in sandstorms, I looked to Chile. During an afternoon in Santiago spent with the military leadership, while also experiencing an earth-shattering earthquake, I managed to persuade the relevant decisionmakers (including the foreign minister) to entrust to me a helicopter unit, designed and trained to operate in their northern Chilean desert. That turned out to be an unexpected success. Five helicopters (UH-1H), their pilots, and the support personnel were provided to UNSCOM and performed exceptionally well in the deserts of Iraq, providing our entire complex organization an operational capability that would work throughout our presence without any technical incidents. In addition to the U-2 plane and the helicopter unit, I acquired a third aircraft group consisting of two heavy transport aircraft—C-160 Transalls—and associated crew, stationed in the UNSCOM regional headquarters in Bahrain. The aircraft were used to transport inspectors (UNSCOM and IAEA) to and from Baghdad and provide our Baghdad-based local staff with technical equipment. Initially, the German defense force contributed to this high-quality support, until the armed conflict in the Balkans demanded its withdrawal to Europe. With some effort I managed to finance the rental of two private L-100 Hercules planes (a civilian version of the military C-130

34

Iraq Disarmed

plane) with associated crew from South Africa that operated without problems for several years under stressful and risky conditions. I never succeeded in persuading the Iraqi authorities to permit our heavy transport plane to be based at Baghdad’s international airport; instead, we were required to use Habbaniyah military airfield beyond al-Fallujah, about two hours by bus from Baghdad. In order to coordinate our complex air operations in Iraq, I decided to establish the Aerial Inspection Team (AIT), which regularly reviewed the helicopter and cargo plane flight plans and the so-called boxes (geographical coordinates) the helicopters flew within during inspections. UNSCOM’s three high-quality aviation units and their intensive operations became a constant source of irritation for the Iraqi military authorities that led to repeated and dramatic confrontations with the commission and the Security Council, as described later in this book. In summing up these structural arrangements, it must be noted that for the UN organization, UNSCOM came to represent a whole new culture. At the UN, the work of the organization usually involves supporting and serving individual member states (including peacekeeping operations with the consent of the states/actors concerned). UNSCOM, on the other hand, acted as an enforcer against a member state. The operation was further surrounded by secrecy that did not allow transparency to governments or other international players.

Bahrain For the operations in Iraq, we needed access to two field offices: one in Baghdad and one outside of Iraq. We chose Bahrain, whose government favorably viewed our mission. We used the Bahrain field office to prepare for inspections and train participants in the equipment to be used. Moreover, the inspectors were able to take commercial flights from their home stations and gather in Bahrain to meet the chief inspectors coming over from the New York headquarters. The chief inspectors carried formal identification signed by me and a list of the weapons-related facilities declared by Iraq to be inspected as well as any nondeclared weapons facilities that I wanted them to inspect. The chief inspectors also passed along necessary data prepared by the New York planning group, customized technical equipment, and U-2 aerial photos. In addition, detailed maps were

The Building of UNSCOM

35

drawn using photo data collected by the U-2 and helicopters. The photo material was used to draw up detailed site plans to facilitate on-site inspections. Inspectors also had to be prepared for various surprises—big and small—that the Iraqi Reception Committee enthusiastically resorted to in an effort to complicate the inspectors’ activities. During routine inspections, preparations in Bahrain normally took only about three days, but in situations where advanced equipment was added and predictably difficult complications ensued, preparations took up to a week. Furthermore, the handling of the data had to be protected from the Iraqi intelligence service’s systematic attempts to screen the inspection preparations. The chief inspector normally had the support of a deputy chief and an operations chief, with heavy duties in terms of transport, internal communication, and security. On top of all of this were the health and safety precautions and doctors for the team, especially when the inspection involved biological or chemical weapons facilities. After completing the necessary preparations, all the equipment was loaded onto one of UNSCOM’s heavy transport planes in Bahrain to fly to Iraq and land at the Habbaniyah airfield where the group of inspectors was met by UNSCOM’s resident staff from Baghdad. An inspection normally took three to four days, but there were some that took much longer. Once an inspection was completed, the group would return to Bahrain to compile the inspection report. Although this was a responsibility that fell to the chief inspector, any member of the inspection team who was of a different opinion had the right to have their point of view reflected in the final report. Both the preparation and the writing of the report, which took several days, were done in a specially protected facility, the Gateway Center, where American and British personnel handled security. Of course, we at UNSCOM were grateful for the support we received within the Gateway Center, but at the same time, I maintained an inviolable order that the Gateway staff should not be given information other than what was necessary to carry out their support operations, such as the establishment of maps and site plans based on the U-2 photographs. After an inspection, the chief inspector and other staff based out of headquarters traveled to New York to submit their reports to me, while the other inspectors returned to their respective home stations. If the inspections were related to nuclear weapons issues, the chief inspector first traveled to Vienna to report there to the IAEA Action Team.

36

Iraq Disarmed

Baghdad In Baghdad, UNSCOM was able to use the old Canal Hotel to establish its local headquarters: the Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Center (BMVC). Under the leadership of Admiral Göran Wallén (a Swedish colleague of mine from the military negotiations in Vienna), it gradually was transformed into an excellent, well-functioning facility, which, not surprisingly, was subjected to extreme pressure by the Iraqi security and spy organizations. The BMVC had large office areas for administrative work and ongoing inspection preparation activities. Other parts of the building were dedicated to technical work and equipment such as chemical and biological laboratories. Part of the facility was used to support camera surveillance we installed in Iraq’s missile facilities and other potential weapons-related sites. On the site, BMVC built a mast just over 100 meters, tall enough to capture camera signals from even remote parts of Iraq. In the storage areas on site, we kept food and water shipped in from Bahrain to protect the inspection personnel from being poisoned. BMVC had access to forty quality Nissan patrol vehicles for ground transportation and inspection activities. Once Iraq, in 1993, hesitantly accepted the Security Council’s decision to establish the monitoring inspection system, the BMVC began to accommodate the monitoring of dual-use facilities. The IAEA’s Nuclear Monitoring Group, along with UNSCOM’s corresponding specialized groups, tended to stay for around two to four months before it was time for a shift change. The BMVC staff normally consisted of about eighty people from administration, technical, and communications personnel to medical and air surveillance personnel, and experts in the chemical, biological, missile, and nuclear monitoring groups. Another forty people made up the special helicopter unit. As BMVC director in Baghdad, Wallén was given overall responsibility for contact with the Iraqi authorities, in particular UNSCOM’s/IAEA’s counterpart—the National Monitoring Directorate, under Brigadier General Hossam Amin.

3 Moving to Action

ON APRIL 18, 1991, IRAQ SUBMITTED ITS INITIAL DECLARATION IN response to Security Council Resolution 687 regarding its possession of prohibited weapons and related capabilities. According to the resolution, Iraq was to provide definitive and complete declarations. In light of subsequent discoveries, the information contained in the declaration— especially pertaining to chemical weapons, Scud-type missiles, and nuclear weapons—differed from reality. Moreover, Iraq categorically denied that it had any biological weapons. A month later, revised declarations were submitted. Although they included more information, they were not complete. Based on our inspections, we came to the conclusion that the Iraqis were tailoring their declarations to what they assumed our experts had already figured out, omitting any data of their own volition. In order to elicit an international reaction to Iraq’s preliminary declarations, I chose forty UN members, including the five permanent members of the Security Council, and gave them copies of the declarations. I asked them to make comments and give me any additional information they could. The feedback I received, with a few exceptions, proved slim. After my first month of political games and administrative haggling in New York, I saw an opportunity to go to Baghdad with Scott and Molander in tow. I wanted to monitor the launch of UNSCOM’s first chemical weapons inspection. The thirty-member team, including Santesson as an expert, was led by Dr. Peter Dunn, Australia’s foremost

37

38

Iraq Disarmed

chemical weapons expert. We met with the team of inspectors on May 6, 1991, in Bahrain, where our field office was under construction and our first transport aircraft had been leased. While the experts prepared, Molander, Scott, and I had the opportunity to meet with Bahrain’s deputy foreign minister, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Khalifa, one of the many family members who governed that small sheikhdom. The field office was a well-protected building within a giant hangar on the US naval base that was home to the US Fifth Fleet. At 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 9, we left Bahrain with the inspectors and flew over Kuwait into Iraqi territory. As we flew over the vast desert area, I was struck by the view of some of the world’s richest oil wells on fire. (Saddam had ordered Iraq’s security forces to burn the Kuwaiti oil fields during their retreat from the US-led coalition; they were still on fire months after the military operations had ceased). We touched down at 10:00 a.m. at Habbaniyah airbase about two hours’ drive from Baghdad, a place I would come to know almost too well. Upon arrival, I was welcomed by Iraqi deputy foreign minister Wissam al-Zahawi, whom I had met in the mid-1970s when we were both mid-tier diplomats negotiating the Palestinian issue in the UN Security Council. Upon greeting me, al-Zahawi said, “We have been friends through our work and as such I would have liked to show you around Baghdad personally, but given that you are here to destroy our national resources, I will not make such a gesture.” Instead of going straight to Baghdad, Scott, Molander, and I, along with the inspection group’s leadership, drove to al-Muthanna, a chemical weapons production facility that had been on our radar for some time. Subjected to extensive attacks by Allied aircraft during the Gulf War, we saw the damage caused by the aerial bombings: bomb craters, damaged buildings, unexploded bombs, and chemical weapons ammunition. However, the destruction was far from total in an area that must have extended twenty-five square kilometers, scattered with nerve gas and mustard gas production facilities and storage units for weapon precursors, ammunition refills, and, as we later learned, underground weapons depots. What struck me as we drove into the area was the amount of burnt paper littering the ground, left behind from Iraqi personnel’s efforts to obscure the site activity and make the inspectors’ analysis work more difficult by destroying documents. For me, what we saw at alMuthanna would become a familiar sight. As chairman of the international negotiations on the ban on chemical weapons in the 1980s, I had visited and examined what I believed at the time to be large chemical

Moving to Action

39

warfare facilities in both the Soviet Union and the United States. However, after seeing al-Muthanna, I realized they were medium-sized operations. Despite the bombings, it was evident that al-Muthanna still had significant production capabilities. Suddenly Molander shouted, “Something smells strange. It smells like mustard gas!” We managed to stop the inspectors’ convoy, turn around, and flee from al-Muthanna. We made it out in time, but I thought it odd that Molander was the first in the group to sense the poison gas in a team of some of the world’s foremost chemical weapons experts. It was true that our inspectors were professionally accustomed to these dangerous smells, while my diplomatically trained closest associates and I had only worked in political circles where no such odors surfaced. Scott, Molander, and I returned to our modest hotel to prepare for the first interaction with Iraq’s foreign policy leaders. This first meeting with Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein and my former friend al-Zahawi was calm, balanced, and harmonious. In fact, it would prove to be the most cordial meeting in my six years as head of the disarmament team in Iraq. The foreign minister’s primary task seemed to be to convey to me the responsibility the Iraqi authorities felt for the destruction of their country’s extensive chemical weapons stockpile. I assured the Iraqi side that I would study their proposal with an open mind in consultation with my experts but stressed that the commission would control and oversee the destruction process. This first visit lasted only a couple of days. I was able to quickly return to New York via Bahrain while the thirty-person inspection group began the heavy work of mapping al-Muthanna’s secrets. The inspectors found from the outset that Iraq’s chemical weapons declaration did not match the real conditions. Instead of being a “full, final and complete declaration” as required by the Security Council resolution, Iraq’s first declaration turned out to be a “full, final and complete fairy tale” (as Santesson described it). As for biological weapons, the Iraqi declaration, on the contrary, was succinct: “Iraq does not hold any biological weapons or other related materials mentioned in Resolution 687.” The expertise and professionalism of the weapons inspectors initially came as a surprise to the Iraqi authorities. Gradually, the quality of the Iraqi declarations began to improve, but in reality, it was up to UNSCOM’s team to document the full range of the Iraqi weapons programs. The basic method was to survey the procurement activities of the Iraqi authorities during the 1980s, not only with regard to Scud missiles but also precursors (components for chemical weapons), chemical reactors, laboratory equipment, biofermentation plants, biological materials, growth media, missile components, precision

40

Iraq Disarmed

instruments, and machinery as well as documents related to procurement, technical, and banking aspects. By developing a clear picture of Iraq’s international procurement pattern, UNSCOM’s analysts were able to calculate and evaluate consumption and usage. With this information, they established a “material balance” between what was obtained through procurement and production as well as what was delivered to the Iraqi Armed Forces and the security forces and consumed through use and testing or remained in storage. While several governments in countries where state and private actors had supplied Iraq with equipment and materials for its weapons programs cooperated with UNSCOM by sharing relevant export data, there were many that did not. Those that did share information did so under the condition of strictest confidentiality. We always safeguarded the names of the suppliers in order to make it easier for governments and companies to cooperate with us. Information given us from cooperating governments was important for our analysis and inspection operations, but it must be said that during the years 1991–1998, only a relatively small part of the data on weapons and banned products developed during UNSCOM’s work came from government sources. UNSCOM got most of the outside information and intelligence material during the first year of operation. Thereafter, our inspectors and analysts were able to familiarize themselves with Iraq’s industrial and military technology capabilities through our own inspection activities, generating their own knowledge and insights about Iraq’s various weapons programs. This significantly reduced our dependence on third-party intelligence data. Subsequently, most of the vital information produced was the product of our inspections and the analytical work conducted by the operational units, first in Bahrain and then in the New York headquarters. UNSCOM’s reduced reliance on government sources meant that we could be restricted in our dealings with the various intelligence agencies, which were always keen to know what we knew. During the first year, the Iraqis systematically refused to give inspectors access to sites. Although the Security Council had granted UNSCOM/IAEA the right to immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to inspect facilities, the Iraqi authorities did their best to create delays and barriers to frustrate the inspectors’ work. This initially came as a surprise to the Security Council and UNSCOM leadership. Both had expected the heavy economic inducement in the form of promised relief of the oil embargo to entice Iraq’s leadership to support a rapid implementation of the weapons section of the cease-fire resolution.

Moving to Action

41

The First Crisis On May 15, 1991, the IAEA Action Team, assisted by UNSCOM’s weapons experts, launched the first nuclear weapons inspection. The target was the main site for the Iraqi nuclear program, al-Tuwaitha, long since the subject of the IAEA’s safeguard inspections under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The IAEA team did not find anything new or suspicious to report, in part because Iraqi authorities had removed all documentation pertaining to the facility’s operations. The IAEA’s second visit in June was a completely different story. After assessing US intelligence data, I selected undeclared facilities as targets for closer examination. One of them was the Abu Ghraib army barracks, where the local commander repeatedly refused our inspectors’ entry on June 23 and 25. My deputy Gallucci, along with Zifferero, head of the IAEA Action Team, made repeated negotiation attempts with the Iraqi deputy foreign minister, al-Zahawi, without success. Back in Vienna, Blix wanted to cancel the inspection, but then al-Zahawi, in a surprising change of tune, promised and guaranteed that our inspectors would have access to the selected facilities. I instructed the inspectors to make renewed attempts to gain access. On June 26, during a UN Security Council meeting to evaluate the situation, Iraqi ambassador Al-Anbari pledged to cooperate with all UN missions in Iraq. But his promises did not stop the Security Council president from expressing grave concerns over Iraq’s actions. Two days later, the inspectors, led by IAEA’s David Kay, arrived at al-Fallujah, another facility I had selected. They were stopped at the entrance by the Iraqi military. Undeterred, two inspectors climbed a water tower and were able to identify heavy transport vehicles loaded with large metal disks and cylindrical objects. It was 2:00 a.m. in New York when I was able to speak with Kay directly via satellite phone. He reported that a convoy of about sixty vehicles was on the move to evade the inspection team. Our staff, on Kay’s orders, took up the pursuit of the convoy. Iraqi military personnel then jumped out of the trucks and started firing with handguns at our inspectors, who nonetheless sought to continue pursuit while photographing as much as possible of the Iraqi vehicles’ cargo. In that situation, with the utmost severity, I ordered Kay, who seemed way too caught up in the hunt, to immediately call back our people and put an end to the operation so as not to risk anyone’s life. Kay did as he was ordered. At the same time, he vigorously protested to the Iraqi escorts, demanding that the trucks be stopped and returned for inspection, something that the Iraqis completely ignored. Instead, the Iraqi police tried to

42

Iraq Disarmed

stymie our inspectors by taking away their cameras, but in what can only be called a game of tug-of-war, our inspectors successfully resisted. I contacted Blix in Vienna as the drama escalated, and, after consulting with him, I formally gave Kay the order to cancel the inspection. In my diary dated June 28, I wrote that Kay first contacted me at my residence in Beekman Tower at 2:40 a.m., New York time, and that I arrived at the office in the UN building at 3:25 a.m., and from there the contacts continued with Kay. After consulting Blix in Vienna, I woke up each of the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council—the United States (Watson at 6:30 a.m.), the United Kingdom (Richardson at 6:50 a.m.), France (Mérimée at 7:15 a.m.), the Soviet Union (Sidorov at 7:30 a.m.), and China (Wang at 7:50 a.m.), and the president of the Security Council (8:00 a.m.) and briefed them all on what had occurred. I then sent an email to the Secretary-General at 9:00 a.m. and consulted with him at 9:30 a.m. on how the situation should be handled.

The Security Council’s First Crisis Meeting By 10:00 a.m. that same morning, the Security Council met informally behind closed doors. The meeting took place around a long table in a small, crowded room tucked behind the well-known public chamber of the Security Council. I provided a detailed account of the latest developments. It became clear that the council members were annoyed and upset by Iraq’s blocking of the inspectors’ work. They demanded that something be done in response to the incident. The Secretary-General announced his intention to immediately send a delegation to Baghdad for top-level meetings to ensure Iraqi compliance with their obligations under the Security Council resolution. He then stated that the delegation—formed by UN disarmament chief Yasushi Akashi, Blix, and me—would depart later that same day. The council president concluded the meeting at 12:30 p.m. by asking me to prepare a draft statement from the Security Council. Working with Scott, I drafted a statement, which I submitted to the president at 2:00 p.m. At 4:00 p.m., the council met and adopted the statement verbatim. In addressing the regrettable incidents on June 23, 25, and 28, the council declared that the government of Iraq had to take all necessary steps to eliminate any obstacles to the implementation of the UNSCOM mandate, showing full cooperation with the inspectors by providing immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to the facilities for

Moving to Action

43

inspection. This obligation would also apply to all local and military authorities. The Security Council concluded the statement with a warning that repeated blockages would have serious consequences. The Security Council requested that the delegation report back on the result of its talks with the Iraqi leadership, through the Secretary-General, as soon as possible. In Washington, that same day, President Bush accused Saddam Hussein of deception and lies and hinted at his readiness to resort to military action if Saddam hindered Iraq from cooperating with the UN. At the same time, Iraqi foreign minister Ahmed Hussein from Baghdad announced that Saddam Hussein ordered all the authorities concerned to cooperate fully with UN personnel to facilitate their mission.

First Meetings with Tariq Aziz and Hussein Kamel At 5:00 p.m. on June 28, I left UN headquarters for Newark airport with Scott, Molander, Platon, and Akashi to fly to London, from where we then traveled to Amman, Jordan, before landing in Bahrain at 1:00 a.m. local time on June 30. There we were met by Blix, who was accompanied by legal counselor Mohamed ElBaradei, his future successor. (ElBaradei and the IAEA would go on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.) Together, the seven of us flew on to Baghdad. After checking into our hotel, we met that evening with Foreign Minister Hussein and his right hand and number two in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, my former friend al-Zahawi. Both were elegantly dressed in tailor-made suits. They listened patiently as I laid out the Security Council’s demands and criticism, before expressing, with the skill of an experienced diplomat, my deploration of the obstacles put before our inspectors. Regarding the use of weapons against our personnel, the Iraqis claimed it was because of their armed forces’ fear of infiltration by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp. With the utmost sincerity, they assured us that our group would have access to the transport vehicles that had eluded our inspectors just days before, even suggesting that we could do so the very next day. With an attitude of what’s done is done, Hussein kept his discourse focused on what was to come. He told us that President Saddam Hussein himself had decided that in the future, the country’s political leaders, in collaboration with the military, would be responsible for handling requests made by the Special Commission and the IAEA to access facilities designated for inspection. However,

44

Iraq Disarmed

this could not preclude the possibility that the commission would designate places that were under the jurisdiction of other ministries, such as the Ministry of Commerce. He told us that because Iraq had been subjected to extensive bombing and sabotage, problems handling future inspection visits could arise. He reminded us of the importance of the Muslim holiday Eid, pointing out that the inspection visit fell during this celebration. He asked us, “What would one say in a Western country if inspections were conducted on Christmas Day?” The following day, July 1, we met with Iraq’s deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz at 11:15 a.m. Despite his relatively modest title, over time I realized that Aziz was part of a small group of four advisors and decisionmakers who were particularly close to Saddam Hussein. Aziz was responsible for foreign and security policy. This was my first meeting with Aziz, who would become something of a partner and opponent during a long period of conflict and political tension. I led the delegation’s opening remarks and began by stating the Security Council’s demand that Iraq provide clear assurances that it would not obstruct UNSCOM’s implementation of its mandate and to issue unconditional guarantees regarding the security of all personnel involved in the functions related to Resolution 687. In addition, we wanted to be informed about the measures taken by the government for this purpose at all levels, including local military and civilian authorities. I reiterated the Security Council’s desire to resolve the issue of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction peacefully within the United Nations but warned that if Iraq were to deny UNSCOM and the IAEA access to facilities and relevant material, this would be almost impossible. Tariq Aziz, with his broad physique and thick gray hair, looked thoughtfully through his thick eyeglasses at me from his high armchair, slowly stroking his index finger over his well-groomed gray mustache. As he rolled a cigar between his fingers on his other hand, he hesitated for a second as if he would offer me one but refrained, then he launched a tirade of criticism. He said the problem began with the inspection being initiated during the Muslim Eid holiday weekend. The Security Council had condemned Iraq without examining the behavior of both sides. Iraq was not an occupied country. Its inhabitants were proud of their independence and traditions, something that the inspectors did not respect. They had not understood the Iraqi problems. Iraq had bitterly noted the Security Council’s complaint and inability to take in Iraq’s perspective of it all. He crushed the cigar against the chair frame and declared in an angry tone that Iraq rejected the Security Council’s condemnation. The delegation should tell the Security Council that Iraq was ready to coop-

Moving to Action

45

erate with the UN but not with the CIA. Too many of the inspectors were Americans. Iraq was unwilling to expose everything to such biased individuals. In regard to the inspections, Aziz claimed that the inspectors were indeed entitled to access military facilities, but that they needed to know that Iraq had a large industrial base where UNSCOM was not allowed to go everywhere. Because of the unjust link between the weapons issue and the economic sanctions, Iraq was keen to see the end of the inspections so that the sanctions could be lifted. The inspections must also be announced sufficiently in advance so Iraqi personnel could handle them. I replied that we were aware of the Eid weekend, but that we had information that important objects were found on trucks ready for transport, so no advance notice would have been possible or reasonable. With regard to the composition of the inspection groups, they varied from case to case. In the case of nuclear weapons inspectors, one must turn to one of the five recognized nuclear powers in order to obtain the necessary expertise, and because suspicions concerned material related to electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS), an early uranium enrichment method only officially known in the United States at the time, it was self-evident that we would use several American inspectors. The CIA had not been involved. In many cases, technical experts came from private laboratories and research institutions. It was important that our delegation could report something positive. If we were not able to, it would be difficult to keep the weapons issues within the framework of the UN. Inspections would always be announced in advance, but if an immediate movement of material or equipment was detected, the warning would be very short. Aziz emphasized that President Saddam Hussein had ordered full cooperation with UNSCOM. I replied that I wanted to see a written version of this statement. This was my first conversation with Aziz. In the coming years, we would have many long talks. I would learn a lot about the history of the Arab nation. He would share with me his dreams and hopes, which he believed would shape the future of the Arab people. Aziz was a subtle and creative thinker. He spoke fluent English and skillfully mastered the opportunities of diplomacy, which he always utilized rationally and effectively, despite the fact that he was often dealt a bad hand. His allegiance to Saddam Hussein never appeared to wane, even when Saddam chose sides in favor of Defense Minister Hussein Kamel, Aziz’s sworn enemy and political rival.

46

Iraq Disarmed

Hussein Kamel—Saddam Hussein’s Son-in-Law The next meeting with Tariq Aziz took place on July 2, the following day. This time, apart from his usual “notetakers,” Aziz was joined by the director general of Iraq’s nuclear commission, Abd al-Khaliq. Aziz began the meeting by saying that he had been instructed by President Saddam Hussein to meet with our delegation to jointly investigate the situation to achieve a positive result. In order to deal with all relevant dimensions of the complex problems that existed, the country’s defense minister would also participate. I welcomed this and informed them that the UN attached such importance to a swift resolution that the UN Secretary-General had just left for Europe to meet in Geneva immediately with our delegation for a briefing before returning to New York for my report to the Security Council. I appreciated the assurances provided by President Saddam Hussein, but in the light of the obstacles our inspectors encountered, I had to say that they did not lead to a satisfactory result. For example, which Iraqi authority was actually responsible for receiving our inspections, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Defense? The Iraqi demands for early notification had to be considered in the light of what happened at our last inspection, as the items we wanted to inspect had been spirited off within twenty minutes of the inspectors’ arrival. At that moment, the door was opened as Kamel, the country’s young defense minister and head of its military-industrial operations, strode into the meeting room. He was also Saddam Hussein’s son-inlaw and the father of Saddam’s only grandson. Kamel shook hands with me and then sat down on a couch that stood a bit away, throwing himself down into it like a spoiled child and patting contentedly on the bigbore pistol he carried in his belt. His green general’s uniform was complemented by a pair of high-heeled and embroidered cowboy boots. Aziz froze in his armchair while observing Kamel with a slight twitch in his right cheek. Dropping his cigar into the ashtray, he sought to regain attention and control of the meeting by continuing his exposition, emphasizing that the sides had different views of the events of June 28 and the confrontation with Kay and his inspectors. Now the focus was to look ahead to facilitate future inspections of both civilian and military facilities. From the sofa, the minister of defense shouted, “No, let’s look back instead. The mistake of the al-Fallujah inspection on June 28 was that Ekéus’s target was declared to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, even though it was a military establishment, not a civilian one.” Kamel explained that he himself was not in

Moving to Action

47

Baghdad at the time, but had he been, he would have authorized access to al-Fallujah. However, he stressed that the inspectors were in the wrong by accessing a military facility without Iraqi consent. Blix and I tried to respond by showing the photos our inspectors took of the trucks with cargo, but Kamel and Khaliq disregarded them, claiming they could not see what they portrayed. Khaliq believed that no matter what the pictures represented the objects had been destroyed. I insisted that Iraq was obliged to provide a declaration of all destroyed material to enable an inspection. Khaliq responded directly by categorically declaring that it never existed and even then there was no program for the enrichment of uranium for the production of nuclear weapons under the Atomic Energy Commission. Aziz intervened and expressed his fears that the discussion was about to lead us into a vicious circle. When I emphasized that the rules on weapons inspections were solely decided by the Security Council and reflected the prevailing international consensus, Kamel objected from his position on the couch. He stated there was no agreement; these were arrangements imposed on Iraq. The Security Council had never been fair and only wanted to harm the weak. What, for example, had the council done to Israel when it breached council resolutions? He then suddenly changed his tone. He stated that all material had been destroyed on the president’s orders and inspectors were free to review everything, including equipment that had not been destroyed. The inspectors could do this whenever they wished. My answer was that, in that case, all the material that left al-Fallujah on June 28 would be inspected immediately. Because our mission in Baghdad was scheduled to end that evening with our departure set for the next day, we only had that afternoon for any remaining issues, including the inspection actions. Aziz tried to steer the conversation while Kamel, still sprawled out on the couch, pretended not to be listening as his older colleague repeated his views. Finally, however, Aziz and I agreed that an inspection would be carried out that afternoon, with the participation of Blix and Director General Abd al-Khaliq. I would summarize the results that evening at my meeting with Prime Minister Saadoun Hammadi. When I said goodbye to Kamel, I did so completely unaware that our next meetings would be surrounded by great drama. During the afternoon and evening, Blix and ElBaradei, together with Kay’s and Gallucci’s inspection team, were given the opportunity to examine parts of what the Iraqi side claimed was involved in the June 28 incident. These items were newly destroyed calutrons, an outdated enrichment method used for the production of the atomic bomb released in 1945

48

Iraq Disarmed

over Nagasaki. Meanwhile, Akashi and I met with Hammadi, who declared that the government was determined to implement the Security Council’s resolutions, even if they strongly disapproved. I reiterated that the council resolution was not limited to nuclear weapons and weaponsgrade materials. I reminded him that Iraq’s declarations had to include such things as centrifuges, calutrons, and all uranium-related material. Late in the evening, the delegation had a closing meeting with Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein. I described the conclusions we would present to the UN Security Council. Blix added that he had only inspected some of the material observed at the interrupted inspection on June 28, which was not sufficient for a satisfactory final assessment. The only conclusion that the delegation could draw at that time was that Iraq had a research program for uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons purposes and preparations for a larger enrichment program. I said that the delegation’s report to the Security Council would focus on the points the council had requested, namely, assurances on security and access to the objects and facilities required by UNSCOM and the IAEA. However, we had serious concerns about Iraq’s nuclear program, issues that would need to be clarified and to which we would return. The following morning, July 3 at 5:30 a.m., we left Baghdad from the Habbaniyah airfield on our plane. We flew to Bahrain and then traveled to London Heathrow before touching down in Geneva at 9:30 p.m. The night of July 4 was used for report writing under John Scott’s skillful pen. The following morning, the delegation met with Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar, who waited impatiently for us along with his chief of staff, Indian diplomat Virendra Dayal. The report that Blix, Akashi, and I submitted to the Secretary-General seemed to be to his complete satisfaction. For Pérez de Cuéllar, it was important that the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction be kept in UN hands considering the bombings, destruction, and bloodshed that could result if it were given to the United States. On the same day, the Secretary-General had arranged a meeting with Saddam Hussein’s half brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. The Secretary-General gave him a short presentation and handed over a paper to the ambassador that the delegation had drafted for him to pass along to President Saddam Hussein. The document clearly stated that we had received unambiguous assurances of cooperation and specifically identified measures to ensure Iraq’s compliance with its obligations under Security Council Resolution 687. We also noted that Iraq declared that it did not intend to retain any items that would conflict with the resolution, neither nuclear nor

Moving to Action

49

others, and that equipment belonging to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission had been transferred to the army, some for destruction, others for reconstruction work. However, no explanations had been given as to which nuclear-related items Iraq itself considered prohibited under Council Resolution 687. Furthermore, it was the delegation’s opinion that Iraq was obliged to report in detail the nuclear research and development activities that could be assessed as contrary to the nuclear weapons ban of the resolution, as well as facilities and equipment, destroyed or not, that were related to these activities. So far, no such reporting had been made, but UNSCOM and the IAEA needed the reports to be able to adequately inspect, analyze, and evaluate the full scope of Iraq’s nuclear weapons–related activities. Saddam’s half brother listened without objection but stared gloomily at me as he seemed to recall an incident that had occurred a couple of years earlier. At a plenary meeting in 1988 at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, the Iranian delegation spoke about Iraq’s murderous attacks using chemical weapons against the Kurdish population in the city of Halabja, in northern Iraq. After hearing the shocking account, I was the only member who spoke up to condemn, on behalf of Sweden, the use of chemical weapons in Iraq. All the other delegates merely looked on in shameful silence. After the session, the ambassador of Egypt had tried to arrange a bilateral meeting with me on al-Tikriti’s behalf. I found myself in a designated room in the UN building waiting in vain. Saddam’s half brother never appeared. After the brief session, Molander, Scott, Platon, and I bid farewell to the Secretary-General, Blix, and ElBaradei before leaving Geneva to head back to New York.

The “Intrusive” Security Council Resolution 707 Following this initial confrontation and after the Security Council took note of the delegation’s report, the council members realized that UNSCOM’s rights had to be clarified to enable effective implementation measures. At the same time, the council wanted to signal to the IAEA that its traditional inspection model was insufficient against Iraq’s inspection-blocking tactics where inspections only included plants and equipment declared by Iraq. In conjunction with the permanent council members, Scott and I actively contributed to the drafting of a new resolution. It was unanimously adopted by the Security Council on August 15, 1991, as Resolution 707.

50

Iraq Disarmed

Henry Arvidsson/UNSCOM

After condemning Iraq’s serious breach of its obligations under the disarmament section of the cease-fire resolution, and the lack of cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA, the Security Council demanded that Iraq cease all attempts to conceal, move, or destroy nuclear, chemical, biological, or missile-related material or equipment without notifying UNSCOM and awaiting the commission’s consent. Furthermore, Iraq had to allow UNSCOM, the IAEA, and their inspectors to carry out flights including helicopter flights across Iraq on UNSCOM’s own terms, allowing the commission to fully utilize its own aircraft and choose which airfields to use. The resolution’s other demands on Iraq included securing privileges and immunities for UNSCOM and IAEA staff and ensuring their security and freedom of movement. As later events demonstrated, none of this prevented Iraq from ignoring or opposing several of these obligations and provisions in the coming months and years.

UNSCOM helicopter and inspection staff in Iraq.

4 The Map and the Reality

IN THE EARLY MORNING ON SEPTEMBER 23, 1991, IAEA AND UNSCOM, acting on information given to us by US intelligence services, initiated a joint inspection of a room identified as a document center in central Baghdad. I chose the target after days of discussions with Hans Blix, who did not see the value of searching for documents in Iraq. Blix argued that we should look for premises with concrete physical material, not paper. Kay led the group of forty-two inspectors (four from IAEA and thirty-eight from UNSCOM, nineteen of whom were Americans). Gallucci was second in command. Although it was clear from the outset that many documents had already been removed from the site, Kay and Gallucci were able to quickly realize that they were looking at information related to nuclear activities, in particular data on nuclear weapons production. It was more proof that Iraq was working on nuclear weapons development despite its repeated denials. At 3:20 a.m., I got a call from Gallucci. In addition to documents related to Iraq’s civilian nuclear program, our inspectors had found a collection of detailed technical documents outlining Iraq’s nuclear weapons development. Gallucci and I agreed that these documents, which were in the document center’s basement, should be seized. I immediately contacted Blix in Vienna, who had already received an update from Kay. Given the fact that the documents

51

52

Iraq Disarmed

dealt with prohibited nuclear technology, Blix and I agreed to instruct Kay and Gallucci to remove all weapons-related documents. The documents were loaded into the inspection team’s cars, but when they attempted to leave the document center’s parking lot, their exit was blocked by the Iraqi military. The inspectors began to systematically copy the documents as the Iraqi personnel unloaded the documents from the vehicles. Kay and Gallucci protested angrily as a peculiar choreography unfolded, with our inspectors loading boxes into their vehicles and Iraqi personnel unloading them. Before the chaos escalated even further, the Iraqi side agreed to Kay and Gallucci’s proposal to allow the inspectors to keep the copies while returning the originals. However, just hours later, the Iraqis changed their mind: no documents or other materials were to be removed; they had to be destroyed on site. Kay and Gallucci rejected their proposal. After consulting with me, the inspectors refused to leave any documents and Iraq refused to allow any documents to be removed from the center. The group was now effectively confined to the parking lot, and the situation was at an impasse. In my diary, I wrote the following (New York time): “4:20 a.m.: Gallucci announced that inspectors had been prevented from leaving the premises with the weapons documents.” Later I got in touch with Blix and we agreed to instruct the inspectors not to leave any documents. At 7:00 a.m. I awoke to a call from US Ambassador Pickering. I briefed him on the development. Sometime later that morning, I formally informed the Security Council president of the month, French ambassador JeanBernard Mérimée, about the situation. I next spoke on the phone with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hussein, who was in New York on a UN visit. I urged him to contact Baghdad to relay my demand that our inspectors be allowed to leave the document center with the documents they had seized. I then spoke with Russian ambassador Julij Vorontsov and British ambassador David Hannay, who both expressed sympathy and support. At 9:00 a.m., I met the Secretary-General in his office on the thirty-eighth floor of the United Nations building to discuss strategy and tactics regarding this crisis. At noon, I briefed the Security Council, in an informal meeting, on the crisis in Baghdad. Council president Mérimée called Iraq’s Ambassador al-Anbari and presented the council’s protests over the Iraqi authorities’ actions. After the council meeting, Mérimée held a press briefing at which he stated that the council

The Map and the Reality

53

fully supported UNSCOM and the inspectors’ efforts to implement the relevant Security Council resolutions. He highlighted that UNSCOM, working under the mandate of the Security Council, was the sole evaluator of any documents, facilities, and materials to be inspected. He went on to express the council’s condemnation of Iraq’s repeated efforts to block the inspectors’ activities and demanded that the inspectors be allowed to leave the inspection site immediately with the documents. With the council’s express support, I held a very well-attended press conference that afternoon, which was followed by TV interviews with PBS Newshour and the BBC, among others. The council’s statement had the desired effect. That night Gallucci called me and told me that the Iraqi military allowed the inspectors to leave the document center with most of the seized documents. Gallucci and I couldn’t help but speculate over what the documents might contain given the Iraqis’ efforts to keep them from leaving the site despite the risk of a serious reaction from the council. In New York, the Secretary-General and I briefed the council president and other members of the Security Council on the latest development. They were clearly relieved that I did not call for any concrete action in response to Iraq’s obstructive behavior. However, the situation was about to seriously deteriorate. The inspectors, with Kay and Gallucci at the helm, had not gotten much sleep when they had to roll out to inspect another warehouse near Baghdad city center that I had flagged. This marked the beginning of an even more serious crisis. At 3:00 a.m. (11:00 a.m. in Baghdad) Gallucci once again woke me up to give me a progress report. The inspection team had found a new set of nuclear weapons–related documents of high political sensitivity regarding international procurement as well as a trove of personnel data. One and a half hours later, Gallucci announced that our inspectors had been prevented from leaving the warehouse parking lot and that the entire facility was surrounded by security personnel. Somewhat later, Kay informed me that he was negotiating with the head of Iraq’s nuclear energy agency, Dr. Dhia Jafar. However, the inspectors were still trapped in the parking lot and Jafar had made it clear that they would not be allowed to exit without first going through an inspection and handing over all documents and photographs. Blix and I agreed that no documents were to be handed over, and I instructed Kay

54

Iraq Disarmed

and Gallucci accordingly. Then I briefed Mérimée and Ambassadors Pickering and Hannay on the situation. Later in the day, I had lunch at my favorite restaurant, Il Gattopardo, on 54th Street, with al-Zahawi, Iraq’s deputy foreign minister. I could not convince him to change his government’s demand that I immediately travel to Baghdad to take over from Kay and Gallucci to handle the crisis. Back in Baghdad, our inspectors were still detained in the parking lot at the warehouse. They had to settle for the food that our Baghdad-based staff could deliver over the fence surrounding the parking lot. The following day, Kay used to his advantage the fact that one of the inspectors had fallen ill. Kay convinced the Iraqi security guards to let UNSCOM’s Baghdad staff collect the sick inspector from the parking lot and take him to the Habbaniyah airfield to fly him to the Bahrain base on UNSCOM’s Transall C-160. Kay then hid some of the most important compromising nuclear weapons documents in the patient’s clothing. As soon as the inspector had been lifted onto the plane, the pilot began to maneuver toward the runway. Suddenly, the Iraqi security police grew uneasy. Two cars drove onto the runway in an attempt to block the plane, which was already revving its engines for takeoff. The pilot veered over onto the grass along the runway, avoiding the cars, before returning to the runway. The plane lifted off, giving the drivers of the cars below a clear view of the plane’s wide back door slowly closing shut. The operation was a success: UNSCOM and the IAEA had the documents that unequivocally proved that Iraq’s nuclear program contained a concrete weapons component. In New York, that same day, the Security Council met in a closed session where I provided a detailed account of these new developments. Following my presentation, Mérimée announced at a press conference that the Security Council fully supported the commission’s inspection and its implementation of the council’s resolutions. He reiterated that UNSCOM was solely responsible for deciding which documents, facilities, and materials would be the subject of its inspections. He also condemned the unacceptable detainment of the inspectors by Iraqi authorities and demanded that they be allowed to leave the facility, taking with them any documents they deemed pertinent. He then summoned Ambassador alAnbari and informed him of the council’s position. The US media exploded with indignation when it became clear that a significant number of Americans were among those being

The Map and the Reality

55

detained. I ended up doing a series of interviews, mainly on TV, from morning to night—from NBC’s and CBS’s morning sofas to repeated rounds on my friend Ted Koppel’s ABC Nightline News. On two different sets, I crossed paths with Al Gore, the future US vice president, who criticized me for not “flooding Iraq with inspectors to find the secret biological weapons program.” I patiently tried to explain that my inspection approach relied on scientific competence to penetrate Iraq’s technologically advanced secrets. Scientifically incompetent personnel looking aimlessly around the country could never achieve serious results. Gore was indignant that President George H. W. Bush did not demand Saddam Hussein’s resignation and regime change. I responded that if the UN succeeded in eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, Saddam would no longer be able to exert pressure and violence against neighbors in the region. At that stage, President Bush intervened in the debate by calling into the program with a statement that UNSCOM had found the right approach for the inspections, that violence should be avoided, and that the UN resolutions should be complied with. With the US president on my side, Gore gave up his protests. From Baghdad, on September 24, Gallucci reported that angry Iraqi protesters were gathering around the parking lot, directing threats at their group, especially at Kay, who had now become a celebrity thanks to the international media coverage. The same evening, a letter arrived for the Security Council president from Iraqi foreign minister Ahmed Hussein demanding that I go to Baghdad to resolve the crisis. On the evening of September 24, the US State Department released to the media information on the Baghdad crisis that it had received directly from Kay and Gallucci. After speaking with Blix, I handed a sharp rebuke to them both, reminding them that regarding any matter of substance, they were instructed to report only to the commission in New York and the IAEA in Vienna. By reporting to individual governments (in this case the United States), they could be accused of espionage, putting at risk their lives and those of all the participating inspectors. My intervention provoked an angry response from the State Department. Richard Clarke, assistant secretary of state for Politico-Military Affairs, immediately came to New York. Over an extensive lunch meeting on September 25, he disputed my intervention against inter-American reporting. He claimed that only the US State Department had a service

56

Iraq Disarmed

capable of receiving twenty-four-hour reporting from the field. I firmly refuted this of course since I had experts present day and night working in our office in the UN building and I personally had access at all times, thanks to the satellite phone next to my bed in Beekman Tower. Clarke eventually, albeit reluctantly, gave in to my arguments about the risk of Iraq accusing the inspectors of spying for and directly reporting to Washington. Following our lunch, I clearly reiterated my instructions to Kay and Gallucci, prohibiting them (and anyone else for that matter) from reporting to anyone other than me or Blix and his team. Later that day, Gallucci contacted me to report that the street demonstrations directed at the inspectors outside the warehouse’s parking lot perimeter were growing increasingly threatening and violent. At the same time, his report showed that the “warehouse” in fact proved to be a headquarters for the management and development of a nuclear weapons program containing compromising information on almost everything relevant to nuclear weapons production: from procurement data for nuclear enrichment equipment from France, the United Kingdom, and Finland, especially centrifuges, to personnel lists and details of production facilities, the most notable of which was a hitherto unknown weapon design facility, al-Atheer. In summary, our inspectors were now locked in that parking lot with overwhelming and concrete evidence that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, something that Iraq had categorically denied up to that point. On September 26, my day in New York began early in the morning with calls from Gallucci with information that Iraqi military personnel now also had joined the screaming crowd in Baghdad. It was unclear if the soldiers were sent to protect or threaten our personnel. When I informed the Secretary-General of the situation that morning, he called Iraq’s foreign minister Ahmed Hussein (who was still in New York for a meeting of the UN General Assembly) and demanded that the inspectors be released immediately. In response, Hussein reiterated Iraq’s demand that I travel to Baghdad within forty-eight hours to resolve the crisis. I made it clear to the Secretary-General that I refused the request, emphasizing the necessity of my staying in close contact with the Security Council. Later that morning, Molander and I met with Hussein and Deputy Foreign Minister al-Zahawi to discuss the situation further. In doing so, I drew up the guidelines for handling the weapons doc-

The Map and the Reality

57

uments and releasing the inspectors without requiring me to travel to Baghdad. At the closed Security Council meeting at noon, the council fully endorsed my proposal, which reflected the process I had presented to Hussein that morning. Later in the day, Scott and I began the arduous negotiation process with Hussein and al-Anbari. In order to avoid the huge media pressure, we held the negotiations in my two-room apartment in Beekman Tower, only a few hundred meters from UN headquarters. In broad terms, the proposal meant that the inspection team and the Iraqi representatives would jointly copy all documents, with film and video recordings, and compile a complete list of all the material found by the inspectors. Our inspectors would keep the original documents. Exceptions were made for all personal data, which would be returned to the Iraqis. The inspectors would be free to leave the facility with the collected documentation to return to their Baghdad hotel. Later that day, in a letter from the council president to al-Anbari, the Security Council confirmed the proposed procedure, while the US, British, and Russian ambassadors expressed their strong support for the inspectors. On September 27, the Iraqi government declared its acceptance of the proposal in principle. Kay and Gallucci, together with the Iraqi officials, began to prepare the detailed guidelines for how the inspectors should handle the documentation. Before any results were reported from Baghdad, I had a long meeting with British foreign minister Douglas Hurd, who was temporarily visiting the UN, followed by discussions with Pickering and Richard Clarke, all of whom made it clear that Iraqi obstruction would have serious military consequences. At 4:30 a.m. in New York on Friday, September 28, I arrived at the office to monitor by phone the final phase of the talks taking place in the parking lot. At 11:00 a.m., Gallucci confirmed that a complete inventory had been drawn up. A few hours later the inspectors were allowed to leave the fenced area to return to their hotel with the relevant documents. Two days later, on September 30, the inspectors left Baghdad and flew to Bahrain to prepare the formal joint inspection report for the IAEA/UNSCOM. The Iraqi side’s concession certainly had been prompted by Baghdad’s awareness that on September 24, President Bush ordered air strikes against Iraq to be prepared from US bases in Saudi Arabia. But probably more politically convincing was the Security Council’s cohesion and dogged determination.

58

Iraq Disarmed

Iraq’s Nuclear Weapons Program The factual summary of the outcome of this risky operation showed that we now possessed convincing evidence that Iraq had a complete program devoted to developing nuclear weapons. The program was linked to Iraq’s Ministry of Military Industrialization, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Ministry of Defense. The seized documents showed that the nuclear weapons program was based on a broad international procurement program. Contrary to Iraq’s claims that its nuclear program only pertained to peaceful nuclear energy, the inspection clearly revealed that Iraq had been working on nuclear weapons design and that, in addition, it was attempting to link nuclear-armed warheads to the missiles in the country’s extensive missile program, as part of an endeavor to create a complete nuclear weapons delivery system. In addition, for the same purpose, a highexplosive technology development plant, al-Qaqaa, and a large-scale nuclear warhead production facility at al-Atheer were built, an operation that included sophisticated computer encrypting. From a broader perspective, the inspection became an important milestone marking UNSCOM’s critical role in balancing and assessing Iraq and its nuclear weapons ambitions. If I had bowed to the IAEA’s unwillingness and inability to carry out this document inspection, it is highly unlikely that the true scope of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program would ever have come to light. The outcome was instead decisive, allowing UNSCOM to continue to identify facilities, equipment, uranium enrichment, and weapons technology, and with the guidance of the newfound documents, ensure complete and total elimination of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. On a personal note, I set a hard-to-beat record for insomnia from September 23 to September 29. Working in two time zones—New York and Baghdad—with eight hours’ difference led to endless days and nights that blended together. Weekdays starting around 3:00 a.m. each morning, I would get calls from Gallucci and Kay with the latest news. Those updates would be followed by early morning meetings at the UN with two supercharged ambassadors—Pickering and Hannay—who were continuously competing to see who could be on top. For Pickering, however, in addition to this, his president, George H. W. Bush, was actively considering military action against Iraq and following every development very closely. As the main briefer on the situation, I met with the Security Council in closed meetings twice a day for three days straight (September 24–26) and once on September 29. In between, I

The Map and the Reality

59

had preparatory meetings with Mérimée and daily discussions with Pérez de Cuéllar. Russian Ambassador Vorontsov kept in constant contact with me, and he was able to exert a calming influence on the Iraqi side. Of course, I had countless conversations with Iraq’s sympathetic Ambassador al-Anbari as well as with Foreign Minister Hussein and Deputy Foreign Minister al-Zahawi, who both were in New York during the crisis. The US State Department and the CIA were still unhappy about my absolute order that the inspectors only report to me, Blix, and his nuclear action group at the IAEA in Vienna. US media also aggressively attacked me because the inspectors were not allowed to contact anyone back home. However, in a moment of weakness, I allowed them to speak to the media and send messages to their relatives about their personal situation under strict orders they were not to reveal anything about the weapons programs. I found myself defending our actions morning, noon, and night, especially in US media. My favorite French newspaper, Le Monde, accused me in a major article of being pro-American, which in US media circles would obviously have been a compliment. Waking up at 3:00 a.m. every morning with my adrenaline constantly pumping was what kept me going. It wasn’t until several years later, in 2004, that I gained a new perspective on this bizarre, powerful, and successful inspection. Clarke, in his book Against All Enemies, gave his version of the events. In the summer of 1991, Clarke received information from US and British intelligence services that nuclear-related documents were hidden in a building in central Baghdad. According to his account of events, the Americans and Brits decided to conduct an unannounced inspection of the designated building. His description of how the inspection unfolded came as something of a surprise to me. After all, Blix and I were the ones who carefully weighed the difficulties and risks of such an inspection before ultimately deciding to carry it out. Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom had any operational decisionmaking power in this context. Furthermore, the ultimate responsibility for the inspection fell on me solely. As UNSCOM’s executive chairman under the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution, I had an exclusive mandate to identify undeclared facilities and capabilities for inspection and possible destruction. Blix and I appointed Kay, who had already shown his courage and capacity for action, as the chief inspector, with my closest associate Gallucci as deputy chief, not Clarke. With the Security Council backing me, I negotiated the procedures for handling the seized documents with the

60

Iraq Disarmed

Iraqi foreign minister, which despite threats, risks, and difficulties, ultimately ensured the inspection’s success. Richard Clarke also claimed in his book that it was he and the US government who made the decision to instruct the inspectors (including Gallucci) to refuse to release the nuclear weapons documents they found in exchange for their release from the parking lot. As stated above, it was I who, in consultation with Blix, instructed Kay and Gallucci to hold on to the documents in order to negotiate a practical, politically acceptable solution. This also proved to be a working solution. Further complicating the inspection scenario, that same week Iraq refused to give the commission’s helicopter unit access to an operational base in Baghdad’s immediate area (i.e., the Rasheed airfield). Instead, they sought to force us to accept a station at the Habbaniyah airfield, 150 kilometers from Baghdad, where they already had ordered two of UNSCOM’s heavy Bahrain-based transport planes (C-160s) to land. With the support of Germany’s UN ambassador, Detlev Graf zu Rantzau, a slender and discreet gentleman, I raised the issue of helicopter stationing in the Security Council and managed to mobilize support from all fifteen members of the council, even Cuba and Yemen, neither of which voted in favor of the commission’s creation. This seemed to sufficiently impress the Baghdad government to allow our helicopter unit to be based near Baghdad. Throughout the crisis, the Iraqi government expressed harsh criticism of Gallucci and bitter criticism of Kay, but strangely enough, a friendly tone was maintained toward me. As such, on October 1, I received a letter with the text “Welcome to Iraq” and thus started planning my trip. Gallucci met me in Bahrain. Along with Kay, he was in the process of completing the joint inspection report. As my first order of business, I thanked them for their courageous and skillful handling of the dangerous and difficult mission. On October 4, I flew with Gallucci and Bonnier from Bahrain to Habbaniyah, from where we traveled on to Baghdad. We met that evening with Deputy Foreign Minister Muhammad al-Sahaf for more than three hours. Al-Sahaf would later become Iraq’s foreign minister and achieve international fame as the imaginative “Baghdad Bob,” a nickname he earned as a result of his frequent statements that were as factually preposterous as they were theatrically antagonistic. Al-Sahaf had previously lived in Stockholm, where he had served as Iraq’s ambassador to Sweden. Our meeting with him, as well as the discussions the following morning with Foreign Minister Hussein, did not provide much substance as it was mostly criticism of Kay and Gallucci,

The Map and the Reality

61

and a long list of explanations as to why Iraq had detained our inspectors for more than four days. Completely different was the meeting on the evening of October 5 with Tariq Aziz, who was accompanied by al-Sahaf and the head of Iraq’s atomic energy commission, Abd al-Khaliq, among several others. That meeting evolved into a multi-hour opportunity to sort out and clarify different approaches and views on the commission’s operations and Iraq’s response. Aziz, regaled in full uniform and surrounded by clouds of cigar smoke, began to complain that most of the inspectors were Americans led by a political lecturer (Kay) who was not a scientist. I explained to him that nuclear technology expertise was mainly confined to nuclear powers and that it was, therefore, logical that I chose American and British experts for this inspection. Aziz said that the inspectors’ aggressive actions could only be interpreted as wanting to destroy Iraq’s economic base, which he also believed was the aim of the policy with which US Secretary of State Baker threatened Aziz at the Geneva meeting on January 9, 1991, namely, that the United States would send Iraq back to its preindustrial era. (Baker’s memoir does not indicate that he said this—the threat being that if Iraq used chemical or biological weapons against the US-led coalition, “we promise to eliminate the current Iraqi regime and those responsible for it will be brought to justice.”) Then Aziz elaborated on the philosophy that guided Iraq’s development: We have held power in Iraq for twenty-three years. We are an Arab state on the threshold between research and actual production of nuclear weapons. However, production and procurement of such weapons are not permitted under the NPT. We have admitted to research. We want maximum knowledge but would never cross that threshold. If we were to manufacture nuclear weapons, we would act differently. If we were close to making a bomb, then we would probably not go into a war the way we have done. Every rational person would have waited until they had a fully usable weapon.

As Aziz reached this point in his exposition, I asked myself if this was a bold but disguised criticism of Saddam Hussein. About the Iraqi Baath Party, Aziz continued, We have spent billions of dollars. In the 1970s and 1980s, we were rich in oil income. Some built villas on the Riviera, such as the sheikhs in the Gulf. Instead, we built infrastructure in Iraq. We had billions but did not act like the communists who robbed the people of all these means through military armament. We had large surpluses

62

Iraq Disarmed

that we invested in the future by building bridges, roads, and communications. We did not spend money to acquire an atomic bomb. What would we use it for? Who is the target? We had chemical weapons but did not use them even when we faced great difficulty. Unlike Israel, which has an atomic bomb and is the most aggressive state in the region, in the world.

With some justification, Aziz criticized the fact that Kay and Gallucci at one time reported directly to US national security advisor Brent Scowcroft (and Clarke). In response to this I emphasized that during the crisis, via satellite telephone, I was in constant contact, day and night, with the inspectors and had full control, but without admitting that I gave Kay and Gallucci a harsh reprimand for the dangerous and indiscriminate violation of the commission’s regulations. In the discussion on the helicopter unit issue, Aziz claimed that when our helicopters flew over western Iraq, Israeli fighter planes had also been there. The presence of the helicopters had prevented the Iraqi air defense from taking action against the Israeli violation of Iraq’s airspace. Aziz took the opportunity to offer the commission the use of Iraqi helicopters instead of our own, an offer I firmly rejected. At the same time, I assured him that the commission helicopters (German, UNlabeled) would not do any photography recon against targets other than those declared by Iraq or designated by me, which I could calmly promise because my new toolbox included access to tracking capabilities in the form of the high-altitude U-2 plane, which could cover all Iraqi regions for surveillance purposes. The helicopters would of course be important but were first and foremost indispensable for UNSCOM’s operational activities to rapidly move inspectors and equipment to facilities relevant for inspection. After the relatively successful conclusion of the conversation with Aziz, on Sunday morning (October 6), our small group was able to travel with one of our helicopters from Baghdad to the Habbaniyah airfield, and from there to return aboard a C-160 aircraft to Bahrain, where Kay and his inspectors were in the process of finishing up their final report. For Kay, this would be his last report about Iraq. Upon his return to Vienna, Blix declared, “You will not be allowed to travel to Baghdad anymore.” In his book on Iraq, Blix denies that this constituted a dismissal of service. Instead, he suggests that given that he awarded Kay an IAEA medal after the inspection, his actions could not reasonably be considered a dismissal of Kay. Kay, however, insisted that exclusion from all further inspection activities could mean nothing but dismissal.

The Map and the Reality

63

For Blix, Zifferero, and ElBaradei, Kay had become something of a model for UNSCOM’s intrusive inspection methods approved by the Security Council on August 15 in Resolution 707 as “immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to inspection facilities.” Although this model later became indispensable in crises, the IAEA was never willing to use it, which made it more difficult for UNSCOM to take on the heavy responsibility of cracking Iraqi resistance to its efforts. With Blix’s decision, it was made clear that the IAEA Action Team would never include people like Kay.

5 Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

IF UNSCOM’S AND IAEA’S MAIN TASK WAS TO IDENTIFY BANNED weapons, related facilities, and production capabilities and destroy, eliminate, or disarm them, their secondary task was to build a system for long-term monitoring and verification of Iraq’s obligation to not acquire or develop such prohibited weapons. Per Resolution 687, UNSCOM and the IAEA would each prepare their plan for such future monitoring and verification to be presented to the Security Council for approval and adoption. As mentioned earlier, I managed to persuade the Swedish Foreign Ministry to lend me Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier from the Vienna delegation, who had been a Swedish negotiator at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Her task now was to formulate UNSCOM’s plan, together with Nikita Smidovich. With unparalleled brilliance, they drafted a proposal for a detailed plan for future monitoring and verification of Iraq’s compliance with the ban on developing biological and chemical weapons and long-range missiles. Problems arose when I received the IAEA’s draft proposal for monitoring potential capabilities to develop and produce nuclear weapons. It was significantly thinner and lacked clarity in comparison to Bonnier and Smidovich’s work. This would jeopardize the credibility of future surveillance and complicate my task of assisting IAEA’s work in identifying undeclared nuclear weapons activities as well as related surveillance and monitoring activities. Bonnier was given the daunting assignment to negotiate corrections and help sharpen the language used in the

65

66

Iraq Disarmed

IAEA’s vague text, which reflected the polite and timid safeguard model that had contributed to the IAEA’s failure to detect Iraq’s nuclear weapons program in the first place. At IAEA headquarters, Bonnier sat with Blix, Zifferero, and ElBaradei on one side of a long table across from several IAEA board members. After being allotted time to present a detailed presentation of the UNSCOM model, she noticed to her surprise that a couple of board members (Americans and Brits) seemed to be switching sides, not physically, but positionally. This opened up opportunities for reformulating the IAEA’s plan to more closely resemble UNSCOM’s proposal, which would effectively make it difficult for Iraq to exploit nuanced differences in the organizations’ positions. The IAEA’s initial inspection difficulties in Iraq later prompted an internal self-assessment of the overall IAEA safeguard system. It led to future safeguard inspections by means of an additional protocol to the safeguards system required under the NPT, which would include not only facilities declared by the host country but also undeclared facilities that were selected by the inspectors under certain conditions. In doing so, UNSCOM and the IAEA came to inspire radical strengthening of the international safeguard system. On October 11, 1991, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 715, thereby accepting UNSCOM and IAEA monitoring plans, requiring Iraq to report scientific and industrial activity and details of machinery and materials that could be used in the development and manufacture of prohibited weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. According to the resolution, intrusive inspections would be possible. UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors were granted full freedom to travel in the country and access to all buildings and facilities declared by Iraq as well as those that I, as the executive chairman, designated for inspection. With the Security Council’s decision, inspectors, no matter whom they were reporting to, were empowered to create new dimensions for operational actions, perhaps most clearly with regard to nuclear monitoring. With the dramatic parking lot inspection coup, Iraq’s nuclear weapons program proved to surpass Western intelligence agencies’ worst fears. This program had gone undetected despite years of earlier safeguard inspections focusing on fissile material, and even that part of the clandestine activity had been severely underestimated by the IAEA. So, with the adoption of Resolution 715, it became a matter of working along two tracks: on the one hand, the search for prohibited weapons and their production, that is, loaded warheads and missiles designed as weapons carriers, and, on the other, continuous, daily, and long-term surveillance and monitoring of dual-use capabilities.

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

67

This required two types of inspectors: weapons experts and safeguard experts. The first category was really only available from established nuclear powers such as the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France. Since the IAEA was not authorized to deal with weapons, it occurred to me to recruit this competence, while the IAEA itself already had first-class expertise internally when it came to surveillance. The same, of course, also applied to UNSCOM in the chemical field, where there was an obvious difference between industrial chemists and weapons experts. In principle, weapons search and weapons destruction could end once existing capabilities were eliminated, while it would be difficult to see any end to monitoring under Resolution 715 of ongoing or possible development and production activities. The overriding concern for Iraq was the lifting of the sanctions under paragraph 22 of Resolution 687 once prohibited weapons were eliminated and a functioning surveillance system was in place. The Iraqi side now feared that the new Resolution 715 would be used by the United States and others as a pretext to delay sanctions relief. On October 5, 1991, in Baghdad, Aziz told me that Iraq was convinced that the United States was seeking a regime change, that is, Saddam Hussein’s removal. I responded that once the surveillance system was put in place and the inspectors were able to do their job (i.e., with the system working), I would tell the Security Council that we had implemented this part of the cease-fire resolution. With this statement, the Security Council should have no alternative but to lift the embargo on Iraq’s oil exports and thus create entirely new conditions for Iraq’s economic recovery. The principles behind the monitoring plan were simple. Certain materials and equipment (called in nonproliferation context “dual-use”) can be used both for the production of prohibited weapons (nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and missile systems) and for entirely legitimate civil or nonprohibited military purposes (fuel rods in nuclear reactors, vaccines against infection, and gyroscopes for airship guidance and control systems). The implementation of the plan then required Iraq to declare and list the holdings of such capabilities, facilities, and equipment that could be used for the production of prohibited weapons. This list of products and manufacturing plants would continuously be subject to control and verification. A typical item for monitoring was a chemical reactor that Iraq could use for either the production of fertilizers or making precursors for chemical weapons. I decided that Iraq would be allowed to maintain such a reactor if it had not been used previously for weapons production and if it had not been procured for that purpose.

68

Iraq Disarmed

Thus, if the reactor were put into operation, it would be placed under the monitoring system and subject to routine controls through inspection visits, camera surveillance, or other methods developed by UNSCOM. With this system in place, Iraq would be prevented from using the reactor for weapons production, while use for peaceful purposes such as the production of fertilizers for agriculture would, of course, be fully permitted. Surveillance inspectors with proper equipment would be stationed in Baghdad for daily work. In contrast, the technologically more advanced weapons-detecting inspectors, working from New York’s analysis and planning base, would gather in Bahrain for operational preparation and then implement short-notice (and sometimes dramatic) search operations for suspected Iraqi weapons and prohibited materials. The Iraqi response to Resolution 715 and its monitoring and surveillance plans was first expressed in Foreign Minister Hussein’s letter of November 21, 1991, addressed to the president of the Security Council. Not surprisingly, the criticism was fierce. Initially, the foreign minister declared without hesitation that in terms of prohibited material, Iraq had reported everything in its possession. As we shall see later, that was a wild exaggeration. He pointed out that the new resolution meant a further delay in the possibility of lifting the sanctions and said that the new rules would hamper Iraq’s economic development in industry and science. He referred to my criticism of Kay’s unauthorized reporting to Washington and argued that Iraq should have the right to object to the entry of an individual belonging to another country’s security organization. One of the main points of the criticism, which was totally unjustified in my opinion, was the uncertain conditions for the lifting of the sanctions. This became a factor that I would seek to highlight in ongoing contacts with the Security Council in the coming years. My line of action, which I sought to explain to the Iraqi authorities, was to ensure two conditions stipulated in the cease-fire resolution: (1) that all prohibited weapons and all relevant equipment be eliminated, and (2) that a surveillance system be put into place and shown to work effectively. In such a situation, it would be incumbent on UNSCOM/IAEA to report this to the Security Council, which, in turn, according to paragraph 22 of the cease-fire resolution, had to lift the oil embargo without delay, at the same time that it created the conditions for a complete revocation of the sanction regime. My assurances did not calm Iraq, which made it clear that it rejected Resolution 715 and the two associated long-term monitoring plans. To me, the risk was obvious that Iraq would choose to hide equipment and materials from the banned weapons programs in the country’s industrial

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

69

facilities. The point of the surveillance plans was precisely that Iraq must also declare all facilities with possible weapons capabilities and that UNSCOM/IAEA could effectively block attempts at new production and reactivation of the country’s prohibited weapons program. An important point in this regard was that the implementation of the plans required Iraq’s formal acceptance. Some Security Council members invited me to activate the surveillance mechanism without Iraq’s formal acceptance. They were supported by Blix. Scott and I opposed this stance, pointing out that Iraq could at any time block surveillance on the grounds that the plans were not authorized. Scott said the inspections must be conducted based on an absolutely solid legal foundation, without any doubt about UNSCOM’s mandate, rights, and immunities. On the contrary, he argued, we risked the personal safety of our inspectors. I more or less forced Blix and the IAEA to refrain from commencing surveillance inspections without a legal basis through Iraq’s formal acceptance of Resolution 715. It would take considerable time before the Iraqi government finally accepted our plans and the monitoring activities could be implemented.

Missiles and Chemical Weapons, Found and Counted While the media-driven frenzy around nuclear weapons inspections received international attention, my ideas on inspections of missiles and chemical and biological weapons were tested. The missile issue was complicated by ambiguous Iraqi declarations. With the help of Russian Ambassador Vorontsov, we were able to calculate that in the 1980s Iraq had purchased a total of 819 Scud missiles (with a range well over the 150 kilometers specified in the cease-fire resolution) from the Soviet Union. The first missile inspection team was able to identify sixty-two missiles, ten more than declared, and supervise their destruction. Despite being declared by Iraq as a “full, final, and complete” account, inspections in March 1992 revealed Iraq’s duplicity when another eighty-five Scud missiles and forty-five missile warheads prepared for use with chemical weapons were discovered. Iraq had claimed it secretly and unilaterally destroyed the weapons in July 1991. Further complicating matters, we needed to determine how many of the original 819 Scud missiles were used, either in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980 to 1988 or in Iraq’s internal technical weapons testing and development, including to produce the long-range al-Hussein missiles. A second complication was the difficulty of verifying the number of

70

Iraq Disarmed

missiles that Iraq had secretly destroyed in the summer of 1991. As their only recourse, UNSCOM inspectors had to excavate the sites where destroyed missiles, warheads, and missile engines were buried underground, all of which was necessary to get a final correct count for the country’s total inventory of Scud missiles. In making the material balance calculations, we received surprisingly useful information from Iran through its UN ambassador to New York, where Iran’s figures on the number of missiles used by Iraq against Iran seemed to match the data provided by the US Military Intelligence Service. However, it wasn’t until the autumn of 1996 that we succeeded in establishing a credible total account. Regarding mobile missile launchers, our inspectors found and destroyed ten more than Iraq had declared. Interestingly, during the Desert Storm air strikes, the United States managed to destroy all fixed launch ramps, but not a single mobile launcher was hit. This discovery by UNSCOM inspectors especially irritated General Norman Schwarzkopf, the US commander during the Iraq War, who had erroneously claimed that US airstrikes destroyed all of Iraq’s launch ramps (fixed and mobile). Insofar as chemical weapons were concerned, inspections during the first year were almost entirely devoted to the formidable al-Muthanna plant—its buildings, ammunition stores, chemicals, and precursors. Variants of the nerve gas sarin could be detected, which showed that Iraq had a broader research program than declared. Interestingly, the large amounts of long-term stores of mustard gases were found to still have 90 percent potency, whereas the nerve gases, such as sarin, quickly degraded to 10 percent while in storage. This taught me that Iraq’s interest in storing nerve gases was minimal. Thus, during the 1980–1988 war against Iran, the Iraqi military leadership’s practice had been to produce nerve gases not for storage but for immediate delivery directly to the battlefield, with warheads, bombs, and grenades being filled “just in time,” as I used to describe it. Regarding biological weapons and related bio capabilities, in its initial declarations during the early years of UNSCOM’s operations, Iraq categorically denied all forms of production or possession.

High-Level Meetings and High-Level Missions On January 30 and 31, 1992, the UN Security Council met at the highest level, that is, with the participation of heads of state and government, which included the participation of, among others, George H. W. Bush, Boris Yeltsin, John Major, and François Mitter-

71

Henry Arvidsson/UNSCOM

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

Tim Trevan, John Scott, and Olivia Platon accompany me on a visit to the alMuthanna plant for the destruction of chemical weapons.

rand. The council’s final statement stressed, on the Iraq issue, that “the resolutions adopted by the Security Council are essential for the restoration of international peace and security in the region and must therefore be fully implemented.” The new Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, certainly felt pressured after a series of talks with me, once he realized that much remained to be done, especially in light of Iraq’s stubborn and total refusal to formally accept Resolution 715 with its plans for monitoring Iraq’s potential ability to produce and develop prohibited weapons and weapons systems. In addition, he felt a genuine sense of sympathy for the Iraqi people, as did I, for the strain they suffered as a consequence of the economic sanctions (especially the oil export embargo) adopted by the Security Council as a result of Iraq’s attack on and occupation of Kuwait in 1990. On February 18, 1992, following high-level meetings taking place during the previous week, the Security Council organized a special briefing by me on the state of the Iraq weapons issue. The following day, the council made a decision to send what was called

72

Iraq Disarmed

“a high-level mission” to Baghdad as a follow-up to the high-level meeting’s statement on the implementation of the Security Council’s decisions. As the head of the delegation with the mission “to secure an agreement on the implementation of Resolutions 687, 707 and 715 at the highest level of the Iraqi Government,” I was to emphasize the serious consequences of not implementing such action. The “high-level mission” traveled to Baghdad. Joining me were Scott, Trevan, Stefan Noréen (on loan from Sweden), and Platon. A meeting at the highest level as mandated by the Security Council, that is, with President Saddam Hussein, did not occur. I had to settle for a two-hour session with Aziz, accompanied by Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein, among others. I emphasized that the Security Council at the highest level, that is, heads of state and government, demanded recognition of and compliance with council resolutions on the Iraq issue, and in particular Resolution 715 on monitoring Iraq’s capacity to possess or produce weapons of mass destruction. Aziz, who seemed moderately impressed by my temporary status as a “high-level” representative of fifteen world leaders, replied to my criticism of Iraq saying that it was not only Iraq that had obligations, but that the Security Council also had obligations, such as progressively easing the sanctions and the oil embargo. He wondered if the Security Council intended not only to prevent Iraq’s production of weapons of mass destruction but whether the goal was also to destroy Iraq’s entire industrial base. I replied that what I identified for destruction was only a minimal part of Iraq’s industrial base. On the other hand, the envisaged monitoring under Resolution 715 would comprise a significantly larger part of their industrial base but would in no way impede or hamper industrial production. I recalled that at the same time there were negotiations taking place in Geneva on an international convention on the ban on chemical weapons that would lead to a universal ban and surveillance of all chemical industry, so in the long run Iraq’s situation would not be unique. In continuing discussions on the evening of February 23, Deputy Foreign Minister al-Sahaf, General Amer Rashid, who would become a key player in the continued interactions with Iraq, and Riyadh alQaysi, Iraqi Foreign Office’s general counsel, proposed the organization of a subgroup from the two delegations with the task of drawing up a joint statement. I reiterated that I could accept Iraq’s withdrawal of its prior rejection of Resolution 707 and 715 with its two surveillance plans (November 19, 1991), but since Iraq still had not formally declared its unconditional recognition of the resolution as

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

73

required by the Security Council, a joint statement would lack credibility. Amer Rashid explained that Iraq did not reject Resolution 715, but it was not in a position to declare unconditional acceptance of the resolution. I explained that my mission, as mandated by the Security Council, was to reach an agreement that would ensure the implementation of the resolution. Al-Qaysi responded that since the resolution was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, it was automatically binding anyway, and al-Sahaf added that Iraq had not rejected the monitoring plans covered by Resolution 715. I made it clear that as a spokesman for the Security Council and according to the task I was given with this “high-level mission,” the lack of unconditional, clear acceptance of Iraq’s obligations seriously undermined the credibility of Iraq’s intentions. It was this that prevented the commission from launching the monitoring plan under Resolution 715. I stressed that Iraq should prepare its position before the next Security Council meeting to conform with the resolutions, and that Iraq should also not forget the statement made by the Security Council on January 31, 1992, namely, that the council’s resolutions had to be fully implemented. In a separate conversation, Aziz asked me to explain my perspective on the commission’s mission. My answer was that a “material balance sheet” had to be established for chemical weapons, biological weapons, and missiles, by identifying what was produced and procured on the one hand and what was used and what was destroyed on the other. The commission would establish what remained to be found and would search until all these weapons were identified and arrangements could be made so that all prohibited weapons of mass destruction could be eliminated. This was the first stage. The second stage would deal with preventing dual-use technology and materials from being turned into prohibited weapons, through the implementation of Resolution 715. The commission’s task would thus be to systematically monitor such capabilities in Iraq, an objective that would in fact not differ much from the established objectives of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the future Biological Weapons Convention. This argument did not seem to sway Aziz, who stubbed out his cigar, offered me a cup of tea, and explained that Resolution 715 appeared to have no end point leading to sanctions relief. Therefore, he said that Iraq saw no reason to formally accept the resolution. Thus, this “high-level mission” did not achieve its main goal: a formal Iraqi acceptance of Resolution 715. The value of the assignment

74

Iraq Disarmed

was nevertheless that, to the best of my pedagogical ability, I was able to give the Iraqi leadership concrete ideas about how we intended to handle the two inspection models. That said, the next period was characterized by repeated disruptions of operations, beginning with the confrontation over our inspection of the Ministry of Agriculture. In fact, it was not until November 26, 1993, that Iraq formally recognized Resolution 715, and only after further crises and complicated deliberations.

Ministry of Agriculture—Failure or Success? At 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 5, 1992, I was awakened in my hotel apartment in Beekman Tower by a call from chief inspector Mark Silver in Baghdad with the message that his group of inspectors had been refused access to a building I had designated for inspection after two Security Council members (France and the United Kingdom) had identified it as a probable hiding place for missile-related documents. After the successful document hunt a year earlier, I was eager to investigate the latest credible tip I had received. Immediately after hearing our team was being refused entry, I tried to contact Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein in Baghdad, but he refused to accept my call. I expressed my protests to Iraq’s chargé d’affaires at its UN Mission in New York. I gave Silver instructions to secure the premises, a building that officially belonged to the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, by guarding the two entrances and preventing the Iraqis from removing any documents. The inspectors conducted their surveillance from the airconditioned UNSCOM cars parked close to the doors of the building to protect themselves against the brutal summer heat. Gradually, however, the situation became increasingly uncomfortable as knife-waving, protesting Iraqis began to surround our inspectors’ cars. On Sunday afternoon, I informed the president of the Security Council, Cape Verde’s UN ambassador Carlos Alberto Santos Silva, about the situation before briefing the ambassadors from the United Kingdom (Hannay), France (Mérimée), Russia (Vorontsov), and the United States (Perkins). The latter had just arrived at the UN as Pickering’s successor. Iraq issued a public statement the same day saying that UNSCOM had no right to search the building, which contained nothing of relevance to the prohibited weapons systems, and that giving inspectors access would undermine Iraq’s sovereignty and national security.

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

75

On Monday afternoon, I attended a closed meeting with the Security Council, prior to which I, with the president of the council, had prepared a draft council statement. The draft stated that Iraq’s blocking of inspectors’ access constituted a material violation of Resolution 687 and that Iraq’s actions could have “serious consequences.” When considering the draft council statement, Ambassador Perkins raised his hand and said, to my astonishment, that of course Iraq’s actions should be condemned, but the council should not mention “serious consequences.” This seemed to surprise the German, French, and British ambassadors as well, who had already indicated their acceptance of the draft wording. Instead, the council was now content to criticize Iraq only for a “material violation” of Resolution 687. I was not surprised that after this watered-down statement, Iraq continued to refuse to allow our inspectors access to the building. UNSCOM’s vigil of the ministry’s exits and entrances continued around the clock to ensure that no objects or documentation of significance left the building. At first, protesters threw eggs and vegetables at the inspectors’ vehicles, but gradually their threats escalated and they slashed the car tires and waved knives outside the car windows. Days went by, and when Iraq did not give in to the Security Council’s demand for access for the inspectors, the council asked that I travel to Iraq to sort out the complicated situation. On July 16, I arrived in Baghdad with Doug Englund, UNSCOM’s first chief of operations; Tim Trevan, who had just succeeded Molander as my political advisor; and Alice Hecht, UNSCOM’s new head of administration. On the morning of July 17, I met with Deputy Foreign Minister al-Sahaf, who was accompanied by General Amer Rashid. I was surprised by Abd alKhaliq’s presence—it was interesting given that my sources had not mentioned anything about a link between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. (Later, Hussein Kamel would tell me that the Ministry of Agriculture’s office had actually been linked to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.) The Iraqis adopted a hostile tone. Al-Sahaf left the meeting after an hour. Nevertheless, we continued for another hour. The Iraqis argued that the cease-fire resolution did not grant UNSCOM the right to move freely in Iraq. They were adamant that there was nothing of relevance to UNSCOM on the Ministry of Agriculture’s premises. I insisted that the information available to UNSCOM was sufficient to justify an inspection. The next day I had an unpleasant meeting with Ahmed Hussein, who accused me of personally being responsible for the malnutrition and death of Iraqi children caused by medication shortages. He said

76

Iraq Disarmed

Iraqi mothers warned children who misbehaved that Rolf Ekéus would hurt them. The tone was somewhat more conciliatory at my next meeting with Tariq Aziz. He was dressed in a dark gray suit with a discreet tie. Without his formal military uniform, he could have been mistaken for a manager at a local bank branch in Sweden. At our last meeting, the talks had taken place under a direct threat of air strikes expressed by President Bush himself in the UN General Assembly. This time there was relative international calm. Aziz stated that he was well informed about the recent closed Security Council meeting in which Ambassador Perkins had refused to join the council president’s proposed warning of “serious consequences” for Iraq if UNSCOM’s inspectors were blocked. “We have excellent information about what is happening in the Security Council’s closed meetings,” he boasted, blowing a cloud of cigar smoke directly at me. However, he allowed that he could envisage a group of inspectors from the Security Council’s neutral and non-allied states visiting the Ministry of Agriculture, provided they operated completely independently from UNSCOM’s influence and reported directly to the Security Council without my involvement. He didn’t seem at all surprised when I rejected his plan, which was obviously intended to undermine my own and UNSCOM’s independent authority. Without clear support from the Security Council, I had no alternative but to propose a compromise, which meant that we would start the ministry inspection with a small group of a few senior UNSCOM specialists, an idea he rejected out of hand. It became evident to me that without the clear backing of the Security Council, I could not achieve any favorable outcome at this meeting. Instead, I took the opportunity to express my grave concern about the fact that UNSCOM’s staff were subjected to threats of violence and abuse. It was not only the inspectors affected by the threats, but also our permanent staff in Baghdad, such as communicators, medical personnel, interpreters, and transport coordinators. I reminded Aziz that Iraq was formally responsible for the security of all UN personnel in the country. Aziz responded coldly that the Iraqi leadership was not responsible for these threats as it was an expression of the spontaneous anger of the Iraqi people. On the way to a meeting later the same day with Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein, the car I traveled in was stopped on one of the bridges over the Tigris by a large crowd that was demonstrating against UNSCOM. The motorcycle police who had been assigned to escort me disappeared. My driver quickly read the situation and tried to U-turn

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

77

the car in the middle of the bridge, but several protesters saw the vehicle and rushed toward us. Instinctively, I crawled down to the floor in the back seat. The driver quickly threw a blanket over me. The protesters pressed their faces to the car window, and some jumped up on the car and pounded on it while screaming angrily—I could not understand what they were saying from where I was trembling on the floor. Carefully, without injuring anyone, the driver maneuvered back and forth until he was able to turn the car around, allowing us to flee and return to my hotel, where a number of other protesters were waiting. Those, however, were more peaceful. I was relieved when we left Baghdad the following morning to return to New York. On July 20, I reported back to the Security Council about my failed mission. At the same time, the threat level increased against our inspectors and other staff, who in theory should have been protected by the local police. After a violent knife attack on one of our inspectors without the police intervening, it became clear to me that we could not continue our surveillance operation at the ministry. When Mark Silver called me on the morning of July 22, explaining that the situation was dangerous and unsustainable, I ordered the inspectors to leave the ministry area, even though I had hoped to have a few more days to negotiate an agreement so we could conduct the inspection. In the light of reports of continued demonstrations and threats of violence against our staff in Baghdad, I began negotiations with Ambassador al-Anbari, who was also in New York. With Smidovich at my side, we tried to agree on a form of inspection. Al-Anbari said the inspection could take place provided I returned to Baghdad. It was bizarre negotiating with al-Anbari, who was being controlled remotely by Aziz on the phone from Baghdad, while at the same time I was relaying my views to Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali and Ambassadors Vorontsov, Hannay, Mérimée, and Perkins, who now seemed increasingly open to air strikes. As Washington began threatening military intervention, the Iraqi side began to soften its stance. In addition, the permanent members (minus China) increased their political pressure. Finally, on Sunday afternoon, July 26, Aziz signaled that he would accept the inspection model—the same one I presented to him at our meeting in Baghdad on July 19—as long as I returned to Baghdad. My calendar for the weekend of July 25–26 illustrates the complicated process that would lead to a simple solution.

78

Iraq Disarmed

Saturday, July 25, 1992 7:55 a.m. Iraq’s ambassador al-Anbari calls me at Beekman Tower— Tariq Aziz has accepted my inspection model from July 19 in Baghdad, but first wants to approve the list of inspectors. 9:00 a.m. Meeting with own staff including Smidovich on the thirtieth floor of the UN building. 9:55 a.m. I call al-Anbari and give him the names of my inspectors; al-Anbari will get back to me after he speaks with Aziz. 10:35 a.m. Al-Anbari visits my office on the thirty-first floor. From the list of proposed inspectors, Iraq objects to Heinonen (Finland/IAEA) and Reinecke (Germany). I reject the objections. 12 p.m. Al-Anbari leaves my office. Ambassadors Perkins, Hannay, and Gallucci (State Department in Washington) are informed. 1:20–2:55 p.m. Lunch at Carlyle Hotel and negotiations with alAnbari and Smidovich. 4:00–5:45 p.m. Continued discussions in my apartment in Beekman Tower with al-Anbari, al-Nima (deputy head of Iraqi UN Delegation), and Smidovich. Iraq continues to object to Reinecke (German missile expert). I demand Iraq’s unconditional acceptance of my inspectors within twenty-four hours. A tough ultimatum. 6:50 p.m. Briefing with Perkins, Hannay, and Mérimée—Hannay gives strong support, the others are tentative. 7:30 p.m. I inform Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali. He wonders if he can help. Response—no, thanks, for the time being. 7:45 p.m. Vorontsov is informed of my ultimatum to Iraq. 8:00 p.m. The president of the Security Council is informed. 9:00 p.m. New conversation with Boutros-Ghali. 9:30 p.m. UN Plaza—evaluation with Smidovich, Platon. Sunday, July 26, 1992 8:45 a.m. Arrival at the office on the thirty-first floor. 9:30 a.m. Talks with the Secretary-General, who wants to appeal personally to Aziz in Iraq. I say no, thanks, again. 11:15 a.m. Phone call with al-Anbari. 12 p.m. Al-Anbari comes to my office—Iraq accepts my proposal, provided I travel to Baghdad. 12:45 p.m. I inform the Secretary-General. 1:00 p.m. I inform Ambassador Perkins, who manages to stop the US bombing of Iraq.

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

79

1:30 p.m. Press conference—triumphant mood (unjustified). 3:00 p.m. The United States reports possible bombing targets in Iraq—I reject bombing again. 4:00 p.m. Smidovich announces that Russia supports my ultimatum. 4:20 p.m. TV interviews with CNN, BBC, NBC, FOX News. 4:45 p.m. Beekman Tower—packing for departure. 6:00 p.m. TV interview with CBS. 6:30 p.m. Having thus, at least temporarily, managed to stave off a US bomb attack on Iraq, I depart from Beekman Tower with Trevan to fly from Kennedy Airport to London to Bahrain to Baghdad. At the stopover in London on Monday morning, July 27, I read the various views of the UNSCOM-Iraq conflict in the British press. The Guardian reported that the UN and Iraq reached a deal with both sides backing away from confrontation. The newspaper noted that the US administration’s advisors were clearly frustrated by the compromise. The United States had a feeling that I had pulled the rug from under their feet by opposing a US bombing of Iraq. The Independent wrote that Saddam had stepped back. The Financial Times felt that the UN was pushing Iraq to capitulate. In Western capitals, a sigh of relief was heard as they had won a symbolic victory. The Times ran the headline “Saddam Gives In to the UN Ultimatum.” The Telegraph wrote about a last-minute deal: Ekéus agreed to a compromise. The Daily Mail wrote that the compromise on the composition of the inspection group had caused unrest in political and diplomatic circles. The Tribune settled with writing, “Iraq Surrenders to UN.” When I arrived in Bahrain on the evening of July 27, I checked in with Gallucci back in Washington about the reaction among advisors and members of the US administration. He tried to reassure me by saying that the attitude in Washington was that the agreement meant a “forward-leaning inspection” and that they had accepted not to bomb Iraq. The day ended with a press conference with the people who, according to my agreement with Aziz, would conduct the inspection, namely, chief inspector Achim Biermann (German missile expert), Johan Santesson (chemistry/biology), Olli Heinonen (IAEA), Norbert Reinecke (missile expert), and Marc Barrels (Switzerland). It was noted by the media that, in the negotiations on the composition of the inspection group, I gave in to Iraq’s demand that none of the inspectors be American. Early in the morning of July 28, I flew to Baghdad on UNSCOM’s Transall C-160 plane with the five inspectors, Trevan, and Hecht for a one-hour meeting with Muhammad al-Sahaf,

80

Iraq Disarmed

who had been appointed Iraqi foreign minister in the interim between our last meeting a week before and this one. The meeting was dedicated to ironing out the details for the Ministry of Agriculture inspection. In the afternoon, inspectors, with Biermann and Santesson at their head, began the tour of the premises. It was completed at 10:00 p.m. without anything of relevance to UNSCOM or the IAEA. Santesson and the team noted that it was extremely peculiar how room after room was empty. The shelves and desks were shiny and polished. There was not a single sheet of paper in sight. Even smaller computers, typewriters, and pens were missing. And, of course, there was no staff on site. For me, the day ended at 1:00 a.m. after a factual and technical review with General Amer Rashid, deputy chief (under Hussein Kamel) of the Ministry of Military Industrialization and a newly appointed member of the government. In the next few years, Rashid and I would live in a symbiosis of near-constant disputes, but at the same time develop in some mysterious way a kind of mutual sympathy. This time, Rashid’s only response to my complaint about the empty ministry was to shrug and smile smugly. On the morning of July 29, I had a two-hour meeting with Tariq Aziz (in his usual military uniform, which I took as a good sign). Accompanied by General Amer Rashid and the entire foreign affairs leadership—that is, the foreign minister, the deputy foreign minister, and the newly appointed UN ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, Aziz was at his most arrogant self. He was particularly upset about the warning I had issued at a press conference in New York on July 26 in regard to the risk of military action against Iraq. It became clear during the discussion that Aziz’s strategy was (and would remain) to try to undermine my position as a sole decisionmaker on weapons issues by repeatedly appealing my decisions to the Security Council. On the evening of July 29, I returned to Bahrain to fly to New York. During the trip, I tried to summarize for myself the political outcome of the ministry inspection incident. The inspection itself went well and without incident, but the result was zero. In addition, Aziz had managed to influence the composition of the inspection group (i.e., no Americans). Moreover, considering the mixed reactions of the media and the annoyance of some in Washington, I could only conclude that Saddam Hussein, Aziz, and Iraq had strengthened their political position. As soon as I got back to New York, I went directly to the Security Council to inform the members. Their responses were neither positive nor negative. A few days later, I submitted a written report to the Security Council, explaining that Iraq was consistently trying to thwart the

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

81

commission’s inspection rights and operational capability by obstructing the inspectors’ activities and seeking to influence the composition of the inspection group. Iraq sought to influence every aspect of how the inspections were to be carried out. Among other things, Iraq questioned the commission’s authority to destroy equipment intended for the production of prohibited weapons, to obtain information and data, to carry out flight operations, and to independently determine the scope of the inspections. Therefore, I demanded that Iraq formally recognize the commission’s rights and its own obligations under the cease-fire resolution and the two subsequent resolutions (707 and 715). Given the situation that arose, I was particularly interested in getting in touch with the White House in Washington. On Monday, August 3, accompanied by John Scott, I visited US national security advisor Brent Scowcroft. I informed him that it was Ambassador Perkins who had rejected the president of the Security Council’s proposal to declare that “serious consequences” would follow Iraq’s refusal to allow UNSCOM to conduct the inspection of the ministry, thereby undermining my position as chairman. Furthermore, Aziz’s awareness of Perkins’s opposition had politically allowed further obstruction of the inspection. When Scowcroft queried how the US delegation reasoned, Richard Haass, Scowcroft’s political advisor, blushed and explained that he had instructed Perkins that “consequences” not be mentioned. Haass apologized that, at the time of the instruction, he was not aware that a draft proposal had already been presented by the council president. “This is not to be repeated. From now on, you will receive full support from us,” Scowcroft promised.

Bahrain-Habbaniyah Flight Crisis Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz continued Iraq’s efforts to obstruct UNSCOM. On the last days of the Bush administration in January 1993, Iraq made another try. On January 7 (during a ski vacation in Austria), I was told by Pierce Corden, my new deputy chairman, that the Iraqi government had announced that our Bahrain-based C-160 transport planes were prohibited from flying into Iraq (after passing through Kuwait from the south) through the no-fly zone south to the 32nd parallel established by the United States, United Kingdom, and France. We would not be given a landing permit at Habbaniyah airbase or any other airfield in Iraq. Any attempt to break the ban would result in our plane being shot down. Under the circumstances, I had no choice but to cancel UNSCOM’s scheduled flights in and out of Iraq. Together

82

Iraq Disarmed

with Corden, Scott, and Trevan, and after checking with Blix, I drafted a letter to the Security Council on the matter. On January 8, in a plenary session, the Security Council criticized Iraq in general terms. Anxiety among the council members was high, but they left me with the task of finding a solution without further instructions. Corden, Trevan, and Hecht warned me of the likely risk that would ensue if I ignored Iraq’s threat. With such uncertain backing from the Security Council, I could do nothing but keep the two planes grounded. At the same time, it was obvious to me that UNSCOM/IAEA, without aviation operations in the long run, would be unable to effectively continue inspection operations in Iraq. From Vienna on January 9, I had several long phone conversations with Scowcroft in the White House and with Gallucci (at that point head of the Politico-Military Bureau at the State Department). I managed to get them to understand that the situation was unsustainable and that the entire disarmament effort was in jeopardy. Later that day, Scott and I sent a diplomatic note to al-Sahaf stating that we intended to send one of our transport planes to Habbaniyah from Bahrain through Kuwait on January 11. We received a reply from Iraq the following day that such a flight would travel under risk and consequently the flight permit was refused. We forwarded the Iraqi response to the president of the Security Council (at that time, Japan) and the permanent members of the council. I informed them that the announced flight on January 11 would not be carried out. A day later, on January 12, I received a call from Arnold “Arnie” Kanter, the US undersecretary of state for Political Affairs (and a personal friend of mine), who told me that all US agencies agreed to support UNSCOM’s flight requirements, saying assuredly, “All ducks are in a row.” That was confirmed in talks with Scowcroft on January 13. On January 14, the commission notified Iraq of three flights from Bahrain to Habbaniyah through southern Iraq on January 16, 17, and 18. On January 15, I contacted Iraq’s new UN ambassador Nizar Hamdoon on my own initiative, stating that if Iraq did not provide clearance for UNSCOM flights before 4:00 p.m. the next day, I would inform the Security Council. The developments that ensued are noted in my calendar: January 15, 1992 7:00 p.m. President Bush informs me via Scowcroft that if Iraq continues to block the air operations, the United States will attack Iraq within twenty-four hours.

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

83

8:00 p.m. Iraq’s response to me through Hamdoon—we will not object to UNSCOM’s flights with U-2 and C-160 but we do not take responsibility for possible mistakes and misunderstandings since we cannot close our air defense system. I then, together with Scott and Trevan, worked out a definite answer, insisting on UNSCOM’s unrestricted air operations rights. 10:30 p.m. I sent the completed comments to the president of the Security Council (Japan), pointing out that Iraq’s response through Hamdoon was unacceptable as it did not provide any security guarantee for our flights: “If you fly, you might be shot down, but not intentionally.” January 16, 1992 3:45 p.m. I call Ambassador Hamdoon and explain that a positive response to my demands for transit through the no-fly zone was expected at 4:00 p.m. Hamdoon asks for an hour’s extension. 5:00 p.m. Iraq’s response arrives. Green light for flight C-160 from Bahrain to Habbaniyah, but not directly into Iraq through the no-fly zone (southern Iraq) but only flying through Kuwait and southern Iraq to Jordan and then fly into Iraq. 5:15 p.m. After consultations with Pierce (Corden) and Tim (Trevan), I decide not to accept Iraq’s demands. Only a direct route from Bahrain via Kuwait and through the no-fly zone to Habbaniyah will be my answer. 7:40 p.m. I inform Scowcroft and President Bush, who are in Camp David, of my planned response. 9:00 p.m. I respond directly to Hamdoon by submitting a formal diplomatic note in which I declare that Iraq’s proposal is unacceptable as it is in violation, inter alia, of Security Council Resolution 707, which gives UNSCOM full flight rights. Furthermore, it is operationally impossible to implement, as it is not possible to fly around the no-fly zone round-trip in a day. Only the direct route from Bahrain via Kuwait is operationally acceptable. In other words, I reject Baghdad’s proposal. 10:23 p.m. I inform the president of the Security Council of the rejection. 11:05 p.m. I inform the Secretary-General via his assistant JeanClaude Aimé. 11:30 p.m. I inform the permanent members of the council. Both Hannay (United Kingdom) and Mérimée (France) react vehemently to

84

Iraq Disarmed

my rejection of Iraq’s proposal without having first discussed this issue involving war and peace with the Security Council. 12:05 a.m. I inform Scowcroft by phone of the reaction of the British and French ambassadors and ask him if he thinks that I should delete the word “refusal” from the language proposed by Iraq. Scowcroft firmly discourages my proposal. Instead, he states that President Bush intends to immediately call President Mitterrand (6:00 a.m. local time in Paris) and that Scowcroft himself will call Prime Minister Major (5:00 a.m. local time in London) to ask them to instruct their respective ambassadors to support me in my rejection of Iraq’s proposal and to warn of possible US military action. Unbeknownst to me, President Bush had already ordered an attack on Iraq. It became his farewell message to Saddam Hussein on his last day as president of the United States. Later that day, Bill Clinton would assume the presidency. Forty-three Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from US Fifth Fleet vessels and submarines stationed in the Persian Gulf, targeting two of Iraq’s nuclear-related facilities. Their destruction was complete, but some missiles were driven off course, landing in residential areas and tragically causing civilian casualties. One of those US missiles that flew off course hit the Rasheed Hotel, where I normally stayed during my Baghdad visits. It went over the hotel garden, past the tennis court where I had played a few times, and shattered the large glass window in the hotel’s lobby, where an old self-playing grand piano played traditional music incessantly. The problem was that it was so out of tune that the music was noticeably unpleasant. Every time I had passed through the lobby accompanied by my staff and journalists, I used to complain loudly, “Can’t this piano be silenced!” When I thought about that old piano, which had been silenced forever, although quite absurd, I could not help but feel a sense of remorse. At the Security Council meeting on January 19, two days after the US attack, both the French and British ambassadors had no alternative but to support my decision to reject Iraq’s counterproposal. At the same time, the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council met in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein and prepared a declaration that Iraq would cease to confront the US-led coalition’s aircraft starting at midnight on January 20, and I was told by al-Sahaf by phone that Iraq had no objection to UNSCOM’s flights, whether U-2, C-160, or helicopters, provided they followed negotiated procedures.

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

85

Faleh Kheibar/Reuters Iraq

Finally, Iraq had surrendered, which was confirmed by the fact that all our flights could now be carried out according to plan through Kuwait and the southern no-fly zone. After all the complications, the Security Council had finally come together and given full support to UNSCOM. On a personal note, I was satisfied with the turn of events, but I couldn’t help but feel uneasy about getting the results we needed to continue to carry out the inspections by bombing Iraq, which lamentably had also caused civilian casualties. The staff at the Rasheed Hotel responded by laying down a mosaic of President Bush at its entrance so that all visitors would be forced to step on his face. In the following years, I made an effort not to step on it, especially since it seemed that photographers were always on hand in hopes of taking a photo of me stepping on the face of a former US president.

I try to avoid stepping on a mosaic of President George H. W. Bush’s face at the entrance to the Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad.

86

Iraq Disarmed

Madeleine Albright—the New Ambassador With President Bush’s departure and the Clinton administration’s installation in Washington in January 1993, Madeleine Albright was appointed US ambassador to the UN, thereby becoming America’s representative to the Security Council, while also gaining a seat in Bill Clinton’s cabinet in Washington—clearly indicating her close relationship with the new US president but also with his wife Hillary. Albright’s appointment made a marked difference in the US delegation’s actions in the Security Council compared to those carried out under the leadership of her brilliant predecessor Tom Pickering (following a brief interlude under Perkins). One of the many differences between Pickering and Albright’s handling of the Iraq issue was that Pickering, the foremost US diplomat, completely concentrated US policy on Iraq’s disarmament. All relevant weapons of mass destruction, systems, and facilities were to be identified and eliminated as soon as possible, enabling Iraq to regain its strategically important role in the Middle East as an Arab counterweight against Persian Iran and the threat Iran posed to the smaller but oil-rich Arab Gulf states. Albright, for her part, noted in her memoirs that the worst part of her new job as ambassador were the problems caused by Saddam Hussein. She acknowledged that the instructions given to her were simple and clear. Pickering’s mission had been Iraq’s disarmament. Albright’s task was, by comparison, to maintain sanctions on Iraq. Her perspective on my work was to ensure that there was no sanction relief. There was really no other strategic thinking in the new Clinton administration. It was not easy for Albright, with no experience in diplomacy, to enter the Security Council with its collection of experienced diplomats, many of whom had big egos. With Pickering gone, the elegant British ambassador David Hannay became the foremost player in the council, with a slightly protective attitude toward his newly arrived and inexperienced colleague. He was a master of the acrobatics of diplomacy, something Albright found difficult to assimilate. Especially on the Iraq issue, with its complications and subtleties, Albright initially became something of a little sister to Hannay. Only when Hannay left his UN post as UK ambassador in 1995 and was succeeded by Sir John Weston was Albright able to take command and—with faithful support from Weston—pursue her not particularly sophisticated policy with the council. I had almost daily contact with her. I especially noted the strong extent of her influence in Washington, an influence that grew every month she served as the US ambassador to the UN in New York. How-

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

87

ever, one weakness, which gradually became evident, was her difficulty in establishing confidential contacts among her ambassadorial colleagues. With a handful of exceptions, she seemed to try to avoid foreign delegates. She arrived late to Security Council meetings and then left early, surrounded by an entourage of mission counselors, secretaries, assistants, and bodyguards that made her presence icy and unapproachable. What in diplomatic language would be called a consultation became, in Albright’s interpretation, a brief and strict lecture consisting of poorly disguised warnings. As a result, she won little personal sympathy for herself and the United States in UN circles. She made it clear to me early on that her interests were not in the Middle East or the Persian Gulf, but rather in Europe, especially in Yugoslavia, which was being dissolved at the time, and the former members of the Warsaw Pact. In the latter circle, Albright was able to find her most reliable and obedient supporters among the delegates. She had particular difficulties in her relations with SecretaryGeneral Boutros Boutros-Ghali, whose somewhat pharaonic manner and managerial methods she found difficult to bear. She also succeeded, as one of her last actions in the office, in outmaneuvering the otherwise quite clever Boutros-Ghali. This man, perhaps somewhat dazzled by his own greatness, underestimated Albright’s toughness, stubbornness, and influence in Washington. Despite her geographical preferences, it was Albright’s way of dealing with the Iraq issue that yielded the best political dividend during her UN time. She proved to be clearly superior to the Iraqis in exchanging insults, which was appreciated by the US public. The strategy of supporting diplomacy with military threats yielded political results. Initially, she was somewhat reserved with me and UNSCOM, but over time she became an enthusiastic and effective supporter of UNSCOM. She often took on successful political strife for our organization in Washington and the Security Council. Undoubtedly Albright’s greatest success in the UN was the election of Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General, which she accomplished with great vigor despite her personal isolation and social estrangement in the corridors and halls of the United Nations. My relationship with Albright was not easy. My hopes and promises for the dismantling of sanctions, ending the oil embargo, as well as hints of further financial relief were key to persuading Iraq to accept the ceasefire resolution. Whereas Albright’s mission, most likely received from President Clinton himself, remained to uphold the sanctions, at all costs. Her interest in Iraq’s disarmament was, therefore, only moderate at best. However, I enjoyed a slight advantage in my good personal

88

Iraq Disarmed

relationships with the circles in Washington and the White House administration, primarily with national security advisor Anthony “Tony” Lake and his colleagues Bruce Riedel (CIA), Mark Parris, and Martin Indyk. With their extensive in-depth knowledge of Iraq and the region, they understood the consequences of possible biological and chemical warfare and wanted UNSCOM and the IAEA to succeed in their mission.

A New UN Secretary-General The sophisticated and dapper Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali also tended to treat the new US ambassador from the outset with a slightly patronizing kindness. Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian Copt, had had a distinguished diplomatic career before becoming UN SecretaryGeneral. Above all, he had played a central role in the negotiations of the Camp David Agreements and the 1979 Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt that had ended the thirty-one-year war between the two countries. However, his pride and slight arrogance, evident to those around him and which he displayed clearly to the US ambassador, was something he would regret a few years later when he ran for another five-year term as UN Secretary-General in 1996. He seemed an obvious choice considering his competent work during his first term of office. Albright, however, had tired of the Egyptian’s arrogance, and she had found a perfect successor in the young and brilliant UN official Kofi Annan, who had impressed her in a series of virtually impossible tasks, not least in the crisis of former Yugoslavia. It was no easy task for Albright to outsmart Boutros-Ghali. But with the unwavering support and skillful manipulation of her assistant James Rubin, she managed to both secure her own position as secretary of state in Washington and undermine Boutros-Ghali’s succession as Secretary-General. The Security Council decides who will become the next SecretaryGeneral by a majority of at least nine votes and without a veto from any of the five permanent members. Most people probably believed that the case was closed when fourteen of the council’s fifteen votes supported the reelection of Boutros-Ghali and only one vote was cast for Annan during the council’s November 1996 election process. However, the US veto cast by Albright stopped cold the incumbent Secretary-General’s reelection. The UN election process coincided with the reelection of President Clinton, who quickly nominated Albright,

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

89

Private Collection

who promptly received Senate confirmation, as the new secretary of state. With her new position, she was able to turn the votes in the Security Council so that Boutros-Ghali got only one vote (France) and Annan got the other fourteen. When Annan subsequently promised France that, as Secretary-General, he would ensure that a Frenchman would be offered the responsibility of leading the UN’s prestigious peacekeeping operations in the UN Secretariat, France finally withdrew its veto on his candidacy. The Security Council was then able to unanimously nominate Kofi Annan as the new UN Secretary-General, and the General Assembly then formally elected him. Boutros-Ghali suffered a somewhat humiliating withdrawal. At the same time, Britain had to give up the post of undersecretary-general for Political Affairs, a post that it had held for decades. My collaboration with Boutros-Ghali had worked well. He was a skilled diplomat and negotiator with an excellent team, such as the distinguished former British ambassador Marrack Goulding (whom I later recruited to the SIPRI Board), Jean-Claude Aimé from Haiti, Peruvian Álvaro de Soto, and my closest friend in Boutros-Ghali’s circle, Ismat Kittani, former deputy foreign minister of Iraq and former president of

With UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1995).

90

Iraq Disarmed

the Second Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. On Friday afternoons when I was in New York, Kittani and I would meet privately for tea in his office next to the Secretary-General’s room on the thirty-eighth floor. We mainly pondered developments in Iraq and the world. He gave me invaluable insider information on Iraq, its intrigues, and realities during these sessions. In his memoir, Unvanquished, Boutros-Ghali misunderstood me when he criticized me for not leaving the opportunity to lift the Security Council sanctions completely open to Saddam Hussein. This, according to Boutros-Ghali, misled Iraq’s leadership and delayed Iraq’s acceptance of the Security Council’s important resolution that allowed the export of limited quantities of Iraqi oil to finance the procurement of food and medications—the so-called oil-for-food deal. Boutros-Ghali erred in his criticism. Like him, I worked continuously to lift the oil embargo, but conditioned upon and directly linked to the implementation of the weapons part of the cease-fire solution. Kofi Annan and his Swedish-born wife, artist Nane Annan, had become close friends of mine and my wife Christina during our joint time in New York in the seventies. Consequently, my wife and I celebrated his appointment as Secretary-General. In fact, enthusiasm for Kofi’s election permeated the entire UN headquarters. Boutros-Ghali’s time had, despite the Secretary-General’s unquestionable intelligence and political talent, been characterized by nonchalant and insensitive treatment of the UN staff. Perhaps it had been worse for the female staff, who experienced condescension and injustice without the Secretary-General showing the slightest sympathy or understanding of the difficulties and obstacles they faced in a global organization. With Kofi Annan, who had a long career as a UN official behind him, all this changed and the Secretariat was filled with hope and professional pride, which had previously been limited to UNSCOM’s staff. As I left my position as chairman of UNSCOM on July 1, 1997, my formal collaboration with the new Secretary-General was limited to six months, but that short period became both constructive and successful. Even thereafter, we remained in touch, enabling me to contribute advice and views on several matters linked to the Iraq issue. Unfortunately, relations between Kofi Annan and my successor at UNSCOM would take another turn.

The Camera Crisis and the Missile Issue In June 1993, Iraq began testing missiles, an activity that in my opinion did not conflict with Iraq’s obligations under the Security Council

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

91

resolutions, as long as the firings did not exceed the prohibited range of 150 kilometers. That said, the exercises were subject to systematic monitoring by UNSCOM to prevent the test missiles from exceeding prohibited ranges. However, sending inspectors to continuously monitor missile tests was practically impossible; we simply didn’t have enough staff. I ordered the setup of continuous camera surveillance to send images from the two missile test sites to our Baghdad control and surveillance center, so our missile experts could systematically monitor activities and tests, ensuring that Iraq did not develop missiles with a range over 150 kilometers. The Iraqi response to my camera surveillance plan was fiercely negative. General Amer Rashid ordered that UNSCOM experts be prevented from mounting cameras at the test sites. In that situation, I could do nothing but inform the president of the Security Council on June 18 about the obstruction. The council reacted strongly to Iraq’s actions, adopting a harsh statement on “a material breach of the Council’s resolutions” and threatening “serious consequences.” In other words, the council gave its go-ahead for a military attack on Iraq. However, I had no taste for violence in this situation. I acted with great care to prevent this political confrontation with Iraq from developing into a full military attack. I engaged General Rashid in a tough debate about the inspection rights. He rightly argued that the missile tests did not violate the ceasefire regulations as long as the tests were less than 150 kilometers in range. I responded that I did not agree with his assessment because the remote camera monitoring mechanism was compatible with Resolution 715. Rashid replied that Resolution 715 did not apply because Iraq had not formally accepted it, to which I reiterated that the resolution was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and was, therefore, binding upon all UN member states. After several days of waiting for a response from Iraq, I gave the camera installation group instructions to withdraw and notified the president of the Security Council (Ambassador Hannay) of the development. At that stage, Iraq declared that test sites would be dismantled. I responded by immediately sending a new group of missile experts led by Smidovich to the plant with instructions to place the UNSCOM seal on all equipment. (Part of the monitoring mechanism involved a system of sealing and tagging equipment and items to prevent their use or to alert the inspectors if the seals or tags had been tampered with or removed. Items that were sealed or tagged were routinely checked by our inspectors.) General Rashid met the group and explained that such a measure was unnecessary as the facilities were no longer operational. On my

92

Iraq Disarmed

instructions, the team ignored Rashid’s statement and moved to apply UNSCOM’s seals, but the inspectors were physically blocked by Iraqi personnel from doing so. I was forced to inform the Security Council of this. At that point, I understood that the risk of an air strike against Iraq had escalated, so I ordered the inspectors to leave Baghdad immediately for their safety. Late in the evening of Friday, June 26 (11:45 p.m. in New York), US secretary of state Warren Christopher called me at home and announced, “Baghdad will be attacked in twenty minutes.” I immediately ordered my new chief of operations (US Colonel Bill Eckert) to do what he could to make sure that those of our staff who were still in Baghdad stayed in their hotel rooms. The Clinton administration officially justified the attack as a response to the assassination attempt against President Bush during a visit to Kuwait, a plot attributed, according to the US intelligence service, to the Iraqi security service. The link between the air strike and Iraq’s blocking of UNSCOM’s camera surveillance was not obvious, but Iraqi spokesmen soon attributed part of the blame for the US missile strike to me. Although the attack was directed at the Iraqi internal security service Mukhabarat’s headquarters, the head of Iraq’s national art museum, Layla al-Attar, and her husband were killed in their home in a residential area. Her death was a great loss for Iraqi cultural life. AlAttar had a major influence in promoting the role of female artists in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. A few days later, on July 8, 1993, I informed the Security Council that Iraq was escalating the simple issue of the placement of UNSCOM’s seals and tags on a few missile test sites to a denial of Resolution 715. The Security Council reacted unanimously in support of my complaint. On July 10, chiefs of the camera inspection team Mark Silver and Roger Hill reported that General Rashid invited the inspectors to verify that the missile test sites had been dismantled per UNSCOM’s requirements. I replied that the inspectors would at the same time seal the test facilities. On Sunday, July 11, the inspectors tried to carry out their mission, but the Iraqi counterpart (Hossam Amin) refused to allow it. On the same day, I had a private conversation with Ambassador Hannay, who was well aware of the risk of a new military attack on Iraq and did not want to take a stance until he had the opportunity to discuss the matter with three of the permanent members of the council (the United States, France, and Russia). (China continued to keep its distance on the Iraq issue.) I met the four ambassadors on Monday, July 12. They suggested

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

93

that I go to Baghdad to assess the situation of the missile tests and their surveillance. The entire Security Council, at a meeting on the same night, supported this call. While I was packing my bag on Tuesday, I received a phone call from UN legal counsel Carl-August Fleischhauer and the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s cabinet secretary Lars-Åke Nilsson. They wanted me to raise the issue of foreign prisoners in Iraq and request their immediate release at my upcoming meetings with the Iraqi leadership in Baghdad. In Lars-Åke’s case, a small number of Swedes had, by mistake, ended up imprisoned in Iraq. I arrived in Baghdad with Scott, Trevan, and Platon, where I received a message from Hannay. On behalf of the UK, he too, like Iraqi Ambassador Hamdoon, supported my call that the oil embargo should be lifted when the cease-fire resolution was fully implemented (per paragraph 22 of Resolution 687). Embarrassingly for the United States, Albright contradicted Hannay by declaring that the oil embargo would not be lifted until every aspect of the council resolution was implemented, not just the weapons part. In my opinion, this was a serious misinterpretation of the cease-fire resolution that would lead to several arguments between me and Albright. The magnitude of the huge media frenzy that met me in Baghdad highlighted the widespread feeling that new military attacks against Iraq were imminent. My discussions in Baghdad took place over five days (July 15–19). My first meeting was with Foreign Minister al-Sahaf, accompanied by, among others, General Rashid, who played a leading role in this crisis. The deliberations then continued with two long sessions with Tariq Aziz, in his uniform. Those meetings were special because they resulted in exchanging position documents from both sides, where I was once again impressed by Scott and Trevan’s masterful ability to draft UNSCOM’s papers. This led to Iraqi consent for UNSCOM to install surveillance cameras at the test sites and the promise to notify UNSCOM in advance of any missile test. The downside, however, was that Iraq refused to allow our cameras to become operational. Despite my protests, there was no immediate concession from the Iraqi side on this issue. I sought to deal with the contradictions secretly to avoid media coverage that could lead to new air strikes on Iraq. On July 16, I was able to present my demands in a three-hour meeting with Aziz and Rashid. On July 17, Aziz was in consultation with Saddam Hussein all day about my requirements. I took the opportunity to fly by helicopter to the al-Muthanna plant, where UNSCOM’s chemical experts were destroying the mustard gas in one of our newly installed burning plants.

94

Iraq Disarmed

On July 18, discussions with Aziz continued from 11:00 a.m. to midnight, when the Iraqi side, through a position document tabled by Aziz, finally agreed to accept camera surveillance. However, it would take another two months for Iraq to give UNSCOM formal consent to make the cameras operational. I advised them that UNSCOM was planning to deploy additional new technology and advanced sensors as part of our inspection work. Aziz and I also met privately. In these meetings, I argued, among other things, for the release of foreign prisoners in Iraq per Fleischhauer and Nilsson’s requests. Aziz responded by sending clear positive signals, implying that the release could take place in August. After the meeting, I passed on the promising information to Sweden and the UN. (A release of the prisoners did in fact eventually take place.) On my last day in Baghdad (July 19), Aziz and I fulfilled the previous agreement to establish a political dialogue between us in parallel with high-level technical consultations between UNSCOM and Iraq. Our dialogue meetings would take place in New York at the UN and in Baghdad. Despite many lengthy disputes and controversies, our relationship and dialogue evolved into a constructive instrument for the entire Iraqi weapons issue. In these meetings, we were able to mobilize our mutual ability to negotiate peaceful solutions to complex problems, with some exceptions. In these July talks, Aziz and I made an important breakthrough in relations between Iraq and the Security Council. We also personally went from crisis to cooperation. Iraq undertook to cooperate fully with UNSCOM’s inspectors, and I assured him on behalf of the UN that Iraq’s legitimate rights to national sovereignty and technological and scientific development would be respected. Needless to say, with the threat of renewed US missile attacks, media attention was enormous and it made me anxious. Before leaving Baghdad on the evening of July 19, I conducted a series of press conferences and interviews with the major international newspapers and, of course, CNN. The camera crisis was over. Once I returned to New York on July 22, I informed the Security Council of the events. I received unanimous, clear, and strong support for the agreements I had reached with Iraq. With Iraq’s consent to camera surveillance, I was confident that Iraq’s development of new short-range missiles, under 150 kilometers, was about to fall under UNSCOM’s control. At the same time, I reminded the council that comprehensive monitoring presumed that all missile production facilities had been identified. I believed that the monitoring system would

Long-Term Monitoring and Verification

95

be fully operational in the short term, quite possibly before the end of the year. But the real solution to the missile issue largely depended on calculating how many of the 819 Scud missiles delivered to Iraq by the Soviet Union in the 1980s had been used in the war against Iran in 1980–1988 and in attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia during the Kuwait War in 1991. Moreover, we needed to determine how many missiles Iraq had unilaterally and secretly destroyed on Saddam’s special orders in the summer of 1991 after my first so-called high-level mission to Iraq with Blix and Akashi. After a series of lunch meetings with Iran’s charming UN ambassador Kamal Kharrazi in his elegant residence on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park, I was determined to get Iran’s calculation of how many Scud missiles Iraq had used against Iran. On behalf of the Iranian government, the ambassador invited me to go to Tehran for deliberations. I declined the invitation so as not to agitate the Iraqi leadership in Baghdad. In my place, I sent John Scott on a one-man mission. He returned with detailed data on Iraq’s missile warfare. Interestingly, the Iranian figures were almost identical to those the CIA and Israel had given me. We now had a solid foundation of data to aid in our search for hidden Scud missiles. It was significantly more difficult to create data that could form the basis for the effective monitoring of chemical and biological capabilities. The problem was not only technical but also highly political. To understand this, one must go back to operational paragraph 22 of Resolution 687. This paragraph meant that, as Iraq fulfilled its obligations regarding weapons of mass destruction, the international ban on procurement of Iraqi products would no longer apply; in other words, the ban on imports of Iraqi oil would be lifted. Given that Iraq had been one of the world’s leading oil exporters with massive oil reserves, the lifting of the de facto oil export embargo would radically improve food supply import opportunities and thus the nation’s health and prosperity. At the same time, it would create economic opportunities for the Iraqi regime to procure weapons-related equipment and capabilities. Therefore, I felt the monitoring plans adopted under Resolution 715 had to be tested and operational if Iraq were to have access to export earnings. My July trip to Baghdad was followed by several months of difficult negotiations. In August, “high-tech talks” were held in New York with Rashid at the helm of a large Iraqi expert delegation. Things quieted down in September, and I told the Security Council and Hannay and Mérimée in private conversations that the conditions for formal Iraqi

96

Iraq Disarmed

acceptance of Resolution 715 and the initiation of monitoring inspections seemed positive. However, in October, the situation deteriorated again during my almost weeklong “political high-level talks” with Aziz on October 2–8 in Baghdad. The agenda was completely dominated by the conditions under which the sanctions could be lifted. To formally accept Resolution 715 and launch the associated monitoring plans, Aziz demanded that the oil embargo first be lifted under paragraph 22, which I explained was completely unrealistic from a political standpoint. Instead, I demanded that the plans be not only accepted but also implemented, with complete declarations from Iraq and UNSCOM/IAEA inspections and surveillance at a stage that included the total elimination of all banned weapons and capabilities and the monitoring of Iraq’s relevant production facilities. For me, this was the prerequisite for lifting the oil embargo. Aziz would say, “Lift the oil embargo first, then implement surveillance,” to which I would reply, “First, surveillance implementation, then we lift the embargo.” And back and forth we went. The long rounds of negotiation that I, with the support of Scott and Trevan, engaged in with Aziz and Rashid sometimes went on for exaggerated amounts of time. I remember a consultation that ended at 2:30 a.m., but not without results, as the Iraqi side agreed to share important relevant delivery data on the import of weapons components. Some of the tone of the conversation is illustrated by the personal greeting I received on the last day of my visit (October 8) from Saddam Hussein and his son-in-law Hussein Kamel, relayed to me by Rashid. They both expected me to agree to what they presented as a policy so that “Iraqi children would no longer have to starve.”

6 The Saddam Clause

I WAS WELL AWARE THAT THE PERMANENT MEMBERS OF THE SECUrity Council held differing views about the link between disarmament and the lifting of the embargo on Iraq’s oil exports. But even within the new Clinton administration in Washington, a split was evident, which meant I was able to conduct a series of discussions during a period in which the White House (represented by national security advisor Tony Lake) seemed more inclined to consider sanctions relief without requiring regime change in Iraq, while the State Department and the CIA were suspicious and began to talk more and more about conditions for Saddam Hussein’s removal from power in Iraq. In France, President François Mitterrand was in favor of lifting the embargo, and so was Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, as I was told by a French source. In a long private talk at the French Foreign Ministry’s elegant premises in Paris on September 13, 1993, Foreign Minister Alain Juppé raised the question of whether I thought the Clinton administration would uphold the demand for Saddam Hussein’s removal from power, the so-called “Saddam clause,” before accepting a lifting of the sanctions, specifically the oil embargo. I cited repeatedly assurances given to me in meetings at the White House with Lake, telling Juppé that the United States did not have any requirements other than the weapons issue to lift the export ban in its entirety. Of course, it would be another matter if the regime initiated a slaughter of Kurds or Shia Muslims or otherwise violated international

97

98

Iraq Disarmed

law. For Juppé, this was new and important information that pleased him and that well corresponded to France’s position. It was necessary to respect the Security Council’s resolutions. But at the same time, he wanted to inform me that he had his own doubts about the US attitude in the long term. He feared that the Americans would maintain that Saddam had to be deposed before lifting the sanctions, a position he knew Britain also held. Privately, I feared that Juppé’s fears were not unfounded, even though I formally maintained my hopes that Lake’s declared policy, which was a continuation of Bush senior’s/Scowcroft’s policy, would hold. It was also a policy that was reflected in the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution.

Monitoring Inspections Are Accepted The final result of the tough negotiations between me and Aziz in the fall of 1993 was that on November 26, Foreign Minister al-Sahaf stated in a note to the president of the Security Council that Iraq formally accepted Resolution 715. In doing so, I had cleared the way forward to a new type of inspections, namely, monitoring of Iraq’s dual-use industrial facilities and laboratories to ensure that Iraq did not use these capabilities to produce or develop new, but prohibited, weapons. Now our work could focus on implementing the regulations of the resolution and the related plans, a task that commenced in early 1994. The Iraqi government relentlessly sought to be notified about if and when I could report to the Security Council that the new surveillance system was “up and running.” However, the United States, through Madeleine Albright, repeatedly reminded me at the Security Council meetings that it was not me but the council that decided when Resolutions 687 and 715 were fulfilled. At the same time, Lake declared that UNSCOM was solely responsible for the assessment of the case. These two contradictory positions made it clear that the US administration was still divided, as was the Security Council. In conjunction with Hannay, I sought to persuade the council to find a unifying solution. France and Russia strongly supported me and my supposed readiness to lift the oil embargo on Iraq if, after six months of implementation of Resolution 715, the surveillance system was working and all prohibited weapons were eliminated. Britain through Hannay held a diplomatic intermediate position in that dispute when, in various ways, he sought a compromise and a path toward the lifting of the oil embargo.

The Saddam Clause

99

Baseline Inspections Under Resolution 715 To explain to the Iraqi side how the commission planned to move forward, I scheduled a week-long meeting in New York beginning March 14, 1994. The key element was to be built on Iraq’s own declarations, what I called a baseline—that is, a list of dual-use facilities that would be subject to regular and systematic inspections, establishing detailed monitoring and verification protocols for each declared facility consisting of design drawings and photos; data on storage, machinery, equipment, production, procurement, and technical personnel; and data from air and water samples around the plant. The idea of the baseline system was, of course, to enable effective inspections. Experts from the various weapons areas would operate from the Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Center (BMVC) led by Göran Wallén (my former senior advisor in the military negotiations in Vienna), where chemical, biological, and nuclear laboratories were also available for immediate use. In the longer term, my ambition was to gradually reduce our dependence on experts by developing suitable sensors and camera surveillance of the facilities that could be controlled remotely from the BMVC.

March Confrontation On March 9, 1994, eight days before Aziz and Rashid’s planned UN visit in New York, I flew to Washington, DC, for several meetings. I met with John Holum, head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency at the US State Department, and his colleague Tom Graham. They were enthusiastic and forthcoming, sharing good ideas on methods and technology. In turn, my meeting at the White House with my regular contacts, Tony Lake and his colleagues Martin Indyk and Elisa Harris, was politically calculated and carefully calibrated so as not to generate any excessive hope or expectations. For me, the main purpose of the meeting was to initiate a basic dialogue to discuss the implementation of paragraph 22 of the ceasefire resolution and the issue of the oil embargo, a problem that would haunt me until my last working day at the Special Commission. The repeated debates in the Security Council, as well as Iraq’s various actions during 1994, all came down to that issue. Egypt’s ambassador (and later secretary-general of the Arab League) Nabil Elaraby stated

100

Iraq Disarmed

that “paragraph 22 had become as famous as the Security Resolution 242 of 1967 on Israel/Palestine.” With Lake, I also discussed his newly published article in Foreign Affairs, which presented interesting ideas about a US strategy. On one point Lake’s ideas were in contradiction with those that Tariq Aziz would come to share with me in a meeting the following week, on March 17, namely, that the United States and the West could use Iraq as a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism and that Iraq was ready to work with the West in opposing fundamentalist terrorism. In the discussion with Lake, I reiterated how important it was to give Iraq a feeling that there was “light at the end of the tunnel.” Admittedly, there was no hope of an immediate lifting of the oil embargo under paragraph 22, but I argued that we should make it clear that there would be favorable conditions if Iraq fully cooperated. I told Lake about a conversation I had with Aziz when I asked him what guarantees I would receive for continued cooperation when the embargo was lifted—his response was “trust us.” Aziz had added with a smile that Iraq was fully capable of conquering Kuwait with World War I weapons, but having weapons of mass destruction was an excellent means of achieving political influence without going to war. Upon hearing the story, Lake drew a parallel with the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when President Kennedy said to his secretary of defense Robert McNamara that although the Soviet Union could reach the United States with long-range missiles from its own territory, the politically significant difference was that Russian missiles now could reach the United States from Cuba. Lake said that if the oil embargo were lifted, Iraq would have the financial resources to ignore other sanctions. Lake made it clear that without a complete account of prohibited weapons and the surveillance in place, the United States would not support a lifting of the embargo. At this point, it was quite clear that the Security Council could not do much until UNSCOM/IAEA declared that the weapons part of the cease-fire resolution was implemented and the surveillance system was operational. Thereafter, under paragraph 22, it would be up to the council to repeal the ban on importing goods from Iraq, thus effectively allowing Iraq to resume its extensive export of oil. Everyone understood that Iraq, with the revenue it would generate, could quickly return to being a dominant influence in the Gulf region. On March 16, the third day of our weeklong meeting with Rashid and his team of experts—and the day before Aziz arrived in New York—Iraqi news agencies reported that the French government had

The Saddam Clause

101

criticized me and requested that I be replaced as executive chairman of the Special Commission. France’s UN ambassador, Mérimée, who was then also the president of the Security Council for the month, came to see me in my office. He said he was furious about the “false” reports and categorically dismissed them. Mérimée told me he had protested to Iraq’s ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, who denied that this information had come from Iraq’s own news agencies. On the evening of March 17, I finally met with Aziz and General Rashid in my office in New York. When the topic of the Iraqi news agencies’ reports arose, Rashid put on his most innocent face (he had many to choose from) and blamed the incorrect information on the Ministry of Information in Baghdad. For me, however, it was clear that it was a political ploy—part of a plan to incite a lengthy challenge to me and the commission. Already at this meeting, Rashid explained that the threatening speech that Saddam Hussein just delivered to mark the end of Ramadan was a clear sign that Saddam was now listening to the harsh side of Iraqi politicians and that this would have consequences for all of us. In Iraq, they felt cheated by my optimistic statements in September 1993. I replied that I was deeply dissatisfied with Iraq’s unacceptable handling of the chemical weapons (in particular, its possession of VX gas) and added that Iraq should be grateful to me for being able to obtain the full support of the Security Council to push things forward. We met in Ambassador Hamdoon’s residence in New York for several hours. Aziz began by declaring that Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein, like the Iraqi people, no longer had confidence in UNSCOM’s oral or written statements to the Security Council. He wondered why Iraq would cooperate with UNSCOM, because it was no longer believed that the commission would report to the Security Council that sanctions could be lifted. During Aziz’s rounds of consultations in the days prior to our meeting, the Security Council members had told him that as soon as I reported that the cease-fire resolution had been implemented, the council would immediately decide, per paragraph 22, to lift the oil embargo. In his words, it was my fault that the embargo on Iraq had not been lifted. Aziz accused me of engaging in diplomacy instead of technical work, thus delaying sanctions relief. He then said he had lost confidence in me personally. Until Iraq accepted Resolution 715 in November 1993, Aziz had defended me against criticism in Baghdad. I explained that I was Iraq’s foremost defense lawyer in the UN, but Aziz showed no sign of gratitude and went on to say that many lawyers ended up sending their

102

Iraq Disarmed

Henry Arvidsson/UNSCOM

clients to prison. Slamming his papers down on the table, he angrily declared that UNSCOM’s reporting lacked professionalism. I responded by damning the insulting way in which Aziz presented his views. On that note, the meeting was canceled. To some extent, this foreshadowed the upcoming crisis with Iraq challenging the Security Council and the commission, and Saddam Hussein’s threat to Kuwait’s existence as an independent state. The Security Council followed the situation closely, which meant that I had the opportunity for two long meetings with the council on March 18 and 23, 1994. The president of the Security Council, Ambassador Mérimée, did his best to give the tense situation a positive angle, which was, however, effectively prevented by David Hannay and his pessimistic predictions about the bitter reality facing us.

Thousands of chemical and biological bombs, warheads, and missiles were found. Here, a member of UNSCOM’s team inspects a mustard gas bomb.

7 Secrets and Lies

O N S EPTEMBER 13, 1993, UNSCOM EMBARKED ON A LONG planned, large-scale, four-week inspection aimed at finalizing and identifying all prohibited missiles that Iraq had procured from the Soviet Union during the 1980s. The inspectors, led by Smidovich, included our French missile expert Patrice Palanque and the German chemical expert Horst Reeps, assisted by the always equally energetic Scott Ritter. Their assignment was to create a complete inventory of the 819 missiles. First up, as mentioned earlier, was determining how many Scud missiles Iraq used, first against Iran in the Iran-Iraq War (data that Scott had recently obtained in Tehran) and those used against Israel and Saudi Arabia during the Kuwait War. Next, the inspectors had to count the missiles that Iraq handed over and reported to UNSCOM and that were subsequently destroyed under the inspectors’ supervision. To this, we added the missiles that Iraq had already secretly destroyed in the summer of 1991, and finally we calculated a number of missiles whose subcomponents were retained for modification to new production. The inspectors made good use of advanced search technology such as ground-penetrating radar that could search underground, which we operated from our helicopters over possible search areas, an operation where, among others, Russian experts contributed some expertise. The result was that the inspectors were able to supplement the declared list of used missiles with the list of unilaterally destroyed missiles, to place the total number of Scud missiles at 819.

103

104

Iraq Disarmed

Later (in 1996–1997) there would be problems implementing more accurate controls to ensure that, for example, missile engines, control systems, fuel pumps, or other components were not to be used in new missiles, but I will return to that. It may also be of interest to consider the situation regarding chemical and biological weapons, as I assessed in a report to the Security Council in October 1993 after more than two years of activities: Biological weapons: Iraq had not fulfilled its obligations to provide information regarding past activities in this area. Iraqi officials should provide the additional information requested by the commission. Once Iraq formally accepted Resolution 715 and its associated plans, the commission would begin the implementation of surveillance measures. Chemical weapons: Iraq had provided information on chemical weapons production, including imported precursors and quantity data. Existing weapons were being dismantled and the chemical weapons agents were being destroyed in the plants designed by the commission—a mustard gas burning plant and a controlled hydrolysis plant for nerve gases such as tabun and sarin. Our experts, Santesson and others, were not convinced that Iraq’s declarations were complete, but the number of weapons, ammunition, bombs, missile warheads, and weapons’ grade chemicals at the huge al-Muthanna facility still kept the commission’s special destruction group fully occupied, so it would take some time before a final assessment could be made. One problem for me was that the Iraqi army, prior to the 1990 Kuwait War, stored large quantities of chemical weapons in the southern part of Iraq. This meant, in my opinion, that carrying these weapons through the Iraqi countryside and communities to UNSCOM’s newly built destruction facilities in the al-Muthanna complex, far north of Baghdad, could involve major safety risks. At the same time, it could pose an obvious danger if the weapons were destroyed on site with unsophisticated technology. However, taking into account the competence of the commission’s chemists, I nevertheless took the risk of ordering the destruction in place (in violation of international rules under the Convention on Chemical Weapons, which was then being drafted in Geneva). However, no human was injured during the destruction process. Only one victim was noted— a desert fox. My then deputy and successor to Gallucci, US disarmament expert Pierce Corden, warned me about an overly hopeful or naive attitude in reporting to the Security Council, especially on the issue of biological weapons. He would later be proven right.

Secrets and Lies

105

The Mystery of the Biological Weapons Even before the first inspection for suspected biological weapons took place in August 1991, Hossam Amin, a colonel with the main responsibility for the Iraqi reception of the inspectors, admitted that Iraq was engaged in weapons-related biological research in the laboratory at Salman Pak Research Center. However, there was no mention that Iraq had produced any biological weapons. This was also emphatically stated by Aziz and Rashid with straight faces when I repeatedly asked the question. I recruited David Kelly from the British military research institute Porton Down to check the veracity of these repeated denials. It was already apparent at the first inspection under Kelly’s leadership that the lead scientist for biological research in Iraq was Rihab Taha, with a doctorate in toxicology from the British University of East Anglia. No one could look more innocent than this woman when she shook her head in response to Kelly’s questions about whether there was any Iraqi program for the production and development of biological weapons. However, when the commission’s monitoring and surveillance activities began in Iraq, it became clear to our analysts that Iraq’s research program was not about bacteria or toxins, but how they could be used for weapons purposes. It was a patient and remarkable group of biological weapons experts with Kelly and US scientist Richard Spertzel at the forefront, who managed to penetrate Iraq’s secrets. What had contributed to these new clarifications was that the researchers could utilize the data and observations generated in the brilliant and patient work that started in 1994 with the implementation of the monitoring plans under Resolution 715, which, of course, meant the establishment of a list of the biological plants and laboratories that were judged to have dual uses. But the fact remained that in 1994 we could not prove that Iraq used its weapons research to actually produce biological weapons, such as artillery pieces and missile warheads filled with biological warfare agents. We had our suspicions but could not prove their veracity.

Russian Intelligence Information On one of the last days of March 1994, I received a call from Moscow from an acquaintance of mine: general of the Russian intelligence service Gennady Evstafiev, whom I knew from the weapons negotiations in Vienna. He got straight to the point and said that he had

106

Iraq Disarmed

important information. However, he could not tell me on the phone what it was about. Nor did he have the opportunity to accept my immediate invitation to come to New York to discuss the matter. Instead, I suggested that we meet in Vienna, a traditional meeting place for spies, and diplomats. We met on April 8 for lunch at the SAS Palais Hotel at the Wiener Ring. It was a nice conversation where we sat at a table a safe distance from other guests. I told Evstafiev, a plump and jovial gentleman, about the commission’s activities in Iraq. As we reminisced about the time we had negotiated through the entire night back in 1990, I was on pins and needles: I wanted to hear his piece of information. Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer and asked him about the “important information” he mentioned on the telephone. He looked around the room and pulled his chair closer to me. In a low voice, he said, “I can tell you that Iraq has a secret biological weapons production facility.” “Where?” I whispered, pulling my chair closer. “I can’t say anything else right now,” was his reply. We agreed that I would go to Moscow to exchange more information. It wasn’t until June 12, two months after our luncheon, that I was able to fly to Moscow. Smidovich, Scott, and Trevan accompanied me. After getting some much needed sleep at Hotel Arbat, historically known as the special governmental residence, our delegation left Moscow the next morning in two limousines. Our destination was the large mansion-like villa where the head of the Russian intelligence service, Yevgeny Primakov, resided. Primakov would later become the foreign minister and then Russia’s prime minister in 1998–1999, a post from which, however, he failed to challenge Vladimir Putin in the race to succeed Boris Yeltsin as the country’s president. We were warmly welcomed by Primakov and my friend Evstafiev. Primakov began by thanking me for the information I shared with Evstafiev in Vienna. As usual, I provided a detailed description of the commission’s assessment of the situation in Iraq: most chemical weapons, except for the nerve gas VX, had been destroyed; 97 percent of missiles had been accounted for and disarmed; the investigation of biological weapons was underway, but the scenario was unclear; and there was no perceived nuclear weapons threat. (The al-Atheer nuclear weapons plant had just been destroyed, but there was still uncertainty surrounding Iraq’s nuclear activities in 1989–1990 as no relevant documents had been found.) Primakov promised that Russia would give UNSCOM its full support. He gave me an interesting account of his recent meeting with Sad-

Secrets and Lies

107

dam Hussein in Baghdad, where he noted that there was some division between the hawks and doves on the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). However, Primakov emphasized that in the end, Saddam decided alone. My impression, I argued, was that there was disagreement within the RCC about whether to submit lists of foreign suppliers of their weapons programs to UNSCOM/IAEA. Hussein Kamel had led the argument to provide the list, while Aziz was skeptical, perhaps to protect the country’s diplomatic relations with supplier countries in both the East and West. I had tried to facilitate an affirmative decision by making it clear that all such data would be treated with UNSCOM’s greatest discretion. When Saddam eventually decided to collaborate, Aziz had joined that school of thought. At the beginning of the year, Aziz had been quite aggressive in our contacts, but he later became more reasonable. The Iraqi press (including the newspaper owned by Saddam’s son—Uday Hussein) had also begun to criticize Aziz (and Rashid) for being overly accommodating of my requests. Moreover, Saddam had just appointed himself prime minister in addition to his presidential status, which was a sign of consolidation around a cooperation policy. Primakov and I agreed that it was unclear how long this policy would last. (As it would turn out, the policy would last until October 6, 1994, just over six months later.) It was a constructive and rewarding meeting, but eventually, I could not restrain myself and I asked for information about Iraq’s secret biological weapons production facility. Primakov looked puzzled and said he was unaware of a secret facility. I pointed to Evstafiev: “Gennady, you told me about this in Vienna.” Evstafiev blushed and shook his head so that his round cheeks trembled. “Rolf, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. We do not know of any such facility.” After the second day of meetings, I was in bed when a telephone call came from the reception at half-past midnight. Evstafiev told me he wanted to meet. Still in my pajamas, I received him in my room. He explained that he just wanted to say that I had misunderstood our communication in Vienna, which he deeply regretted. That was all that was said that night, but it was not the end of the story. When my last visit to Moscow as head of UNSCOM took place in the spring of 1997, the atmosphere was good. Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov (later foreign minister) offered a large lunch and gave a friendly speech that he rounded off by asking which effort or achievement of UNSCOM I considered the most successful. I responded without hesitation: “Finding Iraq’s secret biological weapons production facility at al-Hakam.” Everyone around the table was cheering when someone

108

Iraq Disarmed

tapped a glass at the end of the table. It was Evstafiev. He stood up and in a loud voice asked, “Rolf, do you remember who first told you about Iraq’s secret biological weapons production facility?” Throughout the years I have pondered this strange paradox and have come to the conclusion that in 1994 Primakov and Evstafiev were worried that I would give the go-ahead to the Security Council regarding Iraq’s declarations of its biological weapons program without having discovered and eliminated the al-Hakam facility (which at one point I was tempted to do). They, therefore, wanted to make me aware that there was an undeclared bioweapons facility without, at the same time, leaking secret data to the commission. In any case, a positive result of my June 1994 stay in Moscow was that I met with Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. In an extensive and extremely encouraging meeting, he praised UNSCOM’s work and assured me that Russia was ready to share all available technical and military information we might need in our work. Ivanov foresaw that there could be disagreement in the Security Council because, during their bilateral consultations with the Americans, they understood that Washington was not at all inclined to lift the oil embargo under paragraph 22, even if UNSCOM/IAEA were successful. Ivanov made it clear that he felt sanctions should never be an end in itself without a political purpose, but of course, Iraq must fully implement its obligations under the Security Council’s binding resolutions. Despite its poor economy, Moscow had faithfully upheld the sanctions against Iraq with significant costs to Russia. He commended UNSCOM’s successful work on eliminating banned capabilities and was now hoping for continued success in establishing the monitoring system under Resolution 715. Ivanov and I also pondered the paradoxical nature of the US strategy to vigorously support UNSCOM’s work while appearing increasingly reticent about lifting the sanctions and the oil embargo. I asked him what Russia (one of the world’s leading gas and oil producers) thought would be the impact on its economy if Iraq, also a major oil producer, returned to the world market. Ivanov replied only that Russia knew the sanctions would one day be lifted and political considerations must be given priority over economic aspects in the decisionmaking process. After this meeting, Ivanov and I remained in contact and began to correspond regularly. He gave me valuable information regarding the previous exports of Russian technology (both equipment and knowhow) to Iraq, and on the Russian-Iraqi political dialogue, which mainly involved the Iraqis looking for a way to get the oil embargo lifted.

Secrets and Lies

109

Review of Iraq’s Policy on UNSCOM/IAEA While 1993 was a year of relatively steady and professional inspection activities (with a few dramatic events aside), 1994 was marked by growing Iraqi impatience around the political developments among the permanent members of the Security Council. It was also clear that there was a split in the Iraqi leadership in Baghdad, where Aziz seemed isolated. He began to spend long periods in New York. During my routine presentation to the Security Council on March 23, 1994, I informed the council that much work remained ahead in the biological weapons investigation. Regarding chemical weapons, I expressed that more and better Iraqi declarations about its extensive chemical industry and its potential weapons capacity were needed before the surveillance inspections under Resolution 715 could become fully operational. On April 25 and 26, with Smidovich, Trevan, and Laura Rockwood from the IAEA, I met with an Iraqi delegation led by General Rashid and Hossam Amin in Baghdad for technical talks. But no significant progress was made. A similar outcome was the result of an evening meeting with Aziz and al-Sahaf, of little more than meaningless tactical exchanges. The end result was just a joint statement on continued cooperation, an inherently unimportant promise in support of our upcoming activities. But I felt increasingly uneasy, almost desperate, in the face of the suffering of the Iraqi people as I struggled to make the necessary progress in my work to ease their plight. With UN sanctions hampering the financing of imports of food, medicines, and other essential supplies, only lifting the oil embargo could change the situation. But only the successful disarmament of Iraq would make that possible. After returning to New York, I had my usual tea session with Ismat Kittani in his UN office to get his help with a political evaluation. Kittani said Aziz’s negative attitude did not reflect the Iraqis’ true feelings. In fact, Aziz was under pressure from the Iraqi leadership, which advocated a hard-line approach. Kittani reflected that Aziz choreographed his meetings with me with the situation at home in mind, but mistakenly had also spurned the mediation proposal made by Mérimée. Aziz now hoped to get my support for a proposal close to that of the Iraqi president’s, but which he had constructed on his own. This would mean formal Iraqi recognition of Kuwait’s sovereignty and of the UN-proposed Iraqi-Kuwaiti border, in return for removing the oil embargo. Internally, Rashid, at the urging of his boss, Hussein Kamel, had sought to persuade Saddam Hussein to decide on a formal Iraqi acceptance of the

110

Iraq Disarmed

monitoring arrangements established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 715. After the Kuwait War, in internal meetings, Kamel had worked hard to discredit Aziz and showed disdain for any improvement in the relations with the commission and me—something he viewed as detrimental to the process of reaching a settlement on the weapons issue. The relations between Kamel and Aziz had since been cold, even downright hostile, which made their now joint positive view of UNSCOM quite surprising. Saddam had given Aziz instructions to quietly and discreetly cooperate with the commission, at least for the next few months. Kittani also believed that Iraq was equally skeptical and realistic about the future position of the United States regarding the implementation of paragraph 22 and the lifting of the oil embargo. As a result, UNSCOM’s international credibility became of paramount importance. He stated that as executive chairman, I had a political role in using this credibility to persuade the Security Council to lift the oil embargo, and that the Aziz-Ekéus collaboration was central in this regard. However, Aziz did not participate in the ensuing negotiations in Amman, Jordan, on May 28 and 29, 1994. Rashid led the Iraqi delegation, which included al-Sahaf, Amin, and the legal counsel. I was accompanied by Scott, who, with his usual skill, resolved the legal obstacles, and Laura Rockwood, who confidently safeguarded the IAEA’s interests. After arduous negotiations, we were able to reach an extremely important agreement on a regulatory framework to monitor Iraqi exports and imports, a necessary condition for sanctions relief. All exports and imports of equipment with weapons potential, including the nuclear dimension, would be reported to UNSCOM and handled by the Information Assessment Unit (IAU) and its experts in both weapons technology and intelligence. Rashid and I signed the agreement on May 29. Upon returning to New York, I gave a detailed presentation to the Security Council on the export-import agreement and received unequivocal support without reservations from any of the members, including the United States. Another important advance in UNSCOM/IAEA’s work came in June 1994, when I was able to notify the Security Council that the monitoring system under Resolution 715 was finally in place and had become provisionally operational. As part of the initial phase, our inspectors were in the process of identifying production facilities around Iraq. Each of these was initially subjected to what I called baseline inspections, whereby the inspectors established a comprehensive plan that included

Secrets and Lies

111

lists of machines, equipment, warehouses, and production data, as well as various techniques and personnel skills. Sensory stations were established at special chemical plants to identify chemicals that were released into the atmosphere or in the water drains around the plants. Then, during routine visits, the inspectors could use this basic data and evaluate changes in the production pattern to detect the possible start-up of prohibited weapons–related production. Particularly for missile production, the inspections were entirely dependent on surveillance cameras mounted in the facility that sent images to the commission’s updated and modernized BMVC. I estimated it would take about six months for this system to be operational. With that, Resolution 715 would become fully implemented, as I explained to the Security Council. The implementation of the resolution, which had been adopted by the Security Council as early as June 1991, had not truly begun until November 1993 due to Iraq’s refusal to accept it. Moreover, after a brief period of cooperation, it was once again delayed until January 1994, when Iraq finally declared its facilities for the first time in accordance with the resolution. On June 29, 1994, I had a peculiar meeting with Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali. He sought to abruptly interrupt my routine review of the state of Iraq, saying that inspections should be put on hold. He argued that the work could not be continued with information several years old and that I should send a letter to the Security Council announcing that the commission would, after a fixed date, refuse to receive further information on Iraq’s previous weapons program. Otherwise, governments would continue to send information and data of all kinds to us, thus delaying real progress and keeping the commission occupied indefinitely. I replied that the inspections regarding Iraq’s previous weapons program would continue as long as necessary. It was, therefore, difficult to determine a definitive date by which the commission’s activities would cease. I told him that I just submitted an oral report to the Security Council. With the exception of biological weapons, the elimination of prohibited weapons and capabilities was almost complete. All the members of the council had clearly expressed satisfaction with my report. My hope now was that Iraq, after my relatively positive report to the Security Council, would cooperate with us, which would make the Security Council ready to consider sanctions relief. The Secretary-General replied that the council’s position was entirely due to the commission’s reporting. He was prepared, with my agreement, to send a letter to the council explaining that, in his opinion, the work of the commission was now complete, that the council should

112

Iraq Disarmed

act accordingly, and that there was an institutional inertia in the Security Council that needed to end, something that would help the entire UN organization. I advised the Secretary-General not to write such a letter. But the Secretary-General did not give up so easily. He presented a proposal, which was also adopted, to formally give me the position of undersecretary-general at the UN in addition to my operational title as executive chairman of UNSCOM. The General Assembly adopted the proposal, which did not, however, entail any salary increase. BoutrosGhali’s plan was clear and aimed at making me formally subordinate to him through this arrangement. The Secretary-General is the highest official in the UN headquarters. With my appointment, it turned out, strangely enough, that there would be three Swedish undersecretariesgeneral at the UN headquarters, namely, legal counselor Hans Corell, Jan Eliasson in charge of humanitarian issues, and me. At an open Security Council meeting, all three of us made speeches, which perhaps conveyed the impression of a somewhat overwhelming Swedish presence and influence in the UN. However, it turned out that the Secretary-General’s plan to strengthen his control and influence over the weapons inspections did not succeed because the Security Council firmly retained its control over the Special Commission, my staff, and me. My visit to Baghdad at the beginning of July did not lead to anything new until I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Aziz in the prime minister’s office one evening, where Aziz warned me that the tone against me in the circle around Saddam Hussein was hardening. They doubted that I would have the courage to report to the Security Council that Iraq was now in the process of fulfilling its obligations.

The Gulf States After the Baghdad visit, on July 6, I flew with Scott, Trevan, and Platon from Habbaniyah to Kuwait, where I was invited to meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers along with Syria’s and Egypt’s foreign ministers. This extended circle was called the Damascus States. I presented to the ministers my assessment of the situation, following which I received a warm and enthusiastic reception with assurances of political and financial support for the commission. The latter was not of secondary importance given the improvised nature assigned by the Security Council to the commission’s funding. At the meeting the next day with the Kuwaiti leadership (the al-Sabah princes), they

Secrets and Lies

113

expressed their concern that Iraq planned to once again attack Kuwait— suspicions that would prove to be true.

The October Crisis In August 1994, political stagnation was prevalent—perhaps a consequence of the staggering temperatures in Baghdad of close to fifty degrees centigrade—but with September came a heightened concern and apparent impatience on the Iraqi side. Questions were asked: Hadn’t all prohibited weapons been eliminated? Weren’t the surveillance inspections operational? Hadn’t the six-month probationary period initiated by me begun? These questions were asked by Aziz and Rashid when they visited New York in mid-September for political and technical discussions with me and my colleagues. Aziz surprised me by appearing calm and relaxed, while Rashid was visibly worried and nervous. Unlike Aziz, he seemed to perceive that something was going on in Iraq, something that could have serious consequences. In anticipation of the Iraqis’ interest in receiving an update about US policy regarding possible sanctions relief, I had tried to squeeze all the information I could from the US deputy ambassador Edward “Skip” Gnehm. In a separate meeting on September 19, Gnehm told me that the United States would not raise any objections to UNSCOM/IAEA commencing a trial period for the surveillance inspections. However, when I relayed this information, Rashid’s anxiety did not seem to abate, leaving me to draw only one conclusion: something was afoot in Baghdad. On October 3, 1994, I arrived in Baghdad with Scott, Trevan, and Zifferero to gain more concrete insight into what was driving the Iraqi turmoil. That same evening, we had a meeting with Aziz and Rashid in which Aziz handed over what he called an Iraqi “position paper,” which, with a glance, looked like a constructive answer to some of our problems. However, Zifferero put a damper on the mood by complaining about Iraq’s continued reticent posture in the discussions on nuclear weapons. Unlike Aziz, Rashid spoke up, already dissatisfied and annoyed at this first meeting: “Since Iraq has fulfilled all its obligations, we now require within six months a clear indication from you that the weapons resolutions have been implemented.” We met again two nights later. Throughout the meeting, Rashid criticized me for repeatedly postponing the date that would mark the implementation of Resolution 715, originally promised for April 1994, then delayed to July 1994, and now another postponement. Rashid said that

114

Iraq Disarmed

he felt deeply frustrated and hopeless. My claims that Iraq had not fulfilled its commitments by submitting clear initial declarations made him furious. He stared at me with tears in his eyes, tossed his papers and his pen to the floor, and shouted, “I’m going to throw myself out the window!” He then stood up and screamed with a trembling voice, “I will take my family with me, and we’ll throw ourselves out the window!” Then he sank into his chair again, staring blankly in front of him. In an effort to improve the mood, I declared that the following day when I was scheduled to depart, October 6, 1994, would mark the formal date for the start of the implementation of the monitoring and verification plans under Resolution 715. But at the same time, I made it clear to al-Sahaf that any immediate sanctions relief was not on the table. He responded that this was now extremely serious. Saddam Hussein also responded by sending me a personal message on the afternoon of October 6 with a warning: Iraq could at any time terminate their cooperation with me and UNSCOM. A follow-up to this came in the evening after I left Baghdad. In a public statement, Saddam Hussein declared his intention to terminate cooperation with the Special Commission. He explained that he no longer had any confidence in me and that Iraq would take further action in four days (October 10). At the same time, extensive Iraqi troop movements in the direction of Kuwait were initiated. In a meeting of the Security Council held on October 8 directly following my report upon arriving at the UN from the airport, the council responded by declaring Saddam Hussein’s statement to suspend cooperation with the commission unacceptable. Nothing further had been heard from Saddam Hussein when I was contacted that same day by Martin Indyk at the White House, who informed me that the US Military Intelligence Service had detected that Iraq had begun to send parts of three army divisions with a total of 18,000 men to the Kuwaiti border as early as October 7, as well as two elite Republican Guard divisions. Along with already deployed troops, Iraq had been able to gather 64,000 men in southern Iraq on October 8. The Hammurabi stronghold, which in 1990 led the invasion of Kuwait, now stood only twenty kilometers from the Kuwaiti border. President Clinton immediately reacted to this intelligence by reinforcing US troops in Kuwait with 36,000 men, supported by another aircraft carrier group and fighter aircraft stationed in the Persian Gulf, and by requesting a new missile attack target list. Indyk asked me to come to the White House for a meeting with national security advisor Tony Lake to jointly analyze the situation. After a preparatory meeting with Albright in New York on Monday,

Secrets and Lies

115

October 10, I went to the White House to meet with Lake, Indyk, and their colleagues on October 11. It took place in the White House Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing. It was interesting to experience the Clinton administration’s support for UNSCOM, an institution created by the previous Bush administration. Saddam’s threat of a military attack also appeared to reinforce President Clinton’s policy of curbing Russian and French attempts to impose sanctions relief in the Security Council. Lake made it clear that the United States would not tolerate pressure or threats on me and UNSCOM or interference with UNSCOM’s decisionmaking processes. The United States fully supported the commission. As a consequence of Saddam’s threat, immediate sanctions relief was now out of the question, which was welcomed by the United States, whereas these events further hampered my ability and that of my staff to achieve some form of reasonable cooperation with the Iraqi side. At the White House meeting, Lake also delivered the reassuring news that Iraqi troop movements against Kuwait had ended the same day, October 11. The October Crisis was over. At the same time, at the meeting on October 11, I could not avoid noticing certain US concern about the fact that the development of the disarmament work after the start of surveillance inspections had happened so fast and successfully that the question of lifting the oil embargo could soon be raised in the Security Council. The Americans were aware that not only Russia (with large financial claims on Iraq as a result of their arms exports in previous years) but also France (with promises of future profitable investments in Iraq) was now beginning to be alarmed by the current development and delays that could cause an extension of the oil embargo against Iraq. Growing pressure had to be expected from Russia, France, and China, as well as from several nonpermanent, nonaligned states in the Security Council for relief on sanctions, the oil embargo, and the ban on Iraqi imports of nonmilitary products. For me, it was a great advantage that President Clinton’s close advisors in the Iraq issue were longtime friends. Indyk had had a remarkably fast-paced career in Washington, where he was held in high esteem in the circle of influential think tanks. When the Clinton administration was in the process of appointing Indyk to a top job in the National Security Council, they were astonished to discover that he was actually an Australian citizen. In this situation, the administration had improvised with outstanding speed. Overnight Indyk became an American citizen and, in record time (twenty-four hours), was assigned a leading role in shaping US foreign policy in the Middle East.

116

Iraq Disarmed

On November 11, 1994, one month after what became known as the October Crisis, Iraq formally recognized Kuwait’s sovereignty, borders, and territorial integrity. This welcome step also created something of a strategic dilemma for the United States. While the United States did not want a widespread Iraqi military presence on the Kuwait border, it did not want to empty southeast Iraq of Iraqi troops, which could invite an Iranian presence that would threaten the other Gulf states with their almost nonexistent military capabilities. Before I left the White House on October 11, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with my adversary from the crisis in 1991, Richard Clarke, who was now the national coordinator of security and counterterrorism at the White House. Clarke told me that UNSCOM had recently come up for discussion at all executive-level meetings at the White House and that I had the undivided attention of the US administration. He also noted that Aziz now seemed to incorporate an element of rationality into Iraq’s public statements. He suggested that I might have played a role in this. He said that President Clinton had a conversation with King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, who told him about his lunch with Aziz a few days before. According to the king, Aziz had declared himself completely surprised by Iraq’s march against Kuwait and the hateful statements by Baghdad against UNSCOM. I confirmed that it was also my impression from my talks with Aziz the week before that he was not fully acquainted with the political situation in Baghdad and that, unlike Rashid, he had no idea that troops would move toward Kuwait. Clarke promised that the United States would fully support UNSCOM in the future. I expressed my concern about the Security Council’s faltering unity, to which Clarke responded that President Clinton had recently spoken with President Mitterrand, who gave him the impression that he clearly supported the commission’s work. Finally, I wondered if UNSCOM could receive warnings in the event that the United States was considering more military action. Clarke agreed to give us a warning. “How much time do you need?” he asked ironically. “Eight hours,” I replied. The international response to Iraq’s troop movements and the threat to UNSCOM was clearly expressed in the new Security Council Resolution 949 adopted unanimously on October 15. The resolution established that Iraq was required to cooperate fully with UNSCOM and withdraw its military units in southern Iraq away from the border of Kuwait. Iraq had failed to fracture the council’s unanimity and had no choice but to withdraw its troops and allow UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors to continue both the search for weapons and the monitoring and verification inspections.

Secrets and Lies

117

When the Security Council met the following week, Aziz was back in the saddle. In the months before the crisis, he had kept a comparatively low profile, clearly keen to avoid conflict. He had stayed in New York when the excitement grew during the fall. It was Rashid and alSahaf who led the confrontations. However, Aziz had been the one to meet with the Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev, who traveled to Baghdad to act as a buffer in the crisis. Aziz had seized the opportunity to ensure that Iraq would now cooperate with the commission and the IAEA. On October 17, Kozyrev in the Security Council meeting reported on his visit to Baghdad and Iraq’s promises and assurances. Aziz, who attended the council meeting, confirmed Kozyrev’s report, but that did not prevent him from being criticized by Albright and Hannay. However, Aziz was cautious and did not get too argumentative or hotheaded. The following day (October 18), just Aziz and I met in Ambassador Hamdoon’s residence. He assured me that Iraq intended to continue its cooperation with the commission, at the same time accusing me of having caused the October crisis, through confusion, smokescreens, and “fuzz.” In my reply, I stated that I no longer had confidence in Rashid, who was responsible for the lack of cooperation with respect to Iraq’s biological weapons. Aziz replied tersely, “Rashid acts on orders from the leadership.”

The Fight Against Terrorism In that same meeting on October 18, Aziz wanted to raise another topic with me alone. He wondered if I could convey an important message to US national security advisor Tony Lake: Iraq had a first-rate intelligence service focused on various terrorist groups, a service far greater than any other Middle East state. (He probably wasn’t counting Israel’s Mossad.) He said that Iraq’s traditional enemy, Iran, was in the process of building a terrorist organization operating in the region (Hezbollah). But perhaps even more dangerous were the Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia. Baghdad worked vigorously to limit the opportunities and activities of the various terrorist groups and had considerable knowledge and information about what was going on and being planned. Iraq was now ready to share this important information with the United States on Islamist terrorist organizations and their activities, and possibly enter into discreet cooperation to combat them. However, one condition was that the United States allow some sanctions relief. I promised to convey the offer, and when I got to meet Lake in the White House, I took the

118

Iraq Disarmed

opportunity at hand. Not surprisingly, Lake’s response was that it was not a politically feasible idea. This reminded me that, at the May 1994 meeting with the Iraqi delegation in Amman, Jordan, Hossam Amin had taken me aside to deliver a personal message from Hussein Kamel that al-Qaeda terrorism was about to emerge throughout the Middle East region. This strange message from Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law included a personal call to me that, despite the absence of formal diplomatic contacts between Iraq and the United States, Kamel, on behalf of the Iraqi government, sought to convey to the US government (and its intelligence service) the interest and willingness of the Iraqi government to establish contacts with the United States to share information on Muslim terrorism and informally discuss future technical, industrial, and commercial issues. Kamel, in effect, wanted me to inform the United States of Iraq’s concern over emerging Islamic terrorism and announce that Iraq was ready to engage in dialogue with the United States on preventing the spread of this Sunni-based terrorism. I asked Hossam Amin to reply to Kamel that I was considering how I should draw the US government’s attention to his message. It was not until June 28 at my meeting with deputy national security advisor Sandy Berger that I could deliver the Iraqi message. Berger took note of my message without comment. In retrospect, considering these repeated Iraqi offers of informationsharing on emerging terrorism, not least the one with roots in Saudi Arabia, and recalling that the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States was carried out by Saudis linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist group, one might wonder if there might have been an opportunity, with Iraq’s assistance, to avert that disaster and all its tragic consequences. When we parted on the evening of October 18, Aziz informed me that a decision had been made in Baghdad that Iraq would recognize Kuwait as an independent state in the next few days. Hence, in the future, we would not have to deal with any troop movements in southern Iraq. As I play back the events leading up to that conversation, I am left with the distinct feeling that Aziz had not been fully involved in the UNSCOM relationship for some time. That assignment had reverted to Rashid—reporting directly to Kamel, who, after leaving his post as minister of defense in the fall of 1991, became head of the Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), with Rashid as his number two. Although Aziz did not appear to be familiar with all aspects of the October crisis during our October 18 conversation, he was definitely not outside the corridors of power.

Secrets and Lies

119

The Situation in December 1994— Five Stars for UNSCOM On December 20, 1994, the Security Council met so that I could summarize the situation in Iraq before the year ended. In 1994, there had been unrest, especially when Iraq had mobilized extensive forces directed at Kuwait in October. However, the Security Council had mastered the various situations unanimously and with its Resolution 949 had not given Saddam any alternative but to withdraw the troops moving toward Kuwait. I started the council meeting with a long report on developments in Autumn 1994. My generally positive assessment of the missile issue was clouded by UNSCOM’s difficulties in ensuring that prohibited missiles would not be developed under the guise of producing missiles with the (allowed) range of fewer than 150 kilometers. But in general terms, I could clearly state that Iraq no longer had any banned missiles, chemical weapons, and nuclear weapons capabilities. With regard to chemical weapons and missiles, the monitoring inspections were now working without the slightest glitch. However, in the biological field, the situation was unclear because my inspectors had been forced to take on tasks that the Iraqi side had neglected, namely, to identify facilities for monitoring inspections. UNSCOM was, therefore, first required to make lists of the facilities to be monitored and then through inspections confirm the accuracy of these lists. It should have been the other way around, that Iraq first declared the facilities that we would then inspect. I was also able to inform the council that the Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Center (BMVC) was fully operational under the lead of Admiral Göran Wallén. All the ambassadors of the five permanent member states were satisfied with my report and commended the commission. Three of them— Russia, France, and China—pressed for a formally positive statement by the council president on behalf of the Security Council to underscore the council’s responsibility for the Iraqi dossier and the disarmament issue, something the United States and the United Kingdom did not like. According to them both, giving praise to Iraq should be avoided. Instead, the Security Council’s praise should be limited to my report and the work of the commission. US Ambassador Gnehm emphasized that a joint statement must also include the concerns he (and I) had expressed. There could be no question of giving Iraq five stars, which some council members seemed to want. Russian ambassador Sergei Lavrov replied that he did not want to give Iraq five stars. He would give UNSCOM five stars. Iraq would receive a much lower rating,

120

Iraq Disarmed

roughly on a level that could be expected to be awarded a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant! Hannay reiterated that he now expected the other three (the Russian, French, and Chinese delegations) to come up with their draft of “The Holy Grail” as a tribute to Iraq.

Saddam’s Conversations on Tape I greatly benefited from tape recordings of Saddam Hussein’s discussions with the country’s political leadership that became available after 2003. Saddam’s calculations of how he would handle me, for example in the political game in the Security Council, were of particular interest. A good example of this is from conversations with a group of senior staff in April 1995. Saddam wanted to make sure that I would not try to reopen the debate on chemical weapons while we were at the same time investigating outstanding questions about the biological weapons program. Rashid acknowledged my solid base and strong support from the members of the Security Council in the biological field. Iraq had itself to blame because they turned to the Russians but failed to convince them to help Iraq deal with the commission in the Security Council. Saddam wondered if the Russians could be trusted, or if they leaked secret information to the commission. The problem, in Aziz’s words, was that the Security Council members aligned behind me, and that the chances of lifting the oil embargo at this stage were equal to zero. My report presented to the Security Council on April 10, 1995, which was accepted unanimously, was also mentioned in the conversation. They spoke about Russia and France being frustrated and dissatisfied with how Iraq handled the issue of biological weapons, concluding that they could not be pressured for sanctions relief. There was talk about how Iraq had done its best since July 1993 when Iraqi leadership had given orders that people cooperate with me and my technical groups. They lamented that I did not miss the smallest detail, a single lie, or any incorrect data without commenting on it. One person observed that while it was true that France agreed with me about the biological program, it should be pointed out, as the French ambassador did, that it was unrealistic to seek perfection. They knew that France agreed with me that Iraq should not have weapons that jeopardized the security and stability of the region, but they noted the difference, saying, “Ekéus would always try to have his one hundred percent.” They referred to my obedience to the United States as an expression of cowardice. One Iraqi observed, “Ekéus is not an international personality

Secrets and Lies

121

who is content to say that it is enough to be convinced and let that be the end of it.” Kamel weighed in on the discussion with long but interesting arguments with his father-in-law Saddam Hussein. According to him, Iraq had not reported everything about its nuclear weapons program, specifically, nuclear expertise of which IAEA was unaware, especially the art of constructing nuclear warheads. As far as the biological program was concerned, it was the least important from a military perspective but of utmost importance politically. The conversation circled back to my alleged lack of support for Iraq in the Security Council, but they also noted that France did not contribute any significant help by addressing their questions. “President Saddam, sir, you must understand that the French are unreliable, very unreliable.” Kamel can be heard arguing further that it might not be in Iraq’s interest to declare everything, that one must be sure when it was time to challenge me. He went on to say that when I inspected the biological program and production plant at al-Hakam, I checked the smallest detail: air conditioning, ventilation, water pipes, and sewage pipes. My line of questioning about the seventeen metric tons of bio growth media and the procurement of bacteria for weapons purposes was referred to as “consistently stubborn.” As far as nuclear weapons were concerned, that is, nuclear-capable missiles, they had been working continuously for five years. The French company that had dealt with Iraq on nuclear weapons was now seriously nervous. At the final stage of the deliberations, Saddam Hussein stated that I had clearly gained the Security Council’s confidence. To complicate the situation, Iraq could make a decision aimed at the Security Council resolutions. But this was probably not in Iraq’s interest, he concluded. On May 2, 1995, Saddam met again with Aziz, Rashid, and Kamel. Saddam seemed to have noted that, when pressed, I always provided new data on nuclear weapons, missiles, and chemical and biological weapons. Rashid informed the group that prior to the Security Council’s treatment of the commission’s report in April, he had provided the French and Russian UN delegations with a wide range of issues that would help put me on the defensive, but none of the delegations had succeeded in doing so, perhaps because of the council’s packed schedule. Following Kamel’s defection to Jordan in August 1995, Saddam Hussein had taped meetings with the Revolutionary Command Council in early 1996, some of which were relevant to UNSCOM’s work. Most of what was said was banality, but since it was Saddam Hussein himself who could be heard on the tape recordings, they reveal how his reasoning developed. Saddam discussed what principles would govern any

122

Iraq Disarmed

contact with me. According to Saddam, information should be given to me, just not everything necessarily. He realized after Kamel’s departure that my influence in the Security Council was stronger than ever before as so much new information about the weapons programs became widely available. The recording shows that the Iraqis understood that sanctions relief could not be expected until I reported on all dimensions of the weapons issue. They seemed to recognize that I did not interfere in Iraq’s other business, which they saw as “the one advantage I offered.” Saddam concluded that Iraq could formally declare their missiles with a range less than 150 kilometers, which were permitted under the cease-fire resolution (in fact, the ranges of these missiles were between 300 and 500 kilometers). Aziz commented that it was fine to bluff and mislead, tactics they should continue, but that it was a problem if one was not believed. Saddam replied, “We need to learn how to bluff!” He went on to say, “The problem with Ekéus is that he wants to intervene in every area and does not visit a place without wanting to conduct an inspection. It will not end until he knows all about Iraq’s security, thereby violating the nation’s sovereignty.” At another meeting with the defense leadership in early 1996, Saddam wondered about the political considerations that governed “Ekéus and his group.” It was clear to them that my ambition was to leave no question unanswered, whether it was to inspect production facilities, find documentation, or discuss a particular topic, although it was practically impossible without challenging Iraq’s sovereignty. He then spoke to me as if I were in the room and said, You, Ekéus, after nearly six years, have destroyed everything you wanted to destroy, and been able to look for every single piece of paper here or there. You’ve ruined our industrial base and our weapons—but can we guarantee that no one accidentally dropped a document or forgot to report a weapon? Now that you’ve found all the material, you also require that all the background information about what was found also be documented. Of course, it is important that you ensure that no machines, factories, or equipment you found are used for the production of something prohibited. Therefore, it is also important that no premises are visited without being examined in detail.

Later, starting in September 1996, Saddam Hussein’s discussions with the political leadership about UNSCOM’s operations dealt increasingly with its inspections of weapons documents and spare parts han-

Secrets and Lies

123

dled by the Iraqi security apparatus, including Saddam’s own personal security detail. Saddam expressed his anger that Americans (such as Scott Ritter) were included in the inspection groups and could provide information to the United States, which in turn could use inspection data to send cruise missiles directed at him. On another occasion, Saddam Hussein expressed his fear that the “managed access” I negotiated (with Aziz in June 1996) would lead me to search for his personal headquarters and enable the US military to attack him personally. Aziz pointed out to Saddam Hussein that the information Kamel provided to me could be used to try to bring about a conflict.

The Disclosure—Biological Weapons In January 1995, General Wafiq al-Samarrai, the former head of the Iraqi military intelligence service, fled to Kurdistan. I took this opportunity to send Duelfer, Smidovich, and Trevan to al-Samarrai’s place of residence to question the general. He did not give us anything new. He confirmed that the two heads responsible for Iraq’s weapons production were Rashid and Kamel, the latter in his capacity as head of the MIC. He did, however, give us one important piece of information. He emphatically confirmed that Iraq was working on obtaining biological weapons, but he could not confirm or prove his claims with any concrete details about development, production, storage, facilities, or the like. Yet for me, that became an important incentive to increase the pressure on the commission’s search for bioweapons. The issue of Iraq’s chemical weapons and, in particular, their denials regarding the development and management of the extremely dangerous nerve gas VX, became an increasingly difficult matter to address. We knew how many Scud missiles had come from the Soviet Union, so our verification work had mainly focused on how many missiles had secretly been destroyed by Iraq in 1991 and after. Likewise, the IAEA Action Team had a good handle on the inventory of nuclear weapons production equipment and facilities thanks to the successful document inspections in 1991. There was only missing information on Iraq’s secret development work during 1989–1990. However, these were minor complications in comparison with the dramatic crisis surrounding Iraq’s super-secret program for the development and production of biological weapons and related procurement.

Iraq Disarmed

Henry Arvidsson/UNSCOM

124

The destruction of chemical weapons followed rigorous safety regulations.

In parallel to tough, repetitive, but politically charged discussions with Aziz and Rashid, the issue of biological weapons and Iraq’s systematic and stubborn denial of their possession gradually became a bigger problem, eventually acting as a stumbling block for political development and sanctions relief. The somewhat choleric Rashid, as he increasingly immersed himself in the bioweapons issue, left his supportive wife and married Doctor Rihab Taha, the toxicologist who headed the biological weapons research program. Taha had categorically denied that the research project, which Iraq had been forced to acknowledge at the beginning of UNSCOM’s inspection activities, had somehow evolved into a genuine weapons program. Meanwhile, Aziz proclaimed, with superior calm and patience, that possession of such disgusting weapons was excluded for a country as principled as Iraq. However, I was not impressed by Aziz’s assurances. I countered by recruiting a group of specialists with varying skills and temperaments to penetrate Iraq’s biological secrets. I hired a French lawyer, Annick Paul-Henriot, who, without any biological expertise, led and organized the brilliant but somewhat unruly team of inspectors—

Secrets and Lies

125

Americans Spertzel and Kelly, as well as two newcomers, Rod Barton from Australia and Hamish Killip from the UK. They were commissioned to identify facilities and laboratories that housed fermentation plants and equipment that could theoretically be used for weapon development (like the ones identified in the plans adopted in Resolution 715). Paul-Henriot began creating a list of dozens of biological institutions in Iraq (hospitals, medical production facilities, and academic research facilities), which could be subject to regular visits and inspections so UNSCOM would effectively prevent the development of new biological weapons. As a by-product of their disciplined work, the group of researchers and experts gradually discovered a program for the production of biopesticides at the previously examined al-Hakam plant, which we could now identify as a site for possible large-scale production of anthrax—a biological warfare bacteria—using the latest technology. Because Paul-Henriot, unexpectedly and to the immense grief of our staff, died of a heart attack in January 1995, Smidovich had to add the political supervision of the bioweapons inspection program to his many other tasks, until the German bioweapons specialist, Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack, joined the group. This smart and creative team managed to identify two complexes in early 1995 that gradually began to undermine Rashid’s and his new wife’s stubborn denials. One was the discovery of extensive and oversized imports of growth media, whose scope could not reasonably be justified by the civilian or medical needs Iraq might have. Imports totaled 39 metric tons, while Iraq’s civilian and medical annual needs amounted to 200 kilos. These media were particularly suitable as base material for the cultivation of biological warfare agents, such as anthrax and botulinum toxins. Aziz’s creative explanation to me about these large import volumes was that they were simply due to the incompetence of the country’s health minister, who made a miscalculation when ordering them. The second mystery concerned the al-Hakam production facility, which our experts suspected as early as 1991. Now the inspectors visiting the site had access to more data and improved technology. Iraq, through Taha, assured the inspectors that production at al-Hakam comprised only single-cell protein, which would be used solely as chicken feed. At the same time, however, the plant was equipped with sophisticated safety arrangements and advanced ventilation systems, as well as super-expensive HEPA filters, designed to prevent the spread of contaminants. The alleged chicken feed plant, which was isolated in the countryside and surrounded by double fences and manned watchtowers in all corners, had military-grade protection. In addition, the inspectors

126

Iraq Disarmed

were able to identify four machines designed to fill grenades, bombs, or missile warheads with bacteria. While Iraq denied the acquisition of media for the production of highly toxic microorganisms, we were able to identify the supplier country, which was ready to confirm sales to Iraq, on the condition that the commission kept secret both this information and the information on the companies involved in the deliveries. Smidovich and his missile experts, with the help of the documents found, had reason to suspect that Iraq was working on a parachute system for missiles designed to carry biological warfare microorganisms. Experts knew that the reason for attaching a special parachute to a missile would be to reduce the speed of the warhead so that it was not heated to the point where bacteria and microorganisms would be destroyed during its reentry into the atmosphere. This was stubbornly denied by the Iraqi side, not least by Aziz in conversation with me. As evidenced by a tape recording I heard, Aziz complained at a meeting with Saddam Hussein that I had new information stating that Iraq had bought and contracted for some type of parachutes to be used with missiles. Then Aziz asked Saddam, “What kind of parachutes? Why attach them to missiles? For what purpose?” Saddam’s response to Aziz was that “the missiles will be filled with microorganisms.” When Aziz wondered if it was for spreading the bacteria in wider areas, Saddam, who was obviously well aware of the parachutes’ role in the context, responded that it might be that UNSCOM wanted to learn something new for the future. Aziz replied, “We will deny it.” At another meeting, also in March 1995, after gathering information about my visit to Moscow at the beginning of the month, Saddam and Aziz discussed my plans for my upcoming April report to the Security Council. The question was, as usual, whether my reporting would lead to the lifting of the oil embargo. Aziz’s impression was that I was positive about the nuclear and chemical chapters as well as the missile issue but not on the case of biological weapons, where Iraq must be more accommodating. On this, Saddam commented that if there remained some unreported prohibited material in Iraq, I would try to expose it to give Americans coverage to maintain the oil embargo. “He wants the Egyptian’s job,” said Saddam, who obviously thought my ambition was to succeed Boutros Boutros-Ghali as UN Secretary-General. However, he did not think I would succeed because support from Russia and France would be needed. Saddam continued, it could be that “Ekéus is seeking a position midway between the United States and Russia and France.” Perhaps to get support from the nonaligned members, Saddam speculated.

Secrets and Lies

127

Changes in the Security Council Under the circumstances, on April 10, 1995, I reported to the Security Council that the commission had decisive evidence that Iraq had a yetto-be-declared biological weapons production program, and that alHakam was the program’s central production facility. It was a report I proudly presented, as it was the result of brilliant work by Spertzel, Kelly, and Kraatz-Wadsack. I could add to the April report that the commission had an almost complete inventory for Iraq’s chemical weapons program and that all the chemical weapons had been identified and destroyed. However, some exceptions remained, namely, a number of uncertainties regarding Iraq’s production of the advanced nerve gas VX. I was also able to inform the council that the implementation of Resolution 715 was fully operational as all chemical weapons monitoring and verification programs were now underway. At the behest of the United States and as part of efforts to curb growing international criticism of the impact of the economic sanctions, the Security Council adopted a resolution in April that would allow Iraq to export a certain amount of oil to finance imports of food and medicine. Resolution 986, the “oil-for-food” resolution, was adopted unanimously by the Security Council, to help ease the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of the sanction resolution (661). This new resolution opened up the opportunity for Iraq to once again export oil, amounting to the equivalent of $1 billion every ninety days, payment for which would be deposited into a special account established by the SecretaryGeneral. The funds of the account were to be used for purchasing the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people. The resolution also meant that UNSCOM would receive funding for its operations in the form of 0.8 percent of the $1 billion that would become available every three months, i.e., about $25 million per year. Saddam Hussein did not welcome the resolution. He angrily rejected it. Aziz explained to me that Saddam disliked the US plan to bypass the obligation under Resolution 687 to completely lift the oil embargo when the weapons issue was resolved under paragraph 22 of that resolution. It would take until autumn 1996 before Iraq formally accepted the new Resolution 986. Saddam then seized the opportunity to utilize the implementation of the resolution to manipulate oil exports and procurement in various ways, a manipulation that devolved into a series of scams and bribes that also embroiled UN employees. During the last days of May 1995, I held a number of meetings in Baghdad with Aziz during which he firmly denied that Iraq had any

128

Iraq Disarmed

banned biological activities whatsoever, in effect rejecting the report that I had submitted to the Security Council on April 10. At the same time, he warned that if verification were to be unduly extended in time, Iraq would “take action,” although he did not specify what those actions would entail. As for chemical weapons and missiles, he expected me to report to the Security Council that a complete report had been made and that ongoing monitoring and verification were now in place. If so, he promised that Iraq would provide a complete account of its biological program at the end of June. Meanwhile, I sought to dampen the increasingly hysterical and threatening Iraqi tone by expressing my satisfaction with our work regarding the chemical weapons program and the missile accounting. Thus, during my meeting with the Security Council on June 19, I prepared in my report some hopefulness regarding the possibility of eliminating the prohibited weapons programs, and that the council might then consider lifting the oil embargo on Iraq entirely, in accordance with paragraph 22 of the cease-fire resolution. The internal Iraqi response to the June report to the council was positive, as Kittani mentioned at our regular tea session on the thirtyeighth floor, and to no surprise, I received an invitation from Rashid to come to Baghdad as soon as possible. However, the reaction from other parties was not as positive. At a one-on-one meeting the following week with Ambassador Albright, she read an instruction from Washington that was extremely critical of the optimism I had shown in the report on June 19, in particular my response to China’s Ambassador Qin Huasun regarding the possibility of implementing paragraph 22. According to Albright, my mandate was not to interpret the council’s position and resolutions. Interestingly, a couple of hours earlier I had had a conversation with Ambassador Qin, who had taken the opportunity to read a formal statement from Beijing thanking me for my “realistic” answers to the question posed by China at the June 19 council meeting. Qin emphasized that the Chinese government considered that UNSCOM had done a brilliant job of eliminating weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. During discussions with Iraq’s vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, China had expressed its hope that I would resolve the bioweapons issue during my upcoming visit to Baghdad. Ramadan had expressed a desire to cooperate with both the Security Council and the Special Commission. In my comment during the conversation with Ambassador Qin, I pointed out the difficulty posed by paragraph 22, explaining that a member of the Security Council—the United States—did not want the question of the

Secrets and Lies

129

oil embargo against Iraq to be considered if it contained an assessment by the commission. As head of the commission, I was free to deliver facts that could not be called into question; but on the other hand, my judgments could, of course, be called into question, especially if they were politically grounded. I added that I was aware that Ramadan had spoken negatively about UNSCOM to the media in Baghdad, but that he was being more diplomatic in Beijing. Had China taught him to handle himself better? Ambassador Qin responded that China probably could not teach Iraq diplomacy, and it was up to me to convince Iraq to cooperate. After my June report to the Security Council, China and the United States were not the only ones who wanted their views heard before my scheduled departure to Baghdad on June 28. I met with deputy Russian UN ambassador Vasilij Sidorov, who expressed his satisfaction with my upbeat report. However, in Baghdad, Vice President Ramadan, in speaking to the Russian envoy there, had voiced criticism especially in reference to the part of the report that dealt with biological weapons. Iraq had alluded to a deadline in October. Russia had seen some “holes” in my report that could be exploited by the United States to claim that full implementation in terms of chemical weapons and missiles had not been carried out. All the same, Iraq had made it clear to the Russian envoy that it was ready to cooperate on the bioweapons problem. The question now was whether the commission’s continuing work was credible. I replied that the commission was immune to pressure because its reports were based solely on hard facts. Many countries had political wishes, but the commission could resist them because it based its work on technical analysis. I also recalled that the monitoring system (Resolution 715) served as a safety net because UNSCOM had the right to investigate any facility in Iraq that might be relevant to its mission.

Finally, Recognition of the Existence of Biological Weapons One of the commission’s most politically important visits to Baghdad began on June 30, 1995. I arrived in Baghdad, as usual from Bahrain to the Habbaniyah airfield, with my team (Scott, Smidovich, Trevan, and Platon). We were joined by two of our leading bioweapons experts, Spertzel and Barton. Days before our arrival, Iraqi TV had aired a video recorded at the al-Hakam facility that UNSCOM suspected of producing biological weapons, in which Taha, surrounded by (allegedly) 600

130

Iraq Disarmed

well-fed hens and chickens, explained to a group of foreign journalists that the plant, with all its fermenters and valves, was exclusively devoted to the production of chicken feed. Asked by journalists about the rumors that pointed to al-Hakam as a weapons production facility, Taha replied, “What Iraq needs now are only plump chickens and lots of eggs.” In the evening after arrival, I had two one-on-one meetings, the first with Aziz, at 7:00 p.m., and the next with Rashid, at 8:30 p.m. Aziz reminded me that for almost two years (i.e., since July 1993) Iraq had maintained a dialogue with me and the Security Council (through me) without receiving any signals of sanctions relief. On the contrary, the tone had hardened. The Iraqi leadership now wondered when the sanctions would be lifted. The situation had become increasingly dangerous until my report to the council on June 19. Aziz acknowledged that my report proved to be beneficial for cooperation between the commission and Iraq. To some extent, the June report to the council could have been clearer. He could tell that France and Russia, in their direct contacts with Iraq, relied on the report to urge Iraq to be more accommodating in order to achieve sanctions relief and, in particular, the lifting of the Iraqi oil export embargo under paragraph 22. Aziz continued to say that in Baghdad it was understood that the monitoring inspections under Resolution 715 worked well. All the weapons areas were thoroughly examined. He could also announce that Iraq now had no weapons that threatened the outside world. It was a patriotic duty for every Iraqi to provide all the information they knew about the banned weapons programs. All this was good, but if there were any delays, the ghosts would wake up again. The commission must, therefore, make sure to exert every possible effort in its power. Aziz then presented his warning: “The work should be completed during July/August 1995. Any later than August, there will be an issue! No new requirements can be accepted. In Baghdad, we are aware that the United States has a hidden agenda, namely, the elimination of Saddam Hussein.” Meanwhile, Rashid complained that I did not accord him any recognition for his efforts. I told him that I reported all of the progress made to the Security Council on June 19. Rashid then warned that if there were no sanctions relief before the end of August, Iraq’s leaders would conduct a “radical review of the situation and its relationship with UNSCOM.” Rashid said that he had never seen Saddam Hussein as determined as now. It was now up to me to do everything to speed up and complete the verification. This entire project must be completed no later than the end of August 1995. Therefore, I should come to Baghdad in early August to sort out any remaining problems.

Secrets and Lies

131

On the morning of the following day, the Iraqi confession of the secret program for the production of biological weapons was initiated. Taha in full uniform made the presentation (in the presence of her husband, Rashid). The program had begun toward the end of 1985 with a group of researchers under her leadership, conducting a four-month thorough review of available literature on biopesticides used in agriculture. Subsequently, development work had begun, first in the chemical weapons facility, the Muthanna State Establishment, focusing on botulinum and anthrax. After political approval from the authorities, the project had been moved away from al-Muthanna so as not to be mixed with its ongoing production of chemical weapons. The medical department at the Salman Pak facility became the new station where they possessed advanced bacterial expertise. When it turned out that development work was successful during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the “leadership” (Saddam Hussein) decided to start producing bacteria for weapons purposes. Salman Pak then became unsuitable as a large-scale research and production facility because it was surrounded by urban housing. Instead, a large area was selected in a geographically remote region where the al-Hakam production facility could be built with construction starting in 1988. Taha worked there under the guidance of Doctor Nassir al-Hindawi, a bioweapons expert. New fermentation vessels were installed to grow the microorganisms; the necessary growth media were procured abroad. In May 1989, production of botulinum toxins for weapons purposes was initiated, and in October of that year production of anthrax was begun under rigorous protection measures. During the bomb threat in the autumn of 1990 (Desert Storm), equipment and bacteria were moved to locations outside the al-Hakam plant to avoid any poison spreading if the plant were attacked. According to Taha, production ceased in October 1990. Of course, I could not refrain from asking if the agents produced were used in munitions such as bombs and artillery shells. Rashid and Taha firmly denied this, but Rashid admitted that if the Kuwaiti war had not begun in the summer of 1990, the filling of such munitions might have begun. I insisted by asking why the large amount of munition (bombs, grenades, and missiles) produced to be filled with chemicals was not also filled with biological weapons agents. Rashid admitted that this might have been theoretically possible. It was strange to me that one would have produced and stored such large quantities of biological warfare agents without having serious plans to use them in ammunition.

132

Iraq Disarmed

Later in the day, technical discussions continued between Smidovich, Spertzel, and Barton on our side and the Iraqi delegation led by Taha. She stated that Iraq produced 14,000 liters of concentrated botulinum toxin and 600 liters of concentrated anthrax as part of a now admitted offensive weapons program. However, she continued to deny that useable weapons were produced by filling artillery grenades, bombs, or missile warheads with biowarfare agents. I could not help but feel joy and satisfaction in proving with such great success after four years of hard work that a secret program for the production of biological weapons existed in Iraq, despite incessant Iraqi denial. My staff, however, did not seem as satisfied, citing Iraq’s protracted obfuscation to hide the existence of biological munitions. My visit to Baghdad ended on July 2 with a private meeting in the morning with Aziz in his elegant villa on the banks of the Tigris. The most notable feature of his home was the vast amount of literature in his workspace, much of which were titles in English, both political literature and some fictional works such as novels by Vladimir Nabokov and my favorite author, Graham Greene. During our morning meeting, I pointed out to Aziz that the commission’s disclosures and Iraq’s confession to the offensive biological weapons program were evidence that it was not the commission or the Security Council that was responsible for the delays in implementing the weapons part of the cease-fire resolution. Resolution 687 could not be implemented in the four years that had passed since the resolution’s adoption in 1991. Iraq should have made these declarations as early as April 1991. Aziz responded to this by pointing out that the biological weapons were not important at the time of the Kuwait War and that the weapons components (biological warfare agents) reported by Taha had already been destroyed in the autumn of 1990. Therefore, there were no biological weapons left to declare in 1991 when UNSCOM began its work. The missiles and chemical weapons were a completely different matter because Iraq had retained large stocks of such weapons after the 1990 Kuwait War. In addition, it had been Iraq’s practice not to disclose more than what was requested by the commission, and according to Aziz’s interpretation we had not explicitly stated our requests regarding the biological dimension. In addition, Resolution 707 had placed new demands on Iraq, and the Security Council’s language, which was harsh and critical, had in no way encouraged Iraq to cooperate. It was only during the summer of 1993 that a change took place and a period of cooperation began that, with the exception of the October crisis in 1994, had remained steadfast

Secrets and Lies

133

up until that July meeting. Throughout that period, the commission had not made much headway with regard to biological weapons, Aziz said. I reminded him that during the high-level technical talks in New York in September 1993, Iraq’s biological experts (including Taha) had emphatically denied that anything other than a research program for defensive purposes existed. Aziz pointed out that UNSCOM’s stubborn search for ballistic missiles and chemical weapons, in particular VX nerve gas, had fomented distrust and skepticism among the Iraqi leadership until 1995, and that it was not until my latest June report that they were convinced of a change of heart, at least minimally. It was thanks to that report that Iraq began a new chapter and decided to release information on the biological issues. I explained to Aziz that I was well aware of chemical weapons use by the Iraqi forces during the 1980s war against Iran. But hadn’t biological weapons been used on a number of occasions? In response, Aziz recalled that Iraq had already withdrawn all its armed forces from Iranian territories by the end of 1982, which had resulted in Iran taking the opportunity to attack Iraq on its own territory. It was clear that Iran’s new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, was completely undisciplined and ruthless. At this stage, the Iraqi leadership had to respond by using chemical weapons, but it was never relevant for the Baghdad leadership to consider the use of biological weapons. It turned out that Iraq’s ballistic missiles (with chemical charges or not) worked effectively against Iran, both psychologically and militarily. This helped to send signals to Israel, which technically assisted Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. In addition, after the war and in the early 1990s, Israel had threatened Iraq with military aggression, prompting Iraq to prepare missile attacks against Israel. However, Aziz insisted that Iraq under no circumstances would initiate an armed conflict with Israel, let alone use chemical weapons. If Iraq were to be attacked by Israel with conventional warfare, it would defend itself only with conventional weapons. If Iraq, on the other hand, was attacked by nuclear weapons, Iraq would respond with chemical weapons. As for biological weapons, Aziz wanted to make it clear that no instructions had been given on filling ammunition with biological weapons agents. Iraq had no prohibited material that could pose a threat to anyone. Kuwait could be brought down with a single division. “Although we [Iraqis] hate Israel, we cannot do anything with our conventional weapons. It was different during the October war in 1973.” Aziz reiterated that the oil embargo must be lifted now that all past weapons programs had been dismantled in accordance with the Security Council resolution. Iraq would actively contribute to verifying its own

134

Iraq Disarmed

bioweapon declarations. However, he did not want to rule out, despite the progress made, that a crisis could still occur. I complained about Iraq’s campaign that targeted me and UNSCOM and recalled the political damage it had caused. Aziz replied that he would do what he could to stop the propaganda, including having a conversation with the information minister, Hamed Hammadi, among other things. He also told me that some of the criticism should not be taken seriously. Finally, Aziz proposed a political “grand bargain” between the two of us. Namely, if I stated in my next report to the Security Council in July that UNSCOM had fully accounted for Iraq’s possession of chemical weapons and banned missiles, Iraq would provide a full accounting of its biological weapons. This was an offer that was hard to resist. Without dumbing down the truth, I formulated the commission’s July report to the Security Council as an assessment that we now had a good grip on Iraq’s chemical weapons and missile program, and that the monitoring system worked for those two weapons categories. In addition, we had identified an Iraqi program for the production of biological weapons. The Security Council accepted the report, but some members privately expressed to me that they thought I was probably too positive and optimistic.

Saddam Threatens to Cancel Cooperation My impression was that the July report was satisfactory as far as Iraq was concerned, but that did not prevent Rashid, in a private conversation, from warning me that if I did not clearly state by the end of August that the conditions for lifting the oil embargo were fulfilled in accordance with paragraph 22 (Resolution 687), Iraq would radically reexamine its relations with UNSCOM. In a conversation on the same day, Aziz expressed himself in a similarly threatening way, but in vaguer terms. He did not seem to remember his own promise to fully disclose all the facts concerning their biological weapons. Their veiled threats were made as early as July 17, around the time Saddam Hussein announced in Baghdad that Iraq would suspend cooperation with the Security Council (and the commission) if the council failed to show any progress in lifting the sanctions and the oil embargo. A few days later, in a speech in Cairo, al-Sahaf said that August 31, 1995, would be the final day of Iraqi cooperation with the UN and UNSCOM. In an attempt to prevent a breakdown in Iraq’s relations with the Security Council, UNSCOM, and the IAEA, I flew to Baghdad on August 3. After the usual Bahrain stopover, I landed in Iraq in time to

Secrets and Lies

135

attend a ceremony at the Rasheed airfield to celebrate 3,000 accidentfree flight hours for our helicopter unit. Later that day, I had my first meeting with Rashid, who had just been appointed minister of oil. I was accompanied by Smidovich and my two bioweapons experts, Dick Spertzel and Rod Barton. Taha, now Iraq’s bioweapons chief, presented a new declaration. At our second meeting the next day, Spertzel was very critical of Taha’s account. With his usual harsh tone, he questioned why she did not have a reasonable explanation for Iraq’s extensive procurement and holding of growth media for growing biological warfare agents. His reproach led to Taha leaving the room in tears. The two delegations sat across from each other for fifteen minutes in complete silence until Taha finally returned. In his more conciliatory tone, Smidovich suggested ways she could improve Iraq’s declarations regarding growth media and the use of the al-Hakam plant, which we suspected since the first bioweapons inspections in 1991. On the evening of August 5, Aziz, accompanied by al-Sahaf and Rashid, declared, “Enough is enough! Iraq has no prohibited weapons.” He had just found out about a meeting I had with Juppé on March 30, during which I told France’s foreign minister that Iraq had stockpiles of bioweapons. Aziz was disappointed and disheartened upon finding out that Juppé had declared his full support for UNSCOM’s work. He wanted it said unambiguously and clearly that Iraq did not have biological weapons: “To say the opposite was a hostile act! If the Security Council did not take steps now to lift the oil embargo, there was no reason for Iraq to cooperate with the Special Commission anymore. Iraq was entitled to the complete and unconditional implementation of paragraph 22 (i.e., the lifting of the ban on imports from Iraq) beginning at the start of the month of August/September.” In other words, he confirmed al-Sahaf’s declaration that all cooperation with UNSCOM/IAEA would be rescinded on August 31 unless the Security Council lifted the international ban on oil imports from Iraq by that date. I replied that Iraq’s mistake had been, since April 1991, to withhold information on its banned weapons. This had severely affected the international opinion of Iraq. I warned Iraq not to close the door to UNSCOM and the Security Council, saying that such an action would have extremely serious consequences. I indicated that I could not rule out a response from the Security Council entailing clear signals for military action against Iraq and that in such a situation the United States would not hesitate to resort to air strikes. Instead, it was now up to Iraq to fully account for its holdings of biological weapons.

136

Iraq Disarmed

Iraq’s Weapons Strategy I insisted that I needed a full account of all aspects of Iraq’s philosophy and thinking around its weapons programs in order to fully handle the weapons issue in the Security Council in this sensitive situation. I requested, first and foremost, information about the program’s concept as well as about weapon production, destruction, and verification. Aziz responded by delivering, in accordance with my request, a detailed and well-thought-out account of the Iraqi leadership’s policies and philosophy regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. This turned out to be a unique, unprecedented, and remarkable account with no equivalent in international analysis and reporting. The concepts had to be seen in the context of the development of Iraq’s internal military-industrial production capacity. Prior to the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–1988, Iraq had little capacity to develop and produce the necessary advanced weapons systems. During the war, Iraq’s difficulties in procuring weapons material internationally, especially missiles, meant that it had to create its own resources to stop Iran’s aggression. Therefore, a political decision was made on the basis of what was necessary to protect Iraq from the “Iranian fanatics” who attacked Iraq with thousands of soldiers. It had become a war unlike any other in which Iraq had participated, such as against Israel, but also very different from World War II. Normally, a soldier risked his life in war but hoped to live, while the Iranians sought death on their way to the holy places of Karbala and Najaf. For Iraq, it was crucial to do everything necessary to stop them. There was no political opposition to producing the (chemical) weapons needed by the country to deter the Iranians. This was a decision that was taken with conviction and without regard to international law or conventions. The analysis was that international law could not save the nation. Iraq was also not part of any power bloc, and although some friends of the country helped Iraq, none of the major powers had lifted a finger to stop Iran. It was not like 1967, when the Soviet Union mobilized for the benefit of Egypt and Syria, or 1973, when the United States mobilized for Israel. In his combined capacity of deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Aziz had been aware of all the discussions and considerations during these two crisis periods. Kamel and Rashid were both responsible for procuring and producing weapons for the Iraqi state. They received the authorizations requested to purchase and/or produce the weapons needed to defend the nation from 1980 to 1988. The Soviet Union ceased supplying arms to Iraq immediately after the war with Iran had begun. Even a delivery of 200 tanks had been stopped outside the Iraqi port of Basra and

Secrets and Lies

137

returned to the Soviet Union. Consequently, Iraq adopted a policy to simply buy whatever was needed, regardless of the price. The generals were given cases filled with cash to buy weapons and ammunition. Iraq even procured weapons from South Africa, which at that time was the subject of an international boycott. In Iraq, there was no regret or concern about this policy because it was a matter of survival for the Iraqi people. In this situation, when “someone” contacted the Iraqi leadership with offers of chemical and biological weapons, the offer was welcomed. Among the leaders there were no technicians or engineers—they were all revolutionaries. Therefore, if a scientist explained to management that they could produce weapons, the answer was, “Good! Carry on!” The leaders had neither the opportunity, the knowledge, nor the skills to question what was claimed or promised. Nor was there a military budget, Aziz continued. Normal activities, such as foreign policy and agriculture, were planned and governed by strict budgetary rules, whereas there was neither planning nor carefully thought-out strategies for the weapons program. The military spent what they deemed necessary and bought whatever they wanted to have enough weapons in the war against Iran. Aziz said he realized that the commission, which so carefully verified Iraq’s weapons program, already had all this information regarding nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and missiles. But the same practice also applied to biological weapons. The Iraqi leadership had no idea how many fanatical Iranians were mobilized in the war against the people of Iraq, so the experts were told to produce as many weapons as they could. Decisions about what type and how much weaponry to be produced were left to the technicians. The reasoning was that the technicians knew what could be done and the Iraqi leaders did not. Basically, the philosophy behind the country’s arms production was to do whatever could be done. Very late in the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq had succeeded in extending the range of its Scud missiles and in developing chemical weapons. Aziz himself had discreetly informed the French (Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson) and the Germans (Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher) about this. He stressed that Iraq did not harbor any remorse or self-criticism for what had been done to Iran with these weapons.

New Bioweapons Crisis As stated earlier, in my reporting in 1994–1995, I noted that the mapping of chemical weapons and missiles was underway with good

138

Iraq Disarmed

prospects for its completion when the monitoring inspections under Resolution 715 became fully operational; moreover, Iraq had been finally able to deliver its complete declarations on these weapons chapters. But Aziz insisted that he did not trust me or the commission, particularly after reading the secret report on my meeting with France’s foreign minister (soon-to-be prime minister) Juppé in Paris in March 1995. I emphasized that the crucial issue for me was that my bioweapons experts now had convincing evidence that Iraq had worked on an undeclared bioweapons-related procurement program. I explained to Aziz and Rashid that I was prepared to declare at the next Security Council meeting that the issues of missiles and chemical weapons were essentially under control, but only on the condition that Iraq officially recognizes the existence of its program for biological weapons production and declares readiness to fully grant UNSCOM access to all bioweapon material for destruction. UNSCOM still had serious issues to clarify regarding Iraq’s latest biological weapons declaration, including the quantity of material produced, missing precursors such as growth media, and the alleged secret destruction of biological warfare agents. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein’s threat to suspend all cooperation with me and the commission from August 31 had to be withdrawn. That ended our meeting in a gloomy mood. During the following evening, as I was packing in my hotel room for my morning departure from Baghdad, Rashid called. He simply said, “You should know that Tariq Aziz is not responsible for the weapons programs. The one to talk to is Hussein Kamel. During your next Baghdad visit, I’ll make sure you meet with him.”

8 Hussein Kamel’s Defection

I HAD BARELY LANDED IN NEW YORK WHEN IT WAS RUMORED THAT Kamel had left Iraq for Jordan with his wife, Raghad Hussein (Saddam Hussein’s daughter), just two days after my departure from Baghdad, according to a confidential Kurdish source. It was the same day that Saddam’s eldest son, Uday Hussein, shot his uncle Watban Ibrahim Hassan in both legs. Saddam had visited his brother at the hospital to apologize just before the brother died. On August 9, I received direct confirmation of Kamel’s departure from Rashid, who called me from Baghdad to tell me what had happened. In a furious outburst, Saddam Hussein condemned his fugitive son-in-law, comparing him to Judas—an interesting analogy coming from a leading Muslim figure. While I was planning the next step with Smidovich, Scott, and Zifferero at the IAEA offices in Vienna, Mark Parris from the White House in Washington called. On President Clinton’s orders, he recommended that I contact Kamel in Amman, Jordan, as soon as possible. Based on the CIA’s first contact with Kamel, it appeared that he was reluctantly willing to share weapons secrets, but was anxious about meeting with me. Parris said that Kamel had told the CIA that Iraq intended to develop a missile system with a range of about 3,000 kilometers (well over the permissible 150 kilometers range), mobile launchers, another bioweapon facility (in addition to al-Hakam), and a new centrifuge project for uranium enrichment.

139

140

Iraq Disarmed

On August 10, Rashid called me in New York on behalf of Tariq Aziz, pleading that I come to Baghdad as soon as possible. I suggested that it might be better if I first went to Jordan to meet Kamel, an idea that angered Rashid, who warned me that it would be considered a hostile act. On August 13, I received a letter from Rashid (which was leaked to the BBC), stating that Kamel had ordered that weapons data be kept secret back in 1991. Anyone caught leaking information was threatened with the death penalty. Neither Aziz nor Rashid were aware of the order. Iraq had now gathered this highly secret information to be handed to me personally in Baghdad. Rashid followed up with a further phone call the same day in which he acknowledged that Iraq had not reported its possession of biological weapons, but that not much else was withheld and that the reports of chemical weapons were complete. In this telephone conversation, he claimed that Kamel stole several million dollars from the Iraqi Central Bank, causing the Iraqi government to inform Interpol. The next day Iraqi UN ambassador Nizar Hamdoon presented me with a formal message from Aziz indicating that the threat of a crisis had been averted and that the cessation of cooperation with UNSCOM/IAEA to come into force August 31 was withdrawn. The Security Council’s permanent members received the same message as well. In Iraq, not unexpectedly, a vilification campaign against Kamel was underway. In preparation for my trip, I took the opportunity to visit Kittani in his office to get his assessment of the situation. Kittani believed that Kamel played a positive role in Iraq for the West, leveraging his position as Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law to promote an internationally cooperative and more peace-oriented policy. Keeping this assessment in mind from one of the wisest foreign policy thinkers in the UN system, I traveled from New York to Bahrain and on to Baghdad, accompanied by Scott, Smidovich, Platon, head of the UNSCOM Information Assessment Unit Rachel Davies, and Igor Mitrokhin, a Russian chemical expert. On the afternoon of August 17, our group landed in Baghdad with additional reinforcements from the IAEA Action Team: Zifferero, Dillon, and Jacques Baute (a French weapons expert who had worked with us earlier at UNSCOM). Upon arrival, I noted that Babel, the newspaper where Saddam’s youngest son, Uday, was editor in chief, this time no longer referred to me as “that damned Ekéus” but merely by my last name. At 7:00 p.m., our entire group was able to meet in a plenary session with a delegation led by Aziz, accompanied by al-Sahaf, Rashid, Taha, and the Foreign Ministry’s lead legal counsel, al-Qaysi. Aziz first put forward two points: (1) His earlier accounts of Iraq’s weapons had been

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

141

honest and sincere to the best of their knowledge at the time. Rashid, who had not been employed by the MIC until 1991, could not be held accountable for errors in previous reports. (2) Once UNSCOM/IAEA had the new information they were to be given, they would understand that Iraq no longer possessed any weapons of mass destruction. He told us they were prepared to give us new information about missiles, biological weapons, and nuclear weapons, while there would be no further reporting on chemical weapons. In my reply, I explained that the commission was convinced that Iraq still held back relevant and undisclosed documentation, materials, and equipment, including chemical weapons and missiles, which should be handed over to make Iraq credible. I mentioned that after my last visit to Baghdad in early August I had informed the Security Council of this. The council had been strongly skeptical of Iraq’s information even before Kamel fled. Iraq’s credibility had been damaged and now the damage needed to be fixed quickly. Speaking for the IAEA, Zifferero said that above all what needed to be clarified was Iraq’s uranium centrifuge enrichment program. After this plenary meeting, Aziz and I met later that night for a private conversation. Aziz explained that he had now been given the mandate of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council (i.e., Saddam Hussein) to release all the information previously withheld to preserve Iraq’s sovereignty, security, and dignity. Kamel’s departure—a personal blow to Saddam Hussein—had come as a surprise. There were whispers that the Americans were involved. I recalled that Kamel had spent several days visiting the CIA in Langley, Virginia, in the 1980s. It was known that the United States had sought to make contact with Iraqis abroad, especially Kurdish groups and Shia Muslims. The CIA had also tried to eliminate Saddam Hussein through contacts with various Sunni Iraqis in Saddam’s birthplace of Tikrit, and even people within his family. In regard to the inspections, Kamel was the one assigned to disrupt the work of the commission and the IAEA. But when “that American woman” (chemist Karen Jansen) in 1993 tried to access the Ministry of Agriculture, it had been Aziz who prevented her entry. It was Aziz who had decided to destroy the weapons-related documents found on the premises of the Ministry of Agriculture, as a result of Kay’s inspections and the confrontations in the parking lot at the documentation premises in August 1991. Aziz had also recommended that no bioweapons documents be handed over to UNSCOM. As it turned out, Kamel had not been directly involved in UNSCOM’s and IAEA’s operations in Iraq, but he was in a position to influence the military-industrial department’s

142

Iraq Disarmed

personnel who kept information secret. Despite having tried to prevent the destruction of missile components requested by UNSCOM, Aziz eventually managed to convince Saddam that Iraq should agree to the destruction requirements. According to Aziz, Kamel had tried to convey the impression that he was a moderate, when in fact he was “a wild man.” Kamel had made work difficult for everyone because he had used his influence (as one of Saddam’s closest relatives) to argue that cooperation with the commission was meaningless and the hope of lifting the sanctions was an illusion. On August 18, a morning meeting on the weapons issue was held. Rashid led the Iraqi side. Smidovich began with a series of questions addressed to Taha. She gave false explanations as to what the huge quantities of imported growth media were for, and only admitted to the production of anthrax and botulinum toxin without giving any specific amounts. In the evening, the situation changed as the head of the al-Muthanna plant, Mahmud Farraj Bilal, appeared and made Iraq’s first admission that quantities of anthrax and botulinum had been converted into weapons by filling up bombs (166 units) and warheads for Al-Hussein missiles between August and December 1990. (Fifteen missile warheads had been filled with botulinum and ten with anthrax.) He also acknowledged the production of new agents, in particular aflatoxin. The normally close-mouthed Colonel Hossam Amin, our foremost and daily contact person, was surprisingly forthcoming as he reported on prohibited missile activities involving work with 200kilometer-range rockets obtained from Yemen, production of rocket engines, turbo pumps, copies of Scud missiles, and related testing programs. All of this constituted a huge breakthrough and opened the way to great progress for our entire inspection program.

Iraq’s Confession At 9:00 p.m. on August 19, Aziz and I met privately. I began by expressing, on behalf of UNSCOM, some resentment over the large number of documents given the IAEA team during the deliberations, including some covering the Iraqi nuclear activities during the secret period 1989–1990. (Kay’s inspections had only found documents up until 1988.) Moreover, UNSCOM’s experts had not been given a single document on missile programs or chemical or biological weapons. I pointed out that Aziz had promised that the staff would be positive and helpful. However, my impression was that they were still following

143

Private Collection

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

One of many meetings with Tariq Aziz.

Kamel’s instructions to respond only under pressure and that no information was to be provided on their own initiative without being preceded by exact questions. Aziz said that Kamel had a political agenda to weaken Iraq and enable the United States to overthrow the Iraqi leadership. Starting with the 1993 crisis, Aziz had gained the president’s support, overcoming criticism directed at him by Kamel and others. According to international media, Aziz had been weakened, but only temporarily as it had been mainly Hussein Kamel, the American agent, who was trying to diminish Aziz’s standing in Iraq. Aziz explained that complete implementation of Resolution 687 could be achieved without difficulty, whereupon Iraq would become an economically and politically strong state. It was really only the threat from the “Iranian beasts” that worried Saddam and his immediate leadership. He went on to say that Iran ignored all the rules that applied to civilized nations, and it was to protect itself against this menace that Iraq took such extraordinary measures to procure advanced weapons while spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Aziz continued by claiming it had happened in unorthodox ways outside his own and the

144

Iraq Disarmed

foreign minister’s control. Kamel had been powerful despite not having a seat on the governing Revolutionary Command Council. However, he had not been able to influence the country’s long-term policy. Instead, he was able to dominate the implementation of current policies. Aziz assured me that he was not interested in hiding anything. If there was still any unknown aspect of the prohibited weapons programs, it would be reported. The Iraqi leadership was now determined to undermine Kamel. He told me to be vigilant, warning me that Kamel would lie. He also tried to flatter me, saying that an experienced leader like myself should be able to distinguish between lies and facts. Aziz reiterated that Iraq had no banned weapons or equipment. He appealed to me to mobilize all my resources to speed up the execution of my mission. Iraq, for its part, would not set a time limit but saw the terms of paragraph 22, on the lifting of the oil embargo when the weapons issues were resolved, as a contract. When Iraq fulfilled its part, the Security Council was obliged to fulfill its part of the contract. Iraq would put heart, brain, and soul into the task of cooperating. Aziz would now request Saddam Hussein’s permission to order Rashid to prioritize the task of resolving the weapons issues, prioritizing this task over all others in his concurrent position as minister of oil. After that, Aziz spun his chair to look out the window at the dark Iraqi night, took a puff of his cigar, and said, almost as if he spoke to himself, “We could open an account in Switzerland for you with about $500,000.” I replied, “That is not the way we do business in Sweden,” to which Aziz spun his chair back around, and we returned to our agenda. Tariq Aziz spent the rest of the meeting presenting his assessment of Kamel, whom he likened to an irresponsible child. Moreover, he said that Kamel had a short-lived political agenda. If the United States intended to support him, they were betting on the wrong horse. It would be a short run since Kamel would soon have exhausted his usefulness to the Americans. The best he could do was provide some information about President Saddam Hussein’s activities and movements. He would never become Iraq’s leader, which was his goal. Aziz ended his assessment saying that Kamel wouldn’t change. He was a phony and irrational, not a leader, just a manager. On August 20, minutes before leaving the Rasheed Hotel to head over to the Habbaniyah airfield, I received a telephone call from Rashid addressing my complaints from my conversation with Aziz the night before. He asked if I would visit a farm that belonged to Kamel before I flew out. Since I was anxious to get to Bahrain for further transport

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

145

to Jordan and the meeting with Kamel, I was hesitant, but Rashid insisted in his usual intense way. Given that I was traveling on our C-160 plane and could decide my own departure time, I accepted Rashid’s proposal and headed to the farm with my delegation (Scott, Smidovich, Davies, and Platon) and the IAEA team (Zifferero, Dillon, and Baute). On the site, and in addition to a number of shipping containers, there stood some long, narrow, traditional chicken houses. The doors were locked, but I ordered them to be opened. Inside we found 170 metal and wooden boxes, all filled with documents, microfilms and floppy disks, videotapes and photographs. We later found out there were 680,000 pages of printed material. The predominant part concerned Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, but there was also relevant documentation on missiles and chemicals. However, only a small amount of documentation (one box) concerned biological weapons, and also not much from Kamel’s own headquarters, the Ministry of Military Industrialization. It was clear to me and the rest of the team that everything we found was potentially of great importance for the work of clarifying Iraq’s weapons secrets. I immediately called in staff from our Baghdad center so that we could secure all material for review. These findings would eventually contribute to the discovery that Iraq was secretly seeking to develop Ebola-type viruses for weapons purposes, which could have had disastrous consequences. In addition, the findings showed that Iraq produced quantities of the advanced nerve gas VX in binary form; that is, the two chemicals contained in the gas were developed, but as long as they were kept apart no harmful operational effect could occur. The documents indicated that there were no further Scud missiles in the Iraqi arsenal, but that two mobile launchers had been concealed. In regard to nuclear weapons, it appeared that Iraq conducted uranium enrichment with the outdated electronic magnetic isotope separation (EMIS) method, but that its uranium enrichment centrifuges had been secretly destroyed.

Meetings in Jordan with Hussein Kamel After a stopover in Bahrain, our group landed in Amman, Jordan, on the morning of August 21. That afternoon, I met with Jordan’s deputy prime minister (the foreign minister was ill), who made it clear that the government would make sure I met Kamel. For Jordan, there were significant financial interests in the Security Council lifting the oil embargo and

146

Iraq Disarmed

sanctions against Iraq, but it was feared that problems such as the Kurdish issue and missing Kuwaiti POWs would delay such a development even if the weapons matters were resolved. The very next day, my Jordanian hosts announced that Kamel was ready to meet me. Smidovich, Zifferero, our interpreter, and I succeeded in pushing through a massive crowd of journalists and photographers outside the guesthouse of the Jordanian government, where our delegation was staying, into a government car that drove off at full speed with a long row of journalist-filled cars in tow. After a couple of kilometers, we turned into a meadow, got out of our car, and climbed into a helicopter, leaving the horde of journalists on the ground. The helicopter landed twenty minutes later. After another short drive, we reached a palace surrounded by a thriving park where children played and bikes and toys lay all around. In the wide, large palace hall through which our delegation entered, lively activity was in progress. Phones rang in different corners, civilian-clad officials rushed in all directions, a couple of televisions tuned to CNN and the BBC were facing in different directions, while secretaries were working at their computers. In the middle of the elegantly decorated hall, I saw Kamel sitting on a long couch, with his staff huddled in discussion nearby. I was met by King Hussein of Jordan’s security advisor, Colonel Ali Shukri, who led me over to Kamel for a conversation, with Shukri acting as interpreter (which ensured King Hussein could stay informed of what was being discussed). I also greeted Kamel’s brother Saddam Kamel, also a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein. I was offered coffee while Kamel drank water. Kamel began by recalling our first meeting (Baghdad, July 1991) and noted that, unlike that occasion, this meeting was “between friends.” He said Iraq’s problem was that it had lost its credibility after withholding information on weapons of mass destruction. He had heard from Baghdad that documents and equipment had been planted on his farm. I confirmed that we had found documents on a farm that reportedly belonged to him. Kamel found this to be deeply comical and asked why would anyone believe that he was stockpiling weapons on his own farm? He was adamant that Iraq should report its bioweapons in full, while Iraq should continue to hide certain things in the case of chemical weapons. (I guessed he was referring to VX.) This was somewhat contradictory from my point of view. I was shocked by the fact that Iraq was experimenting with an Ebola-type virus (at the al-Daura Foot and Mouth Disease Facility) to be used in fiberglass-lined bombs. Kamel spoke about Rashid, who he said was one of the few good people in Baghdad. He asked me to send a greeting to Rashid: “It is an

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

147

Arabic saying that in life you will always meet a person a second time.” Kamel’s departure from Iraq had not been a purely personal matter. It was in the best interest of the nation. Iraq was in deplorable condition, with daily executions, people arbitrarily imprisoned, and assets confiscated. Kamel told me that before my visit to Baghdad on August 4 (to avoid a breakdown of cooperation between Iraq and the commission) he had attended a meeting with Saddam Hussein, Aziz, and Rashid, where he was the only one who had refrained from threatening to end cooperation with the UN. Stable and friendly relations with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan were of paramount importance for Iraq. Saddam’s fervent speech and military campaign the previous year had only led to Iraq being forced to formally recognize Kuwait’s independence. After the Kuwait War in 1991, Kamel had become minister of defense, while at the same time retaining responsibility for industry and water supply. At a meeting with the party leadership in the fall of 1991, he had criticized the mistakes made by the management and accused a few individuals of serious misconduct. The reaction had been so negative that it led to a loss of leadership support (Saddam’s), whereupon he had more or less voluntarily left the post of defense minister and all his other government assignments. He had selfisolated at home for four months until he was persuaded to return to government work, now as minister of military industrialization. Kamel insisted that he had constantly advocated good cooperation with the Special Commission and the IAEA, and criticized government members for incompetence and misconduct, which had led to fierce confrontations in the leadership over the operational implementation of Revolutionary Command Council policy. This had led to loud quarrels and arguments in the group. Kamel once again felt increasingly isolated and was considering leaving when, on October 1, 1994, he found himself alone in opposition to breaking cooperation with the commission and attacking Kuwait for a second time. However, he had finally decided not to resign so close to an approaching war and risk being accused of weakness. Iraq had then prepared for a possible lifting of the oil embargo by drafting a “huge shopping list” comprised of tanks, fighters, and heavy artillery from Russia. In summary, he thought that Iraq’s policies after the Kuwait war had been an utter failure. Kamel prophetically argued that Saddam’s new policy—requiring Islamic studies for all members of the traditionally secular Baath Party—was dangerous and destructive. He warned that it would lead to increased influence for Iran, as Shiites in Iraq, as well as in Iran, constituted a significant majority in comparison to the country’s fewer

148

Iraq Disarmed

Sunni Muslims. In doing so, Iranian Muslim fundamentalism would gain a foothold in Iraq, with disastrous consequences in the long term. Instead, Iraq’s policy toward Shiite Iranians should be restrained and strive for friendly and good relations. He went on to say that foreign policy must be designed to improve relations with the West and reject the former militaristic policy. He argued that politics should focus primarily on economic reconstruction and growth, on establishing good relations with all neighbors, and supporting the peace process in relation to Israel in the Middle East. At 8:00 p.m., the technical deliberations began. I was accompanied by Zifferero and Smidovich. The conversation was audited and interpreted by Shukri, who stepped in for our interpreter when Kamel asked Sami, our UNSCOM interpreter, “Are you Syrian?” When Sami answered in the affirmative, Kamel told him, “You must leave the room immediately.” Kamel turned to me and said, “He used to work for me!” I couldn’t do anything except let Sami leave the room, but afterward, I asked Sami for an explanation. He said he was just as baffled as I was. Kamel in turn told me about a Syrian who worked on the UNSCOM staff at our Baghdad base as an interpreter who had leaked information directly to Kamel for two to three years. “I paid him a monthly salary, plus a bonus when reporting was particularly good. We received information about the incoming groups, the inspection planning, and communications to and from New York. As time went on, your communications became better protected and we received less material, so we handed the agent over to the Iraqi intelligence service. I’ve never seen his face.” For the remainder of the Jordanian visit, Sami was detained by the Jordanian intelligence service. My assessment at the time was that Sami was mistaken for another Syrian and that he was innocent. I let Sami stay with the commission after the incident, but he was given less sensitive assignments thereafter. The conversation with Kamel was divided into two themes, one about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, which was led by Zifferero, and one about other weapons programs, led by Smidovich. I must admit that I was impressed by Kamel’s ability to remember details, and the accuracy of his account. It was clear that the detailed information we’d received days earlier in Baghdad was part of the Iraqi government’s plan to disclose in advance what Kamel would admit. Much of Kamel’s information confirmed Baghdad’s data. With respect to nuclear, he detailed two enrichment projects, EMIS at the alTarmiyya plant and centrifuge enrichment in al-Rashidiyya, which was

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

149

controlled by the Ministry of Agriculture. It is understandable that I noted this with some satisfaction since in the summer of 1992, despite fierce Iraqi resistance, it was my decision to conduct an UNSCOM inspection of the Ministry of Agriculture, which created the crisis that led to the US air raids on Iraq. Kamel now confirmed that Iraq’s tactics had been to hide the enrichment center al-Rashidiyya within the Ministry of Agriculture. This meant that the intelligence analysis carried out by the commission’s IAU group during the inspection planning had been correct. With regard to biological weapons, the development of the weapons program had started with the work in Salman Pak, a well-known research facility that was bombed by the United States during the Kuwait War. The operation had then been transferred to the large and wellknown chemical weapons production plant, al-Muthanna, and in part to the al-Daura plant, which was under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture. Finally, the development and research work had ended up in the al-Hakam secret facility, where the extensive production of biological weapons was also conducted under the leadership of al-Hindawi and Taha. Kamel confirmed what the government had already stated—that Iraq produced a number of missile warheads (twenty-five) containing anthrax and botulinum. The technical deliberations between our delegation and Kamel went on for several hours. Much confirmed what we already knew through our inspection and analysis activities. Kamel emphasized that UNSCOM/IAEA should not underestimate its efforts: “You have done an effective job in Iraq.” The meeting ended with Kamel making some political comments, saying that Iraq’s policy was a joke and contradictory, and the government would never change. He stated that Saddam and the Baath Party leadership, the Revolutionary Command Council, were only interested in their own pursuits while ignoring the country’s economic and political situation, adding that nothing would ever improve for the poor and suffering. Kamel had realized that the regime could not be defeated from within. Now he could officially declare that he was an opponent of the regime. “I never drank coffee or tea, never smoked cigarettes, or drank alcohol.” It was politics that had led to the Baghdad regime losing the Arab world and the Arabs losing to Israel. In 1968, Iraq was the only state in the region to turn to the Soviet Union, while all other Gulf states had built relations with the United States. Iraqi politics had dragged the Cold War into the Gulf region. Iraq’s cooperation with the USSR had created concern in the US and Europe that the Russians would take control of Iraq and further their influence in the Middle

150

Iraq Disarmed

East. This would not have benefited Iraq. If Iraq went to war with its neighbors, it would be thrown back to the Stone Age. Nothing should stand in the way of good relations between Iraq and the United States. Kamel worried that the Iraqi leadership was beginning to introduce Muslim fundamentalism into the country. The Baath Party, the formerly secular, religiously neutral party, had now introduced a religious degree requirement for its members. They even began to interrupt party meetings for prayer times. When our meeting was over and the sun began to set, Kamel and I went out on a terrace on the west side of the palace. On the horizon, we could clearly see the lights of Jerusalem. Kamel spoke of his vision for a future of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. One day, Iraq could lead a process toward a peaceful and stable order in the Middle East. There was neither hatred nor intimidation in his voice when he talked about future relations between Iraq and Israel. We said goodbye and both agreed to further contacts and dialogue. It struck me afterward how cautious Kamel had been in our conversations. He had also stated that he was not prepared to give me something that he believed could undermine Iraq’s security or expose the country to security risks. In my opinion, it was difficult to see anything treacherous in the information he provided us. Now, just over twenty-five years later, it is remarkable how right Kamel was in his observation of the Islamization that had begun during Saddam Hussein’s final years in power. When the secular Baath Party was disbanded by the US occupying power, it contributed to the serious tensions that arose between the country’s Shia majority and the Sunni minority, which, thanks to Saddam, held power in Iraq. In this new political-religious climate, it became possible for the Islamic State (IS) to project its ideas and use its influence to create an Islamic caliphate with the help of Sunni groups in Iraq. IS was able to quickly root itself in Iraq and become a base from which to spread anxiety and tension throughout the Middle East. However, it was eventually forced to relinquish its bloody and brutal occupation of the city of Mosul and other cities in northwestern Iraq and ultimately its headquarters in the city of Raqqa in Syria. The abandonment of geographical control and presence in Iraq and Syria has not prevented IS from carrying out its terrorist aims with dire consequences for European cities. At the same time, Iran’s Shia-controlled regime was able to develop its own influence in the circles around the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam. Islamization has also contributed to a gradual deterioration in the situation of the Christian minority, a

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

151

minority that was historically tolerated in Baghdad. During my visits in the 1990s in Baghdad, I remember how church bells mixed with the callings of the faithful to Muslim prayer. Aziz, one of the country’s most powerful men, was a Catholic. Because a Christian could not pose any threat in the struggle for supreme power in a Muslim country, his religious affiliation, in part, made his influence and proximity to Saddam Hussein possible. But it also provided clear support for the religiously neutral strategy that Saddam Hussein, despite all of his moral and political flaws, skillfully used to keep Iraq together. As soon as my talks with Kamel ended, I hurried back to New York, where the curiosity and impatience of the Security Council were evident. The council members received my report dated August 25 about the talks in Baghdad and with Kamel positively, even enthusiastically. French ambassador Hervé Ladsous went so far as to declare that my presentation was the best the Security Council had received in many years. The US ambassador assured me of full American support and cooperation going forward, and the other members of the council echoed his statement. On behalf of the IAEA, I made a special presentation on the nuclear dimension of Kamel’s revelations. The president of the Security Council then declared with great satisfaction that the commission’s policies and actions had been correct all along.

Evaluation of the Hussein Kamel Drama The commission carried out the evaluation of the Hussein Kamel drama in two rounds. The first involved a hearing with Generals Rashid and al-Saadi, chaired by my deputy Charles Duelfer, Gustavo Zlauvinen, and Göran Wallén. The second was my meeting with Aziz on September 30, 1995. The first dealt mainly with the weapons issue and the second with the political-diplomatic aspects. The two generals explained that Iraq’s biological weapons program had been intended as a deterrent and response to a possible US or Israeli nuclear attack. Their bioweapons would have been used even if the Iraqi leadership, that is, Saddam Hussein himself, had been eliminated. According to the generals, in the military leadership, Kamel was really the only one with detailed knowledge of the technical and strategic aspects of the bioweapons program. When Iraq activated its bioweapons program in September 1988, Kamel had recommended to

152

Iraq Disarmed

Saddam Hussein that the weapons were primarily for use against Israel. In August 1988, Taha and al-Hindawi had recommended that resources should be allocated to finance the development and production of biological weapons agents such as anthrax (agent B) and botulinum (agent A), in addition to the production of chemical weapons. With the go-ahead, they gathered a special bioweapons group with the task of not only developing weapons but also training army units to use them. Iraq contacted companies in Switzerland and Czechoslovakia to procure materials for the program. A contract was signed with a Swiss company, but when the political leadership in Baghdad realized that they could not give the Swiss access to the super-secret al-Hakam facility, the contract was rescinded. A plant for the production of baby formula bombed in a US air strike during the Gulf War, triggering fierce international criticism of the United States, was really just that, a plant to manufacture powdered milk. But at the same time it should be noted that Kamel had earlier requested a study to determine if the plant could be converted to develop biological weapons. Taha and al-Hindawi had not been informed of Kamel’s request. If that had happened, the plant might have been used to produce bioweapons. Moreover, Iraq did not properly train its military personnel on the use of bioweapons. They had no operational doctrine. In their relations with UNSCOM, Iraq (and Kamel) had given priority to withholding and destroying documents related to biological weapons. As far as chemical weapons were concerned, Rashid acknowledged that Iraq had not declared the missile warheads developed for binary chemicals, and that it had misled the commission regarding the quantities of VX nerve gas produced. This meant that I, in turn, had misled the Security Council in my reporting. Another unreported activity had been the test launchings of Scud missiles loaded with VX. As a final note about Kamel, al-Saadi told us that there were two people whom Kamel particularly disliked: Rolf Ekéus and Tariq Aziz. The day before the meeting with Aziz on September 30, I had a discussion with Rashid, which largely confirmed the substance of the meeting with Duelfer the week before. It was interesting to hear some of the personal opinions that Rashid harbored about his former manager and closest associate. Rashid stressed that it was Kamel who had ordered the policy of secrecy; that he had been extremely effective in gaining power; but conversely, he would block even good policy if it might reduce his influence. He was very jealous of anyone who could

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

153

undermine his power. However, Rashid had to admit that Kamel was very talented, despite his limited technical training. On September 30, along with Davies, Scott, Buchanan, and Wallén, I had the opportunity to conduct a joint political evaluation with Aziz, flanked by Rashid, al-Saadi, Hossam Amin, and General Murthada, who was the minister of transport and communications at the time. Aziz was of the opinion that, up until the middle of 1993, there was some confusion in relations between Iraq and the commission. For Iraq, perhaps it had not fully understood UNSCOM’s role—not due to any misinterpretations of its mandate, but rather because of the Security Council’s actions and the US political agenda (under both Bush and Clinton). No matter what Iraq did to meet the Security Council’s and Washington’s demands, the financial sanctions were not lifted. Thereafter, according to Aziz, the situation had become much clearer and the conditions for sanctions relief and, in particular, lifting the oil embargo had improved. Iraq’s interactions with France, Russia, and China had improved. They had made it clear to Baghdad that it was in Iraq’s interest to work with the commission for the sanctions to be removed. In mid-1993, Aziz had told me that Iraq was not in possession of anything of significance that contravened its obligations under the cease-fire resolution. At the time, I had replied that as the commission’s chairman, I understood Aziz’s position, but that UNSCOM had to verify it. Currently, the commission would not find anything illegal, Aziz insisted, and I must understand that to be the case even if I was not prepared to say so to the Security Council, adding that if I believed in God, Aziz asked me to pray and look into my heart, and God would confirm his assurances. Aziz claimed that he could not be called a liar. He had not, as some diplomats were known to do, lied to promote his country’s interests abroad. According to Aziz, Albright had pursued a policy of continuously lying about Iraq’s weapons, as the United States benefited financially from the sanctions, an opinion shared with him by the French Foreign Ministry on his recent visit to Paris. It was also clear that Saudi Arabia’s economy would deteriorate if Iraq were to be allowed to resume its oil exports, and Kuwait’s economy would suffer, as well. The commission had in its possession a wealth of information that made it clear that Iraq had fulfilled its obligations under the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution. Therefore, Aziz thought that I could not possibly believe that Iraq still had prohibited weapons, asking me, Why then did I not publicly confirm that? However, he did acknowledge that my latest report (June 1995) was fair. He knew that the French were shocked by the

154

Iraq Disarmed

information about Iraq’s biological weapons, but Iraq’s greatest critics were the ones who opposed lifting the economic sanctions. Aziz noted that the climate of cooperation between the two sides, UNSCOM and Iraq, had improved once the “cancer” (Kamel) was removed. He said that Rashid and al-Saadi had found it difficult to lead many of their subordinates who still regarded Kamel as their buddha. However, he assured me that he had been granted full authority, which should be made clear to the Security Council. He hoped that verification of all the information provided to the commission would proceed quickly. He observed that translating from Arabic to English the one million pages of documents found at Kamel’s chicken farm could take 25 years, and if UNSCOM were to turn every stone, it would take 120 years. He believed that with goodwill and faith things could move quickly, maybe not in a few weeks, but not much longer. He also advised me that UNSCOM should not allow itself to become a tool for the US agenda. I expressed my gratitude for Aziz’s readiness to cooperate with the commission. I assured him that I was not a tool of American politics. There was no longer any benefit to Iraq in retaining weapons of mass destruction. With the right policy, these weapons could be eliminated quickly. My impression was that the Security Council would act fairly with respect to Iraq, but the issue of weapons was still a problem. It should be borne in mind that in 1991, when the commission’s work began, Aziz himself, along with Rashid and al-Qaysi, had declared that Iraq had no biological weapons. This had damaged Iraq’s credibility and created a negative political atmosphere. With its discovery of both biological weapons precursors and complex growth media, the commission was able to press Iraq for concessions. Iraq had continued to tell “fairy tales,” as when Taha assured us that with available technical resources, it would take up to twenty-six years to produce a set of biological weapons. Such duplicity had created widespread distrust. However, I assured Aziz that, despite these misleading messages, I had no intention of initiating some kind of campaign against Iraq. I went on to enumerate additional false data provided by Iraq, including information on the number of biological warheads and far understated numbers when it came to the production of VX nerve gas. Aziz acknowledged that new revelations had created questions and gray areas, which is why he now, working with Rashid and al-Saadi, had spent so much time cooperating with the commission. He admitted that, on Saddam Hussein’s behalf, he had blocked some of the commission’s work in 1992 and 1993. The reason had been irritation over Security Council

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

155

Resolution 715 requiring the monitoring of Iraq’s production capabilities, which by its terms did not include a time limit on how long the commission’s monitoring in Iraq was to last. He was the one back in November 1994 to decide that there would be no cooperation with UNSCOM on bioweapons issues until other weapons issues were resolved. The meeting concluded with a sudden discussion of my question as to whether it was true that Iraq had undeclared domestically produced missiles other than Russian imports (which was information that had been obtained by the commission). Amin acknowledged that tests were conducted with missiles in which Russian engines were replaced by engines developed in Iraq. General al-Saadi firmly stated, however, that all missile engines tested had contained Russian parts and technology. Aziz added that it was Kamel who had originally misled both me and the Iraqi leadership by claiming that there were Iraq-made missiles. All missiles that Iraq had secretly destroyed in 1991 under Kamel’s leadership had been on the Russian missile export list.

The End for Hussein Kamel The coming months were characterized by intensive diplomacy. The Security Council’s permanent members sought to find ways to handle the huge amount of new data collected that needed to be processed to put into place a system to monitor Iraq’s research and production capabilities. Based on signals from King Hussein of Jordan, Shukri in Amman, and interactions with the Iraqi opposition (chiefly Ahmed Chalabi, a prominent figure in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War), I began to understand that Kamel’s role in the political game was rapidly being marginalized. At a meeting with King Hussein in September in New York, he gave me the impression that he had been pondering a plan for some time to mobilize the growing internal and external opposition to Saddam. He wanted to bring about a radical transformation of Iraq, from a dictatorial republic to once again being the central part of the Hashemite Kingdom, with himself as royal head of state and the operationally capable Kamel as prime minister. However, it was increasingly clear that the Shiite-dominated, Iran-influenced Iraqi opposition abroad would not accept Hussein Kamel as the central leader of the new Iraq because he came from a strict Sunni tribe. It also became clear to me that for King Hussein, Kamel’s political usefulness had gradually waned. I became increasingly anxious to meet again with Kamel. After repeated attempts, I received the go-ahead from Kamel and Shukri. On

156

Iraq Disarmed

October 2, 1995, IAU chief Rachel Davies and I traveled from Bahrain to Amman. Unlike our first visit, this time the press was limited to two scattered and tired reporters. We met with Kamel in his residence without delay. Everything looked different. The palace’s grounds were empty, with no traces of children’s bikes and toys. In the main hall, everything was quiet. No messengers or secretaries appeared. Phones, computers, and TVs were silent and seemed unused. Kamel sat on the same sofa as before, but this time alone with a glass half full of water. He was accompanied only by a Jordanian protocol official acting as an interpreter, who seemed totally inept. At first, Kamel did not seem to understand what I was saying. He did not want to answer my questions about missing or homemade missiles in Iraq but spoke instead about the money he brought out of Iraq, that he promised to return. Suddenly he exclaimed, “I will return to Iraq!” “When?” I asked. “Soon,” was his reply. I strongly advised him not to return at that time. He dismissed my warnings and said he was aware that he would be ostracized for a short period, but he predicted that the Iraqi leadership was going to need his services. The protocol officer/interpreter was called away to the telephone and was instructed not to participate any further. Confusion ensued and Rachel Davies and I could do nothing but say goodbye to Kamel. In my farewell, I said, “Don’t go home to Baghdad yet.” We returned to the government guesthouse in Amman, where later that day we received word that Kamel had fallen ill and could not attend another meeting. There was not much to do but send our regards. My only remaining advice to him would have been to repeat, “Don’t go home to Baghdad!” According to several sources, throughout the fall, Kamel repeatedly tried to contact Saddam Hussein, who refused to talk to him. Saddam did, however, issue a formal pardon. This was interesting, given that Saddam Hussein in his first statement in response to Kamel’s departure called him a Judas. This should have served as a warning to Kamel, but over time life in Jordan became less and less pleasant for him. King Hussein had clearly given up his political hopes for Kamel, who had also become increasingly isolated, which I saw firsthand during my second visit with him. When Kamel failed to speak directly to Saddam Hussein, he contacted his brother-in-law, Uday, and asked if the pardon was valid and final. Uday Hussein assured it was, adding, “We are brothers who can be reconciled.” On February 20, 1996, Kamel left with his brother Saddam Kamel and his wife Raghad Hussein (Saddam Hussein’s oldest daughter) for Iraq. Uday met them at the border, but in lieu of embracing him in

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

157

greeting, he punched him in the face and separated him from his wife and children. Kamel and his brother went directly to their family’s large villa in Baghdad. Kamel’s return to Baghdad had been preceded by a clan meeting under Saddam Hussein’s leadership. It was decided (with some dissension) that Kamel had to be killed. On February 23, Kamel’s villa was surrounded by the president’s bodyguards, the Republican Guard, under the leadership of Kamel’s uncle (and Saddam’s cousin) Ali Hassan al-Majid, the so-called Chemical Ali, who was responsible for the mass murder of Kurds at Halabja on March 16, 1988. Also present were Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay Hussein. The villa and its inhabitants were attacked with hand grenades and automatic rifles. Kamel and his brothers defended themselves with handguns, but the attack left Kamel’s two brothers, his father (al-Majid’s brother), two of his sisters, a couple of young children, and eventually Kamel himself dead. The only survivor was Kamel’s mother, Saffiyah Hassan. In the following years, she became a source of constant irritation for Saddam Hussein, as she repeatedly blamed him for having her husband and sons murdered. She also accused Saddam Hussein of refusing to let her see her grandchildren and their mothers. Saddam Hussein’s patience with her lasted only four years. In February 2000, she was stabbed to death in her home. These events developed into a family drama of Shakespearean dimensions. There was the young Hamletlike, pure, talented, dreamy Kamel, a possible heir of his relative and father-in-law, Saddam Hussein, to the power over Iraq; Saddam’s court with the tyrant himself and his two brutal sons, especially the hateful Uday, capable of tormenting and murdering their enemies, and, if necessary, destroying any of their genuinely unsympathetic uncles. Then there was Saddam’s cousin and Kamel’s uncle, Chemical Ali, a mass murderer always willing to brutally destroy anyone he felt was a threat to the regime. There was also the beautiful tyrant’s daughter Raghad, Kamel’s widow and the mother of his children, and lastly Kamel’s beloved mother, who was murdered on Saddam’s orders. Aziz was something of a Polonius in the drama, the lighthearted, short, ironic, distant observer, incessantly faithful to Saddam regardless of his flaws, with the tall, knowledgeable, and hotheaded Rashid at his side. The two men added a certain comical dimension to the tragedy. However, their views of Kamel differed in that Rashid was an admirer (until the end) while Aziz hated Kamel profoundly, but did not deny his organizational talent. (After the two wars, Kamel led the process of reconstructing roads, water supplies, telephone systems, and electricity in Iraq).

158

Iraq Disarmed

Later, in February 1997, with Davies and Scott, I had the opportunity to evaluate the Kamel crisis with the leaders of the German intelligence service at its headquarters outside Munich. The execution of Kamel and his immediate family had been led by the head of his own clan, Ali Hassan al-Majid. Although Saddam’s two sons Uday and Qusay participated in the massacre, Saddam himself was not at risk of retaliation, according to the German analysts. Even so, it could not be ruled out that an attack on Uday in December 1996 might have been revenge for that blood feud, even though Uday himself had plenty of his own enemies. On August 8, 1995, the day Kamel abruptly left Iraq, Uday had shot Saddam Hussein’s half brother Watban Ibrahim Hassan at a family party. He reportedly died five days later. His wife Soraya and son Alea were subsequently murdered. Saddam Hussein was absent at the time, but later visited the hospital to ask his brother for forgiveness. In this crisis situation, he also summoned home his half brother Barzan alTikriti, who seemed to have wisely refused to go and kept his distance from the family members in Baghdad by staying at his ambassadorial post at the UN in Geneva. He had already made sure that his daughter Saja, married to Uday, had moved to Geneva to maintain a healthy distance from her husband and his lavish way of life in Baghdad.

The International Reaction From the perspective of UNSCOM and the IAEA, Kamel’s exit had radically improved the situation. A new commitment by Iraq to the Security Council, as well as to the region, was forged. The celebration of the UN’s fiftieth anniversary with a high-level meeting in October 1995 gave me the opportunity to engage in several important conversations. At the UN reception, I received enthusiastic encouragement and thanks for the commission’s work from President Clinton. France’s newly elected President Chirac surprised me with his well-informed perspective on Iraq’s weapons issues and evident curiosity to know more about the situation. Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shared with me his fascinating and insightful account of their security policy and peace efforts in the Middle East region and the opportunity to further our cooperation that had begun at an important meeting with General Yaakov Amidror of Israeli military intelligence in New York a year earlier. Sadly, just a month later on November 4, in what constituted a political and humanitarian disaster, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in Jerusalem.

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

159

King Hussein of Jordan and I met in New York City’s luxurious St. Regis Hotel on October 24. He was convinced and prophetically predicted that Iraq was heading for a split. The best thing Saddam Hussein could do, Jordan’s King opined, was to give Iraq a federal structure that took into account the identity of the Kurds and Shia and Sunni Muslims. A month later, on November 23, I was able to fly in King Hussein’s private aircraft from Bahrain to London for a meeting with the king at his residence—a large and well-guarded villa in a London suburb. I waited in the beautifully decorated dining room in the company of a Jeeves-style butler until the king welcomed me into his library, where he sat on the edge of his seat (figuratively and literally). The king was pleased to share with me that a few days earlier the security service, under Shukri’s leadership, had been able to seize a large shipment of advanced missile control systems that had been en route from Moscow to Baghdad. Jordan would now in every way continue to interdict all forms of arms supplies and work closely with the commission he so greatly admired. He did not think that Saddam Hussein would change his policy. He reminded me, as he had in previous conversations, that Iraq was actually part of the traditional Hashemite Kingdom from the time when the king’s grandfather, Abdullah, was first emir of Transjordan, then king of Jordan, and continuing from 1922 when his uncle, Faysal I, was king of Iraq. It should not be ruled out that Iraq would one day return to his father’s kingdom, as Saddam Hussein’s government inevitably collapsed under its own internal contradictions. Perhaps Kamel (who had not yet returned to Iraq at the time of this conversation) could contribute to such a reunion. This would enable a united Iraq and Jordan that could also bring together different Muslim (Sunni and Shia) groups and create a foundation for a peaceful and prosperous Arab state, a Hashemite Kingdom.

A New Political Dimension The drama of Kamel’s departure from Iraq prompted changes in different Security Council members’ perspectives on the commission’s work. As a result, my views with respect thereto were strongly in demand, not only in Washington and Moscow but also in Europe. After briefing the Security Council in September 1995, I visited Bonn, Paris, and London. The main theme was that the disarmament dimension was essentially solved and that the council must now address the controversial question of sanctions relief and political issues including the “Saddam clause”—

160

Iraq Disarmed

the false reasoning that it is acceptable to commit a perceived lesser evil of violating national sovereignty and/or international laws to eliminate a perceived greater evil, regardless of the consequences. In Bonn, I spoke with various counterparts responsible for the continued German support of UNSCOM’s aviation activities, especially the helicopter operations. They became increasingly difficult to maintain due to the growing demand for German aircraft in the Yugoslavia conflict. Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel was interested to hear what I knew firsthand about Saddam Hussein. I explained that I had not met him, but I knew he was a dangerous man. I told him the story of how Saddam, when living in exile in Cairo in 1961, had thrown a young Egyptian to his death through an eleventh-floor window for objecting to Saddam’s insistent advances toward his sister. The then Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, viewed Saddam as a rising star on the Arab political scene and ordered his authorities not to take any punitive measures. In London, Foreign Minister Malcolm Rifkind explained that the disclosure of Iraq’s biological weapons came as a surprise to him and the British intelligence service. He added that Iraq’s secrets were now causing great skepticism about continued relations. To Rifkind’s questions about the reactions from the Russians, French, and Germans, I told him that his German colleague Kinkel was shocked and very angry when he understood the extent of Iraq’s biological weapons program, which could have had catastrophic consequences. In Paris, there was speculation as to whether the elimination of the biological weapons would create new political opportunities for lifting the oil embargo and other financial sanctions. Rifkind responded by saying that Britain would raise the issue with the French political leadership and argue against any relief from the sanctions. He had learned that the Iraqi leadership had placed all responsibility for the secrecy of the biological weapons program on Kamel. I confirmed that in a formal letter, the Iraqi government had informed me that Kamel had instructed his staff to keep the program secret, and that his instruction not be disclosed to either Aziz or Rashid. However, subsequently, Aziz told me that it was he, personally, who had decided to keep the program secret. Rifkind considered this to be a classic example of Iraqi diplomacy. British Deputy Secretary of Defense Nicholas Soames, grandson of Winston Churchill, told me about his in-depth conversations with King Hussein that took place shortly after Kamel arrived in Amman. The king had been impressed by Kamel, while the Jordanian prime minister, like the Saudi family, had been skeptical of Kamel’s credibility. The king of Jordan had provided political support for Saddam Hussein’s attack on

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

161

Kuwait in 1990, but had since changed his mind and begun to look for alternative leadership for Iraq. Soames questioned me about Aziz’s relationship with Saddam Hussein. I told Soames what Aziz had explained to me, that he started working with Saddam as a news and information man. He had written stories that, in his own opinion, helped lift Saddam Hussein to power. However, it was clear that no matter how smart Aziz was, as a Christian, he could not become a powerful political heavyweight in an Arab Muslim country. Soames had heard from King Hussein that when Uday Hussein visited the king to request the extradition of his sister Raghad, Kamel’s wife and Saddam’s daughter, the king, with utmost courtesy, allowed Uday to keep his many weapons on him, but at the same time had his royal guard in the room, ready to shoot down Uday if he even touched his guns. After relating this disconcerting incident, the king had kindly invited Soames to a pleasant lunch where they happily discussed pheasant hunting in Norfolk, England. The cordial treatment that Soames received should perhaps be seen as a natural expression of respect as the grandson of Winston Churchill, who heavily contributed to the emergence of Iraq and Jordan as nation-states.

The Security Council’s View The Security Council members’ interest in and commitment to Iraq and the weapons issues had intensified in response to the August crisis and Kamel’s dramatic escape. Interest was at its peak when I presented my monthly report on October 13, 1995. This was particularly true of the information on Iraq’s biological weapons program. I summed up the results of the weapons program as follows: 166 bombs had been filled with biological warfare agents (100 with botulinum, 50 with anthrax, and 16 with aflatoxin). Twenty-five Al Hussein missiles (modified Russian Scuds) had likewise been loaded with anthrax and botulinum. In total, Iraq’s production of deadly poisons at the al-Hakam plant totaled 19,000 liters of botulinum and 8,500 liters of anthrax. Iraq claimed to have destroyed these stocks on its own but had not provided any evidence or documentation of having done so. This prompted me to start thinking about methods to use to search for relevant documents. I explained to the Security Council that Iraq was cooperating well with UNSCOM/IAEA in developing the monitoring programs under Council Resolution 715. The remaining problem was inadequate reporting of the research and development facilities that would be monitored

162

Iraq Disarmed

under Resolution 687. I also drew the attention of the council members to the fact that part of the Iraqi missile research program was to develop long-range missiles and was thus not just regionally relevant. Such long-range missiles could reach parts of Europe. When Albright began her remarks, she acknowledged that my staff and I had done a superb job during the August crisis and in handling the commotion surrounding Kamel’s escape from Iraq. Despite the praise for me and UNSCOM, Albright could not refrain from pointing out that it was not UNSCOM’s/IAEA’s work that led to the disclosure of facts and documents about Iraq’s weapons program. She acknowledged that the commission’s monitoring system worked, but she attributed the real results to Kamel’s defection. She argued that the commission should broaden and deepen its operations with more surveillance cameras and inspectors; in addition, more sites and facilities should be covered by monitoring inspections and greater efforts to collect data. She asked that I deliver a complete evaluation, not just marginal corrections, adding that the United States was ready to cooperate with me in this regard. According to Albright, there was only one logical explanation for Iraq’s lack of cooperation with the commission: a clear intent among the Iraqi leadership to reconstruct their weapons program. Consequently, Iraq had not lived up to its obligations under Resolution 687. Albright demanded to hear more about what had happened in Iraq regarding prohibited weapons since the commission began working in 1991. How many weapons tests had taken place? What were the environmental effects of the tests? Had biological or chemical weapons been tested on humans? She concluded that the commission still had much work to do and there were more weapons programs to verify. She said she was proud of the help and resources offered to the commission by the United States. Other ambassadors were definitely less suspicious of the commission’s efforts and clearly more positive. British ambassador John Weston expressed his view that the commission and the IAEA should be congratulated for their detective work. That said, the report on biological weapons was quite shocking, and Iraq’s neighbors had every reason to worry. The scope of the production of biological weapons was unparalleled. Without proof that banned weapons were eliminated, it was his opinion that the Security Council could not be accommodating to Iraq. Ambassador Alain Dejammet praised the work of the commission on behalf of France. The methods developed by UNSCOM and the IAEA were correct and should continue to be employed, but the moni-

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

163

toring system should be reviewed in light of the new information. It was truly encouraging that the commission had not overlooked anything. He promised that France would continue to cooperate with the commission. He also expressed his appreciation that Iraq voluntarily handed over a large number of documents when Kamel fled. Ambassador Sergei Lavrov gave assurances that Russia fully supported the commission in its work and celebrated that important information had finally become available. He found it regrettable that Baghdad, to date, had mismanaged contacts with the commission, the IAEA, and the Security Council, and was of the opinion that more time was needed to sort out the problem with the chemical and biological weapons. Lavrov made it clear that work needed to be done quickly and efficiently. If Baghdad really did its best, only then would the Security Council be able to fully implement Resolution 687. He concluded by saying the commission’s monitoring system obviously worked well and had led to the detection of certain breaches of the regulations. Argentine ambassador Emilio Cardenas noted that Iraq had withheld missile information, in particular data regarding bio-ballistic weapons, which raised concerns and suspicions about Iraq’s intentions. Cardenas felt the picture I presented to the Security Council reflected a major step backward in terms of implementation, and that Iraq had to now work to regain its credibility. Cardenas was concerned about the loose definition of banned missiles, insisting that there was a risk that technical manipulation of imported Scud missiles could enable a significantly longer range than the 150 kilometers allowed, perhaps reaching as far as Europe. He suggested that it would be best if the Security Council reduced the maximum allowable range to 50 kilometers, which would effectively prevent such a grave development. Chinese ambassador Li Daoyu, cautious as usual, was content to question how I saw the situation after the dramatic developments in recent months. He wanted to know if the commission needed to start back at square one, or if the work already carried out on chemical and biological weapons was enough. As far as China was concerned, there was no need for the corrections indicated by the United States. If new problems were to arise, of course, a new review and evaluation would also be needed, but that was not the case at the moment. In my reply, I began by addressing Albright’s assertion that it was not the commission that, through its work, had broken Iraq’s weapons secrets, but that the commission’s progress was merely a consequence of Kamel’s defection from Iraq. I explained that the biological weapons program had been held secret during and after the Kuwait War. In fact,

164

Iraq Disarmed

it had been the monitoring system we developed and the step-by-step and systematic work of the commission’s experts over several years that eventually created a detailed picture of the prohibited biological weapons project. I mentioned the identification by our experts of complex growth media, which had become a key indicator of the past proscribed activities. In my opinion, the researchers had deserved a Nobel Prize in disarmament or the equivalent for their work. It was the efficiency, the energy, and the intelligence of their work that put pressure on Iraq. It was quite wrong to claim that the disclosure of Iraq’s biological weapons was merely the result of Kamel fleeing Iraq. Smidovich, Zifferero, and I were the only people able to conduct a detailed and thorough interrogation of the weapons issues with Kamel and thus possessed of complete knowledge about what had been revealed in connection with his escape. The commission’s monitoring system based on Security Council Resolution 715 had proved to be strong and effective. It had revealed Iraq’s serious attempts to restructure its previous chemical weapons development and production program, and its new attempts to procure weapons-related materials. Albright took the floor to react to my comments about Kamel’s escape and to clarify her own statement. She admitted, as I had argued, that it was the commission’s scientists who had discovered and exposed Iraq’s bioweapons program and that they did deserve a Nobel Prize. Nor had she meant that a review of the monitoring program was called for. She recognized the commission’s expertise but added that several governments had contributed to the success (presumably including her own). Her delegation simply wanted to point out that the number of facilities subject to monitoring should be increased, and inspections should be more frequent and more intrusive given that the monitoring system so far had not uncovered enough bioweapons information. I could see that Albright’s two speeches had a clear purpose, namely, to try to prevent the other members of the council from becoming so enthusiastic about the commission’s success that they could be tempted to request sanctions relief in the form of lifting the oil embargo on Iraq. In addition to my introductory presentation and response to Albright, I reminded the council of the dramatic hunt in August for Russian-made missile control systems and gyroscopes, another example of the commission’s success. This controversy with Albright took on a special significance in another context a few years later when, as US secretary of state, she argued against an initiative by a group of nonaligned states and others,

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

165

including Sweden, seeking to negotiate the addition of a verification protocol to the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons. The initiators referred to UNSCOM’s successful method of verifying the bioweapons ban for Iraq. Albright objected, claiming that Kamel’s defection—not UNSCOM verification—led to the discovery and elimination of Iraq’s bioweapons program.

The End of Chemical Weapons Regarding chemical weapons, we were no longer talking about secrets. Iraq’s large chemical weapons holdings and its enormous production facility al-Muthanna had become well known. This did not make UNSCOM’s mission or the elimination of these large quantities any less of a major scientific and technical challenge. The inspection activities were led by Cees Wolterbeek from the Netherlands, mainly assisted by Horst Reeps from Germany and Igor Mitrokhin from Russia. Wolterbeek led twelve inspections, Reeps ten, and Mitrokhin nine. This bold, talented, and creative trio could see through even the most contrived and cunning methods employed by the Iraqis to evade detection of certain weapons. Credit is also due to the brilliant efforts made by two Swedes (Santesson and Sellström) employed as analysts and inspectors and on some occasions also as chief inspectors. In al-Muthanna, our inspectors found that most of the deadly mustard gas stock, in particular nerve gases, were stored in ordinary metal canisters, not in missile warheads, bombs, or grenades. The reason for this was that the Iraqi chemists had been unable to produce stable nerve gases such as sarin with a long shelf life. Consequently, production was delayed until they were ready to be used. It became the practice during the war against Iran in the 1980s that newly produced nerve gas such as sarin was delivered directly to the battlefield and used there to fill warheads about to be fired. I referred to this practice as the “just-intime” method. Mustard gas and tear gas with longer storage periods created fewer problems because these chemicals could be filled directly into the ammunition and held for long-term storage. The al-Muthanna facility had been the target of extensive US bombing during the Kuwait War, but the size of the facility was such that many of its buildings and warehouses had not been destroyed. Consequently, even after the war, there remained large quantities of chemical weapons. UNSCOM’s inspectors first had to find and identify the weapons before

166

Iraq Disarmed

they could destroy these large quantities. To this end, qualitative destruction facilities had to be constructed. UNSCOM’s experts converted the existing production facilities to house an incinerator and a hydrolysis plant built on site—the former for the combustion of mustard gas, and the latter for chemical destruction of nerve gases such as sarin and VX. Most of the destruction was completed in 1994. The empty ammunition cases and warheads that had initially been hidden by the Iraqis were found and destroyed after a stubborn search by UNSCOM experts. The nerve gas VX became a particular challenge for UNSCOM chemists. Iraq could not deny possessing it, but continued to admit only to small quantities. By storing VX in split form (i.e., as a binary weapon) it could be stored long term, which made detection more difficult for the inspectors and possession possible to deny. However, Wolterbeek, Reeps, and Mitrokhin were creative and clever, making it difficult for Hossam Amin and his staff to be devious. In my opinion, their success in destroying Iraq’s chemical weapons and in ultimately uncovering Iraq’s secret VX program is one of the greatest examples of bravery in the history of arms control. In al-Muthanna there was a large bunker that had been heavily bombed by the United States during the Kuwait War, causing the entire bunker structure to collapse. It was clear that there were some bombs inside that had not detonated, which meant that any search of the collapsed facility could be lethal. After years of cautiously waiting, Wolterbeek suggested that I authorize him to enter the bunker. Since this would be an obvious health hazard, I initially refused his insistent petition, but after long and stubborn pressure from Cees, I reluctantly agreed with a heavy heart to authorize such a dangerous expedition. From February 24 to March 12, 1996, under the watch of explosives experts, Wolterbeek and his structural engineers dug their way under the collapsed floors in a mission that was extremely risky. At the deepest point, in the inner sanctum, Wolterbeek found the head office of the al-Muthanna plant. There they found a safety cabinet, which was difficult to drag out of the collapsed building. It contained detailed documentation on the production of the nerve gas VX and purchases of VX precursors kept secret by Tariq Aziz, Rashid, and Hossam Amin. The documents provided evidence of VX production amounting to 3.9 metric tons, twenty times more than the largest amount to which Iraq had ever admitted (200 kilos), and a fraction of the 2 kilos of VX in laboratory form stated in its initial declaration to the commission in 1992.

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

167

For UNSCOM, that bold but successful mission clearly demonstrated that Iraq’s chemical weapons were essentially under control. We were now able to conclude that we had established a material balance between purchases and production on the one hand, and consumption and destruction on the other. This did not exclude the existence of unfilled ammunition at various military facilities around the country. As for chemical munitions (artillery pieces, grenades, bombs, etc.), our analysts had been able to calculate through inspections and documentation that Iraq’s holdings at the beginning of 1991 amounted to approximately 128,000 units, of which about 42,000 had been destroyed in the US air strikes during the Kuwait War, while the remaining 86,000 or so had been destroyed or otherwise accounted for by UNSCOM inspectors. Iraq’s holdings of chemical weapons agents totaled 412 metric tons, of which 295 tons were mustard gas with the balance distributed among 76 tons of tabun, 40 tons of sarin, and almost 4 tons of VX. By the end of 1994, UNSCOM had destroyed all mustard and nerve gases in the newly constructed facilities under the supervision of our experts.

Nuclear Weapons—the Crash Program Iraq either had been uncooperative or suffered memory lapses in its dialogue with the IAEA Action Team on its obligations to disclose full information about its uranium enrichment activities. Admittedly, our inspectors had greatly benefited from the documents discovered in connection with the dramatic “parking lot” inspection in 1991. However, much had changed after Kamel’s flight from Iraq in August 1995 and my interrogation of Kamel in Jordan. In addition, the Iraqi side was more accommodating, mainly more forthcoming with information on uranium enrichment for weapons purposes following our confiscation of the large quantities of nuclear weapons–related documents seized at Kamel’s chicken farm. For the inspectors, it was becoming increasingly clear that the Iraqi goal was to rapidly produce a limited number of nuclear weapons. The program, which started in 1988, consisted of three main components: • production of high-enriched uranium made from internally available fissionable material, • design of explosive weapon charges and nuclear warheads, and • design of a missile system capable of delivering such warheads.

168

Iraq Disarmed

However, the enrichment of uranium, both by centrifuge and by electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS), became more time-consuming than initially thought due to the delay in converting theory into operational production. Although the weapon design (at the al-Atheer plant) had been successful and was nearing completion, a major problem was the reduction of the size of the nuclear warheads to fit the delivery missile frame, which was only 90 centimeters in diameter in SCUD-type missiles—the diameter of the warhead was initially 110 centimeters, so the missile diameter had to be enlarged and the warhead shrunk. When tensions escalated again, in September 1990, the Iraqi leadership decided to concentrate all available resources on a special “crash program” aimed at producing a functioning and deliverable nuclear weapon. By combining different components from diverse programs—uranium under IAEA safeguards from a Soviet-supplied source, a French research reactor, and high-enriched uranium processed into uranium metal—the goal was to obtain the necessary fissile material for a single nuclear warhead, small enough to fit into a missile. Their aim was to have this weapon ready by April 1991, but IAEA/UNSCOM inspectors had arrived on the scene by that time. The ensuing difficult and contentious inspections, especially the parking lot inspection, eventually led to the unmasking of the secret main nuclear weapons production plant (al-Atheer). This entire extensive facility was then systematically destroyed under the supervision of our weapons inspectors. Even before that, the plant for electromagnetic isotope separation had been eliminated by US air strikes during the Kuwait War of 1990–1991.

The Search for the Unknown By 1996 the commission had made significant progress on all fronts, including the identification and destruction of substantial amounts of chemical weapons. We had proof that Iraq had succeeded in developing large quantities of the advanced nerve gas VX. And, we had finally been able to find out that the al-Hakam complex was really an advanced production facility dedicated to biological weapons. At the beginning of 1996, UNSCOM was in the process of preparing the destruction of this entire complex. The demolition work was carried out under the guidance of three experienced experts: Terrence Taylor (UK), Owen Hammond (Australia), and Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack

Hussein Kamel’s Defection

169

(Germany). I closely monitored this operation, which was both dangerous and complicated. I was also able to report in 1996 that the prohibited missiles and their various components had been identified and destroyed for the most part. Furthermore, two of the secret nuclear production facilities (al-Atheer and al-Qaqaa) had been discovered and destroyed. The large number of documents found at Kamel’s farm had been translated, deciphered, and analyzed. They provided UNSCOM/IAEA with volumes of new information, especially in the field of nuclear weapons. It was still evident to us that important weapons documents had been withheld by the Iraqi authorities. Rashid, after Kamel’s defection, had been given more responsibility in addition to his duties as Iraq’s oil minister. The newest political heavyweight, General al-Saadi (from Saddam Hussein’s office), nonchalantly denied this, claiming that it was possible “some documents may have been destroyed.” Al-Saadi, a close advisor to Saddam Hussein, proved to be less flexible than Hussein Kamel, Tariq Aziz, and General Rashid. Refraining from any personal banter, he was formal, even frosty, and entirely uninterested in exchanging opinions. His comments at our meetings were limited to his written remarks. This singular unwillingness to cooperate made it crystal clear to me that our side would also have to sharpen its tone to get results.

9 Working with Israel

IN THE SUMMER OF 1996, AFTER CONSULTING WITH MY AMERICAN deputy chairman Charles Duelfer (who succeeded Pierce Corden in 1993), Smidovich, Davies, and Ritter (who had returned to UNSCOM after a few years of absence), I came to the conclusion that we should invest in more intrusive inspections of politically and security-sensitive institutions and facilities, well aware of the risk of confrontations with Iraqi authorities. We provided some of our inspection teams with interception equipment, something that I had initially resisted using. But I now accepted it in cases where we feared that Iraq would spirit away documents and related material before or during an ongoing inspection. That is why we introduced “concealment inspections” for the more intrusive inspections, to identify Iraq’s way of concealing important information by shuffling around documents and materials, or by placing such sensitive material in difficult-to-access and/or secret facilities. I decided to establish contact with Israel through its UN delegation, which actively sought to stay informed on the commission’s work. In early April 1994, a special Sunday-morning meeting was organized in the basement of the Tudor Hotel on 42nd Street in New York, where I was joined by Duelfer, Smidovich, and Trevan. The Israeli side was led by Yaakov Amidror, one of the senior chiefs of the Israeli intelligence service, and later Israel’s national security advisor until 2015. As usual, Smidovich gave an impressive account of UNSCOM’s operations. Amidror told us that the Israeli government had followed the

171

172

Iraq Disarmed

establishment of the Special Commission with great skepticism but was impressed by UNSCOM’s work, in particular the scientific and analytical competencies of its staff and our ability to deal with recurring political crises. The Israeli leadership had, therefore, agreed to meet with me. That marked the beginning of a collaboration whereby Israel provided us with a stream of qualitative data on Iraq’s prohibited weapons programs. I was reassured of this cooperation at the highest political level when I met with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in September 1995. Amidror and I would continue to meet periodically in various places during my remaining time at the head of UNSCOM, including once in Stockholm. An important example of this cooperation was when, in November 1995, the Israeli side warned us that Iraq was in the process of importing a large number of advanced missile control systems, specifically gyroscopes, from Russia. This was a serious setback for Iraq. It was especially damaging to Tariq Aziz’s credibility after he repeatedly assured me (and the Security Council) that Iraq had ceased manufacturing and procuring prohibited weapons and components, including missiles with a range over 150 kilometers. The gyroscope procurement in 1995 had been carried out by an Iraqi agent in Moscow who established contact with Russian officials responsible for the dismantling of Russian strategic weapons systems. This was being carried out as part of the implementation of the USRussian Start I Agreement, signed in Moscow in 1991 by the countries’ presidents. Because the international sanctions banned weapons-related exports to Iraq, the Iraqi agent had first sent the purchased material to Amman, Jordan, to be transferred to Baghdad. Through Shukri, I contacted the Jordanian customs and security authorities. With the assistance of Ritter, who had previous experience in verifying the dismantling of the Russian missiles, 180 gyroscope components were intercepted, just as they were about to be loaded onto large trucks to be taken to Baghdad. Some of the missile components were brand new, while others were apparently parts from missiles already dismantled and stored in Russian warehouses. However, we were also aware that a larger quantity of gyroscope parts had already been taken across the border to Iraq, so I dispatched a group of inspectors in search of them. During that hunt, we were informed that the Iraqis had dumped missile gyroscopes into the Tigris River. I immediately sent a number of divers, who brought to the surface multiple gyroscopes. I happened to be in Baghdad, so I rolled a gyroscope in a hotel bath towel and packed it in my luggage. Upon

Working with Israel

173

AP Photo/Ed Bailey

returning to New York, I traveled directly from the Kennedy Airport, without being stopped by customs, to the UN headquarters where the Security Council then met in a closed meeting. When I informed the council of the incident, I unrolled the gyroscope from the towel and lifted it up in front of surprised council members. In my excitement and haste to share my discovery with the council, I had not noticed that it was still wet, and I was surprised to feel water from the Tigris dripping down my shirt sleeve. Later, I heard how the gyroscope issue was discussed in tape recordings of Saddam Hussein’s talks with Tariq Aziz and General Rashid. Saddam was obviously most annoyed by this failure and questioned whether the import complied with the Security Council resolutions. Aziz acknowledged that the entire event cast a shadow over

A gyroscope fished out of the Tigris River.

174

Iraq Disarmed

Iraq’s credibility. Rashid tried to argue that under the Security Council’s resolutions, Iraq had the right to import parts for missiles as long as those missiles did not breach the 150 km range allowed to Iraq. This prompted Saddam to tell the story of the bear (Russia) who would remove a fly from his friend’s face (Iraq), so he took a stone and flattened the friend’s face. Undoubtedly, Saddam was right in his self-criticism. Here, Aziz had traveled to world capitals and delivered talks in the UN to the Arab states and other members, all with assurances that Iraq was living up to its commitments and its obligations under the Security Council’s decisions, and then came this flagrant violation of the rules. The deal was also embarrassing for Russia. As usual, they tried to keep up appearances but had a difficult time coming up with any acceptable explanations, since this was, from a security point of view, sensitive material that could be used as components of strategic nuclear weapons. It was not credible to claim that such material could easily be procured on the black market in Moscow.

Meeting with Ehud Barak In February 1996, I was visited by Israel’s foreign minister, Ehud Barak, on the thirty-first floor of UN headquarters. Barak later became the country’s prime minister, and in the 1999 Israeli-Palestinian negotiations organized by President Clinton at Camp David, he presented on behalf of Israel the peace proposals that would prove more accommodating to the Palestinians than any proposal by an Israeli leader either in the past or since that time. As Clinton described it, Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat seemed to become increasingly doubtful over every sign of friendship from Barak. Those negotiations finally collapsed. A couple of years later, in Stockholm, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Clinton, who had just completed his term as US president. We spoke about the Camp David negotiations and Barak’s efforts. Clinton related that Arafat in their final phone call had called him “a big man,” to which he had replied, “The hell I am. I’m a colossal failure, and you made me one.” At that 1996 meeting, Barak was still worried about the future. When sanctions were eventually lifted there would be strong political pressure from many to reestablish economic relations with Iraq, while at the same time there would be a need to continue to control Iraq’s weapons activities. Internationally, the monitoring work would not become easier, even for the commission. With the lifting of sanctions, monitoring of Iraq’s

Working with Israel

175

imports might seem less important in the eyes of many nations. However, from my point of view, monitoring would become even more important when Iraq’s import gates swung wide open. I recalled how Aziz told me Iraq had not been defeated in the Kuwait War in 1991; Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait had only been one lost battle while, according to Saddam Hussein, the war would continue. Security Council Resolution 687 as accepted by Iraq was not a peace agreement but merely a cease-fire agreement. Saddam had a Napoleonic strategy. The people’s misery was but a small sacrifice in relation to the great role that Iraq would shoulder in the Middle East. It was this that made Saddam popular with the Arab public, after all. Arab leaders did not like him, but they were aware of his widespread popularity with the people. On Barak’s question about Iraq’s economy and ability to develop nuclear weapons, I replied that although the cash flow was stopped, Iraq had plenty of oil in the ground, which was much like having money in the bank. Iraq had proven its ability to master an entry-level type of nuclear weapon. It would be naive to think that the reprocessed uranium and separated plutonium found in Iraq would not have been used for nuclear weapons if development had not been stopped in time. Missiles had been readied to carry nuclear warheads. Moreover, I told Barak that I was particularly worried about Russia. Our inspectors and analysts had been able to show that the gyroscope guidance systems for missiles had been procured under a $65 million contract, which was remarkable at the same time that they claimed they had no money for food for the population. Politically, I noted that on Army Day, a public holiday celebrated January 6 in Iraq, Saddam Hussein actually urged the Iraqi people to cooperate with the UN. Ambassador Hamdoon had also raised the issue at the UN. While I had not yet noticed a change in Iraq’s attitude, I was satisfied with the steady flow of weapons documentation. It was difficult to judge whether there had been a genuine political change or if it was merely tactical posturing. Barak was convinced of the latter. Barak declared that in line with the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Plan developed by US senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar to assist Russia and other former Soviet states in dismantling and disposing of their nuclear weapons during the 1990s, it was now extremely important to prevent fissile material for nuclear weapons from leaving the former Soviet Union. Israel had recommended to the Americans that they be involved in the monitoring of laboratories and facilities in Russia, and

176

Iraq Disarmed

in particular to assist with the control of smaller nuclear warheads. Large “strategic” warheads and missiles were well monitored and safely stored. The Russian control system was otherwise substandard. There was no clear boundary between legitimate authorities and gangster groups, with which no one really knew how to deal. Barak (who had been the head of Israel’s military intelligence service) vividly described how Iraq’s procurement of technology and weapons took place in the collapsed Soviet Union. Barak added that it would be a serious situation if Saddam could put his hands on a few kilos of highly enriched uranium, for which he would gladly cough up several million dollars in cash. Barak said Saddam Hussein would send a plane with dollar bills to Moscow and take home his five kilos of uranium. He went on to say that such a scenario would have been unthinkable just a couple of years ago, but no longer. Something had to be done to close this market before anything deplorable happened. Barak had addressed the issue of Iraq’s ongoing secret procurement of weapons technology at meetings in Washington with Tony Lake, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and Secretary of Defense William Perry. The Americans seemed almost more worried about France and Germany’s lack of control than Russia’s. I commented that I believed that in recent years France had tightened its control and that the Germans, who had their fingers burned previously over exports to Iraq, would now be much more cautious than in their prior dealings with Iraq. I told him how we uncovered the shipment of advanced missile technology from Russia to Iraq in part with the help of the Israeli intelligence service. History has shown that Russian regulation was careless (to say the least). Although it did not fall under my primary area of responsibility, Barak eventually wanted to address his concerns about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The Iranian scientists in the field were knowledgeable and well trained. With money and time, they could develop nuclear warfare capability. Barak had tried to persuade the US government to warn the Europeans of the risks of cooperating with Iran on arms issues. He had suggested that Iran could also create an export-import mechanism of the kind that the Iraqi government had successfully developed. I commented that such a thing—although possible—required considerable diplomatic efforts. My experience in the case of Iraq had demonstrated that it was possible for a country to build sophisticated procurement strategies with complex and covert transactions that made trade controls difficult to implement.

Working with Israel

177

The Document Hunt At the beginning of 1996, several members of the Security Council became increasingly impatient with what they deemed was a slowdown in disarmament developments, despite major successes in the mapping of all prohibited weapons categories and the subsequent elimination of weapons and production facilities. Washington and London, which should have been satisfied with our concrete results, were unhappy that Saddam Hussein seemed to be strengthening his control over Iraq and about to restore some of his lost influence in the Gulf region. France and Russia, who expected upcoming economically profitable settlements with Iraq (plus strengthened political influence), wanted the embargo on Iraq’s oil exports rapidly removed as the banned weapons seemed largely eliminated. Moreover, there was growing international concern over the humanitarian consequences for the Iraqi population caused by the long-protracted oil embargo, a concern shared by me and my colleagues. Within the commission, our experienced weapons experts and I were becoming confident that not only Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction but also its production capabilities had been largely eliminated when alMuthanna (chemical weapons facility), al-Hakam (biological weapons facility), and al-Atheer (nuclear program facility) were demolished. At the same time, possible future production facilities were under continuous monitoring by UNSCOM in accordance with Resolution 715. It must also be borne in mind that the Security Council’s resolutions required Iraq to show that banned weapons and capabilities had been eliminated and the UNSCOM/IAEA only had to confirm that. Now, after a couple of years, the burden of proof had shifted, and with it an unspoken requirement that we should prove full implementation. Therefore, there was really only one way for us to proceed, namely, to search for relevant documents that could show procurement/import, technology development, and production data. The parking lot inspection in 1991 was a shining example of this, as was the inspection of Kamel’s socalled chicken farm in 1995. The main ingredients in Iraq’s nuclear weapons program could thus have largely been revealed and mapped, something that the IAEA failed to do after more than ten years of earlier safeguard inspections. As the situation unfolded, no hardware was missing, but only paper and electronic data, which the Iraqi side sought to hide in places more or less closely related to the security services surrounding the president. But chasing documents was merely an indirect route to a final follow-up to the mission, which was to ensure the elimination of weapons

178

Iraq Disarmed

of mass destruction, not of the associated documentation that merely served as evidence. With this in mind, after consulting with Duelfer, Smidovich, and Ritter, I decided to conduct a limited number of document-seeking inspections, well aware of potential complications due to the Iraqi strategy of moving documents to security-sensitive facilities. The implementation of this new strategy and inspection activity, looking for documents and materials by focusing on military institutions and facilities that we had reason to suspect had links to prohibited weapons activities, would initially be led by the politically and diplomatically savvy Smidovich. He was assisted in this endeavor by the always enthusiastic and fearless, maybe too fearless, Ritter. After an initial practice inspection, we planned a large, more intrusive inspection—our 150th inspection in almost five years—with some sixty experts, technicians, and support staff.

To Iraq, Carrying Bomb Threats Perhaps the Iraqis suspected that something was about to go down. On June 5, 1996, Rashid called me in New York to propose “a cease-fire, like they do in a war” that would mean foregoing inspections in the coming weeks. He said the Iraqis understood that there were still political obstacles to getting the council to lift the oil embargo. Rashid warned that the situation was much more serious than before and that we needed to discuss different ways of dealing with the problems. “I ask you to delay the inspections. Let us jointly concentrate on allowing us to produce our final declarations. But please do not create problems in the next few weeks. The situation is sensitive, give us time!” I called Ambassador Hamdoon to my office to get his take on the call. The always smart and quick-thinking Hamdoon explained that the idea was to give Aziz time and opportunity to come up with a plan to show to Saddam Hussein, who under al-Saadi’s pessimistic influence might make hasty decisions. Aziz, therefore, simply needed support from me. Hamdoon said the best thing I could do was go to Baghdad. However, he did not explain why Aziz seemed to need so much extra time. What I did find out from my friends in the White House was that a dramatic development was underway in Baghdad, which had prompted Rashid’s intervention: an attempt to depose Saddam Hussein was afoot. The plot had first gotten underway when the US Central Intelligence Agency contacted King Hussein after Kamel’s departure. Although King Hussein and Arafat were the only Arab leaders to support Saddam during

Working with Israel

179

Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990, King Hussein had tired of Saddam Hussein, a fact I had already garnered from my conversations with him a year earlier at our meetings in Amman and London. CIA chief John Deutch’s plan was, with King Hussein’s help, to contact a group of generals from the Sunni tribes in western Iraq to conduct a military coup and oust Saddam. According to the plan, no US ground troops were needed, but operational air coverage would suffice. The dissident generals managed to recruit a significant number of younger officers to carry out the coup in August as planned. But with so many people involved in the conspiracy, it should not have come as a surprise that Saddam’s own agents were able, already in June, to discover what was going on. Saddam had more than a hundred officers arrested and ten coup leaders executed. It was an embarrassing setback for the CIA, especially as a couple of the CIA’s own recruits turned out to be double agents who warned Saddam loyalists of the planned coup. All these secrets were subsequently leaked to me by my friends in the White House. When Amer Rashid contacted me, the major document search operation, UNSCOM 150, was already planned and structured. International inspectors were on their way to Bahrain for preparation and operational planning. Our U-2 plane and helicopter unit had already gathered the essential photographic information needed for a proper inspection. It was too late to call off the operation. On June 6, I informed Nabil Elaraby, Egypt’s ambassador, the president of the Security Council for the month, about the impending inspection. Later that day, I also informed the Security Council’s five permanent members, who all said they supported the plan. At a luncheon held in my honor in New York on June 7, hosted by Albright, the situation was fully discussed. We were joined by US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, Albright’s assistants Karl Inderfurth and James Rubin, one of Tony Lake’s staff from the White House, and the British ambassador John Weston. It was clear that the Americans were becoming increasingly impatient with Saddam Hussein and did not want any more concessions made to Iraq. Still, I wonder if the timing of Albright’s lunch may have had some linkage to the coup attempt. In any case, this was no ordinary polite and well-appointed diplomatic lunch, although the environment was the most elegant imaginable in Albright’s residence high up in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel with a magnificent view of Manhattan. There was something mysterious about this meal with an American cabinet member (Albright) and the US deputy secretary of state who was also President Clinton’s close

180

Iraq Disarmed

personal friend since the days when they shared a room as young men at the University of Oxford. It became clear during lunch that the Clinton administration attached special importance to the upcoming UNSCOM 150 search operation and my planned Baghdad visit. The starting point was clear, that over time the administration in Washington and the British government had tired of repeated delays and blockages of UNSCOM inspections by the Iraqi authorities. What was now required was a formal commitment by Saddam Hussein to provide immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to all facilities in Iraq declared by Iraq or designated by me, in accordance with the Security Council’s rules. It was made patently clear that I was expected on my next visit to Baghdad to seal such a binding commitment. I explained that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Saddam Hussein to commit in a way that would so clearly call into question the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Iraqi state. My mission would, therefore, be something of a “mission impossible.” The signal I got from the US side (and Weston) at lunch was that if Saddam refused to make such a formal commitment, the United States would be prepared to act by launching air strikes against Iraq. It was with great apprehension that I received this message. I had no intention or desire to be responsible for the use of force against the Iraqi people; but if my mission to secure a commitment from Saddam were to fail, the consequences would be just that. Despite the complicated political situation, and Iraq’s appeals and warnings, I could not remain passive. I ordered the UNSCOM 150 inspection to proceed. On June 11, Smidovich’s UNSCOM 150 team was stopped at a gate of a facility designated for inspection. After eleven hours of waiting without Iraq admitting any of our inspectors into the facility, Smidovich, on my instruction, withdrew his inspectors. On June 13, when I briefed the Security Council on the development, Weston proposed a critical statement directed at Iraq, that China initially blocked. Weston, however, was able to return with a motion for a resolution, which China accepted after numerous objections that provided full support for the commission. The probable cause of China’s initial hesitation was an attempt by Tariq Aziz to sell to some of the Security Council members the idea that the council would send a group of council members to Iraq to negotiate access to suspected facilities in my place. The motive was certainly to neutralize my influence as well as UNSCOM’s. Of course, I reacted vehemently to this attempt to sabotage my authority as the sole responsible inspection authority. Whereupon the permanent members (including China) also rejected this idea, and the council was able to agree to the British proposal. In the unanimously adopted Resolution

Working with Israel

181

1060, the council deplored Iraq blocking entry to a facility identified by the commission, and demanded that Iraq provide the commission with “immediate, unconditional and unrestricted” access to all areas, facilities, equipment, records, and means of transport the commission wished to inspect. In addition, the council expressed its full support for the commission. That did not prevent Iraq from defying the Security Council on the following day, June 14, by obstructing the inspectors’ search operation of two new facilities, prompting the council president on the same day to declare its condemnation of Iraq’s refusal to grant access to inspectors in accordance with Resolution 1060. Subsequently, in a special statement, the council requested that I visit Baghdad as soon as possible to ensure “immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to all facilities the commission wishes to inspect” and report back to the council on the visit as well as on Iraq’s reactions and actions. At the same time, I was informed by my contacts in the White House that President Clinton had tired of Iraq opposing our inspectors and that there were deliberations and operational preparations underway for carrying out missile attacks against Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not comply with the Security Council’s latest resolution and/or if my mission was unsuccessful. My “mission impossible” would now be carried out under threat of the widespread destruction of Iraq.

Inspection Arrangements Conscious of the now rapidly growing risk of US-led air attacks, I was anxious to quickly reach Baghdad in accordance with the Security Council’s request. On June 17, 1996, I traveled from New York, via the usual stopover in Bahrain, to arrive at Baghdad (Habbaniyah). I was accompanied by Scott, Platon, and Ewen Buchanan (who had succeeded Trevan). Because of the increased threat, I was provided by UN headquarters with a skilled bodyguard, Khalil, and given a high-collared, ankle-length coat lined with protective ballistic-resistant lining. It was with heavy steps that I entered the elegant villa with a beautiful view of the Tigris River, which would thenceforth be my local accommodations, instead of Hotel Rasheed, which for many years had been my Baghdad residence. I almost missed the usual crowd of thirty journalists and photographers who would accompany me on my fifty-meter walk from the hotel’s entrance to the elevator in the foyer. Already on the first evening, we had a long meeting with a large Iraqi delegation led by Tariq Aziz, which included Rashid, al-Saadi, al-Qaysi

182

Iraq Disarmed

(now deputy foreign minister), Hossam Amin, and Abdel Dhaif, the new head of MIC and Kamel’s successor. The meeting opened with a long, awkward silence. No words of welcome. It was obvious that the Iraqi side understood that this meeting was taking place under the shadow of a US bomb threat. I finally broke the silence by thanking Aziz for receiving me. I highlighted the importance of the inspectors’ unlimited access to facilities and materials. Moreover, I reminded him that I was to secure such access under Resolution 1060 and acting on the Security Council president’s statement on June 14. To this, I wanted to add my own personal wish for a constructive dialogue with Iraq’s leadership on continued cooperation to the point where paragraph 22 of the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution could be implemented and thereby finally lift the embargo on Iraq’s exports (including oil). I recalled that the Security Council had rejected Iraq’s attempt to persuade the council to find other forms of inspection and monitoring, while it had reaffirmed the one exercised by the commission under my direction. It was a mistake for Aziz to try to circumvent the commission, and it did not improve our personal relationships. The council had now declared that Iraq had breached its obligations. I outlined the three problems that required a solution: 1. The secret destruction of missiles carried out by Iraq during mid1991 had to be reported in detail in order for the commission to establish a material balance, and to ensure that all prohibited material was disposed of and eliminated. 2. Documentation was still a big issue. Documents found at Kamel’s farm comprised almost a million pages and contained very important information, but not all. Documents had vanished sometime between August 14 and 15, 1995, the two days following Kamel’s departure. Aziz must help clear this up. 3. The policy of concealment must cease. I knew that equipment and documents had been hidden in schools, private homes, and on farms during the period 1991–1995, with other materials loaded onto freight trains. Kamel had told me that ministers had hidden relevant material in their own safes. What disturbed me the most was that UNSCOM’s inspection 150, led by Smidovich, had been blocked at the very spot where in 1991 Iraqis had threatened to open fire on the inspection led by Kay. The 1991 inspection nevertheless had succeeded in establishing that Iraq had in fact concealed prohibited equipment intended for the enrichment of

Working with Israel

183

uranium. Nothing better demonstrated how baseless was Iraq’s criticism of the latest inspection. I was aware of the importance of the cease-fire resolution’s (687) preambular paragraph, which affirmed respect for Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. All UNSCOM inspectors had strict instructions to observe these principles. My plan now was to invite Aziz to a more in-depth discussion on how to systematically respond to the Security Council’s specific demands for Iraq to give the commission legitimate access to the facilities I identified for inspection. Aziz broke his silence and replied, The inspectors are welcome to come to my office. There is only one box, and it contains cigars and the latest issue of The Economist. We accept all reasonable arrangements for access to sensitive locations. You may remove whatever you suspect and cover the rest with a seal. An inspection group penetrated the immediate vicinity of a room where half of Iraq’s government members were present. UNSCOM 150 inspections are like a military aggression, a bomb that explodes in your face! If we were to give access to the Republican Guard, which is Saddam Hussein’s bodyguard, among other things, the inspectors would only come again and again to search for more information to use against the government. You would go from department to department and not stop until you got into the president’s residence, which would mean war!

Aziz claimed that Kamel had delayed all development in Iraq. Kamel, who had tried to give the impression that he was the president’s most loyal supporter, had been given significant responsibilities within the country’s administration. He went on to say that Kamel had thought he was irreplaceable, but he had weakened the country’s economy and sought to create conflict with the Special Commission. Kamel had told Saddam Hussein that I was an American spy, the Russians were untrustworthy, and the French were under the heel of the Americans. Aziz, who had superior experience and training, was able to dismiss these accusations. He understood that the commission suspected that Iraq was hiding weapons components and documents, but as head of UNSCOM, I must understand the relative importance of what my inspectors and I were seeking to find. Were five kilos of chemical weapons reason enough to maintain an embargo on Iraq’s exports? If there was reason to challenge Iraq, a solution must be found that respected Iraq’s sovereignty. Aziz said he could not understand why I believed that he would withhold documents. He insisted that they were of no importance, no matter what Kamel had told me. Kamel was a traitor and an idiot. He

184

Iraq Disarmed

said that Iraq’s interest lay in collecting and submitting documents to put an end to this story. “All Iraqis are not idiots!” He concluded by saying that on the Security Council there was an elderly lady (Albright would probably not have appreciated that description!) who would not accept an agreement, but Iraq and the commission should now do everything together to find solutions without the commission falling accidentally into difficulties. In my response, I warned Aziz of the catastrophic consequences if Iraq ignored the Security Council’s demands. It was a question not of the status quo, but of an increasingly severe penalty for Iraq. Iraq’s friends would be dismayed and their enemies happy; something must be wrong with such a policy. Following this meeting, Smidovich, Scott, and I worked out a draft of a joint statement by Iraq and the commission, citing Resolutions 707 and 1060, containing three points: 1. Iraq would give UNSCOM immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to places declared by Iraq or identified by the UNSCOM chairman (i.e., me). 2. UNSCOM would respect Iraq’s legitimate security interests. 3. UNSCOM would intensify its work to enable the implementation of paragraph 22 and the lifting of the oil embargo. Without any serious deliberation, Aziz rejected the proposal when he and I met in his office the following day. That did not stop Smidovich, Scott, and me from working out a new text for a joint statement on June 21. This proposal became a basis for the plenary discussions that very same evening, which led to an agreement that was almost identical to our first proposal. That joint statement, which Aziz and I signed on June 22, provided that the government of Iraq undertook to continue cooperation with the Special Commission and the IAEA in accordance with Resolution 687 and other relevant Security Council resolutions, and to guarantee immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to all facilities that the commission and the IAEA wished to inspect: The Commission undertakes to work with respect for Iraq’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence, and to take into account Iraq’s legitimate security concerns. Furthermore, both sides declare their readiness to step up their work to enable the Commission to report to the Security Council as soon as possible that Iraq has fulfilled its obligations under paragraph 22 of Resolution 687. To this

Working with Israel

185

end, Iraq and the Commission agree to hold regular meetings every two months in order to take any further steps to achieve the objectives agreed upon.

AFP Photo/Karim Sahhib

With this joint statement, the Security Council’s requirements had, in my opinion, been fully satisfied, and in principle, my mission had been accomplished. In a private meeting with Aziz, he and I discussed the methodology to be followed by UNSCOM when it sought to inspect facilities that Iraq considered to be security-sensitive. Smidovich and I sketched out the arrangements that could be applied to a “sensitive site.” I noted them down on paper and handed it, unsigned, to the Iraqi side as guidelines for Iraq on how I foresaw sensitive Iraqi facilities could be inspected. According to these arrangements, inspections of sensitive sites would be carried out in ways that were adapted to the place to be inspected. Access to any facility would be allowed immediately. Iraq would be afforded the opportunity of reasonable delay before allowing inspectors into the facility, taking into account the distance from Baghdad. During that time Iraq should make available a high-ranking official to coordinate

Press conference in Baghdad on June 22, 1996, following the signing of the agreement reached with Tariq Aziz. An image of Saddam Hussein adorns the wall behind me.

186

Iraq Disarmed

access to the site with the chief inspector. On arrival, inspectors must be able to secure the area, including by means of the use of helicopters for overflight and surveillance, if necessary. No vehicles would be allowed to leave or gain access to the facility while the inspection was underway. Iraq would be obliged to ensure that personnel did not move or remove items or documents from their original locations. A limited group of inspectors (the chief inspector plus two inspectors and an interpreter) would have initial access to the facility to assess whether prohibited materials or activities could be linked to the facility. The group would have the right to bring documents or materials out of the facility for further investigation. If necessary, the chief inspector would have the right to call in another expert. The group could use seals and tags and photography for positive control. If the inspectors found prohibited activities, prohibited documents, or prohibited material in the facility, the chief inspector would have the opportunity to have a complete inspection carried out. This first entry group would try to stay on site as briefly as possible, but there would be no overall time limit for conducting the inspection. The chief inspector and the person in charge on the Iraqi side could, if needed, agree to change the rules. These inspection arrangements for sensitive sites would be applied with flexibility and discussed at the regular highlevel meetings. When asked if we intended to inspect the presidential palace or ministerial headquarters, I replied that I did not foresee that such facilities would be subject to inspection. Without explaining further to Aziz, my response was guided by the paragraphs of Resolution 687 that reiterated UNSCOM’s obligation to respect Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Reception in New York After departing Baghdad, our delegation stayed for a few hours in Bahrain. I made a quick telephone report to my deputy chief, Charles Duelfer, at the New York headquarters to let him know our political mission had been a success, culminating in the joint statement signed by Aziz and me whereby the Iraqi government formally guaranteed “immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted” access to all facilities requested by UNSCOM and the IAEA. In doing so, I had fully complied with the Security Council’s demands in accordance with Council Resolution 1060, and also had averted the imminent threat of all-out military attacks against Iraq that prevailed at the time of my departure for Bagh-

Working with Israel

187

dad. Before boarding the plane in Bahrain, I received a message from Albright requesting a meeting as soon as possible. When my flight landed in New York, I went straight to Albright’s residence in the Waldorf Tower still in my traveling clothes. She was waiting for me along with her deputy, Ambassador Edward “Skip” Gnehm—newly arrived from his diplomatic post in Kuwait, where we had often met—and, to my surprise, Duelfer. They wanted to know what these “inspection arrangements” were supposed to mean. I tried to make it clear to them that they were modalities that I worked out to demonstrate how a chief inspector could handle the far-reaching UNSCOM and IAEA inspection rights granted through the joint statement. I was unsettled by the fact that my American friends did not understand or appear to approve my plan. Admittedly, upon Duelfer’s joining UNSCOM as my closest associate, he had explained that his loyalty lay with the United States, but I had not expected such abrupt distancing from UNSCOM and me as I was suddenly witnessing. (In retrospect, he proved to be completely loyal to the commission and me. The book Duelfer later published with his version of the disarmament of Iraq was professional, well-written, humorous, and loyal.) If the atmosphere at that reception at the Waldorf Tower was frigid, the reaction in the Security Council on June 24, in contrast, was heated. Accompanied by Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and Egypt’s Nabil Elaraby, Ambassador Dejammet of France led the choir. There were, however, two voices missing: Albright and her British colleague John Weston. Albright welcomed the joint statement in that it clearly stated the commission alone would decide what was to be inspected. She expressed satisfaction with the fact that I, as chairman, was content with the inspection arrangements, but she also expressed that she was not. She expected the inspections to continue and intended to closely follow their implementation. In her words, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” John Weston also congratulated me out of courtesy but sought assurances from me that my “arrangements” did not undermine the commission’s rights. In my account to the council, I expressed my hope that Iraq would now cooperate with UNSCOM in accordance with the signed statement, but if Iraq’s security organization hid any prohibited material, a new confrontation was inevitable. With a certain degree of naivete, I expressed my expectation that Iraq would no longer block inspections after the June crisis. To the press and media outside the council chamber, the president (Elaraby) expressed the council’s satisfaction with the outcome of my mission.

188

Iraq Disarmed

Albright, obviously not as pleased, requested that I meet with her privately in her office. She was joined by Skip Gnehm and Thomas Countryman from the US Department of State. Weston and an Italian delegate were also present. At the meeting, she explained to me (and John Scott) that her group was worried that the new inspection modalities for sensitive sites might undermine the Security Council’s decision regarding unconditional inspections by delaying and limiting the number of participating inspectors. She and Weston felt that it would be a major problem if the mandate as expressed in the resolutions—and in my and Aziz’s joint statement—was undermined by the arrangement. She and Weston also complained that the modalities seemed to accept delays of an hour or more. In response, I recalled that the inspection of the Department of Agriculture had taken place after a twentyfive-day delay. I pointed out that the arrangements had not been organized by both parties; they had been discussed by me and Aziz, but not agreed upon. They had been dictated unilaterally by me and were not a product of negotiation. I had tried to anticipate Iraq’s concerns, but only with the aim of gaining immediate access to the facilities to be inspected. I now sought to persuade Albright and her companions to understand that my inspectors and I did not have the power, the ability, or the will to enter facilities that were massively guarded by fully armed security forces. UNSCOM’s inspectors had previously been physically blocked and we now had to be skillful and creative to access Iraq’s remaining secrets. Albright claimed that I had misled her the day before at the Waldorf Tower. She accused me of being overly optimistic regarding Iraq’s commitment to inspections. Her words contained an undertone of a stronger US stance against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Through my own sources in Washington, I had been informed that President Clinton had been ready to order missile attacks against Iraq if my June mission had failed. Thanks to the unexpected agreement with Aziz, whereby UNSCOM/IAEA inspectors gained full access to the facilities designated for inspection, I had temporarily tempered the aggression of the US administration, including Albright’s, and removed the legal basis for further air strikes against Iraq. Moreover, the joint statement opened the doors for a more constructive policy. It seemed to me as if the Clinton administration was only moderately interested in Iraq and the developments in the Middle East, assigning greater importance to the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Perhaps the administration saw the Special Commission as a construct inherited from the George H. W. Bush administration and wanted to be rid of it as soon as

Working with Israel

189

possible. My impression, which I shared with Duelfer, was that Albright was focused on maintaining UN sanctions against Iraq no matter what. At the next meeting of the Security Council, Albright reiterated her doubts about the legitimacy of optimism over Iraq’s behavior, when the reality seemed to indicate that Iraq continued to insist on delaying or even blocking inspectors’ access to sensitive sites. However, the Security Council’s general mood supported my way of directing a managed operation that sought to avoid confrontation and military action against Iraq. Trevan, in his book on Iraq, wrote that I played the Security Council like a piano, while Duelfer wrote in his book on UNSCOM that I played the notes of a dirge with the lightness of a lullaby. Blix, who followed all this from the sidelines, observed in his book on Iraq that I had stepped on the toes of the Security Council (the United States and United Kingdom) with inspection arrangements to avoid a crisis that could have led to war. Any curtailment in the implementation of the Security Council’s resolutions would be a step on treacherous ground that could become a slippery slope. At the same time, an hour’s delay in accessing a facility would hardly be a disaster. In an interview published in the New Yorker a couple of years later (November 1998), Scott Ritter characterized my modalities as a clear defeat, but in his book on UNSCOM nine years later he said he understood that UNSCOM won the opportunity to expand their search activities through these arrangements.

Shades of American Politics Although Albright, Weston, and others in New York seemed to be worried about or even dissatisfied with my optimism, I met with the new US national security advisor, Sandy Berger, who had just succeeded Tony Lake. We met in the White House Situation Room on August 20, 1996, joined by George Tenet (acting director of Central Intelligence), Mark Parris (senior director at Central Intelligence), Bruce Riedel (deputy assistant secretary of defense), Ted McNamara (State Department), and Gary Samore and Steve Grummon (National Security Council)—in other words, the overall US security policy leadership. I was accompanied by Duelfer. Berger made it clear from the outset that after reviewing current UNSCOM developments and Iraq’s actions, all relevant institutions in Washington completely agreed to fully support me and the commission. This was, he said, not just rhetoric but concrete. The Security Council

190

Iraq Disarmed

resolutions must be complied with. Admittedly, there had been some bumps in the road, but there was a strong consensus within the administration to continue the process. I wondered if the “bumps” referred to my modalities, but nothing more was said about this. Berger emphasized that it was up to me alone to conduct the inspections and that the United States now expected Iraq to fully cooperate. If UNSCOM were stopped again, the United States would request a Security Council resolution that “termed it a serious violation” of UN resolutions and push it to a decision, even if it would fracture the agreement within the council. Using such language meant that further sanctions on Iraq would be considered. Parris added that in order for the United States to pursue a determination in the council that Iraq was in “material breach” of its obligation under the cease-fire resolution, a clear statement must come from me. The message was clear: if I delivered unclear statements, “mixed messages,” I would create problems. I replied that I was not a prosecutor and my role was not to prove a crime. My task was to report the facts to the council, which would then make a decision. I further explained that, in my view, Iraq would either pursue a hard and unreasonable course of action, perhaps in the hope of gaining support from some of the members of the Security Council, or it could choose to be more accommodating, such as being more cooperative, without providing full disclosure. If Iraq chose to be inflexible, my message to the council would be clear because Iraq’s words and deeds would run counter to the council’s demands. In the case of the second option, this path could make my report to the council less clear. Parris acknowledged the problem but reiterated the importance of clarity. I argued that the problem now was that, despite the commission successfully finding and eliminating large quantities of the components of Iraq’s weapons program, there were still undeclared prohibited weapons and materials produced or imported by Iraq. Iraq had claimed that these capabilities had been destroyed by them secretly, but the commission had not been able to verify this claim as Iraqi leadership had not yet produced any evidence of these claims. I explained that Iraq tended to instruct its security organizations to withhold sensitive material and documentation rather than to provide it. Because these organizations were also responsible for Saddam Hussein’s personal security, their operations were hypersensitive, which created problems for my inspectors trying to penetrate Iraq’s hidden secrets. An example of our difficulties was that one of the organizations, the Special Security Organization, was led by Saddam’s son Qusay Hussein.

Working with Israel

191

I recalled that before launching these search operations, I had informed members of the Security Council, including the five permanent members and the nonaligned members, about the dilemma we faced in inspecting the sensitive security facilities. I had asked each of them if they felt that we should abstain from those inspections because these organizations were also close to the president. Not one had been of that opinion. With CIA Deputy Chief Tenet in the room, I took the opportunity to say that the commission would appreciate being able to access information from the signal interception conducted by the United States. Tenet went pale, but Sandy Berger replied, “We will work something out.” Despite the unequivocal support from all relevant institutions of the US administration (the White House’s West Wing, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA) as manifested at this meeting on August 20, I got the feeling that the US Iraq policy was now under review, possibly even reconsideration. There were two indicators that pointed to this. One was a growing campaign within the Republican Party and a group thereof consisting of neoconservatives, the “neocons”—intellectuals who emerged from a circle of intellectual Democrats/Liberals (some had even been Trotskyists in their youth) who, based on an antiStalinism sentiment, had become strongly anticommunist. This group was about to gain major influence, via the media, in the circles that would form the upcoming administration with George W. Bush. The neocons demanded, among other things, that Saddam Hussein must be removed from power in Iraq and his influence in the oil-rich Gulf region eliminated. The other indicator was Albright, who had a close relationship with Hillary Clinton and her “East Wing” in the White House. Albright seemed to begin to doubt my “soft” methods of seeking a peaceful solution to the Iraqi weapons issue. Admittedly, President Clinton seemed cautious, while Vice President Gore, with his own presidential ambitions, seemed to suggest that a hard route on the Iraq issue would become a political necessity in an election campaign against a Republican Party in which the new conservatives were about to take on a growing role. At a dinner with Britain’s UN ambassador Weston and Al Gore as guest of honor, I was seated next to Henry Kissinger, who was obviously interested in the commission’s activities in Iraq and the corresponding political game in the Security Council. It was evident that Kissinger sympathized with Bush’s/Scowcroft’s plan to stabilize a secular Iraq (without weapons of mass destruction) that could provide a strategic balance against the increasingly dangerous Islamic State of

192

Iraq Disarmed

Iran. He thus saw the commission’s disarmament work as a key element for a calmer security policy situation in the region. Kissinger was clearly skeptical of the preference among the neocons in Washington to prioritize the elimination of Saddam Hussein, which he believed could foment sectarian strife in Iraq between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority to which Saddam Hussein and his family belonged. I agreed with him that deposing the brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, who with his secular Baath Party effectively kept extremist Islamist movements under control, could allow violence to escalate in Iraq and the region. History would show how right our theories were. When Albright left her ambassadorial post at the UN to become secretary of state in the second Clinton administration in January 1997, she seized the opportunity to present a new US policy on the Iraq issue. She acknowledged that the UN inspectors had eliminated more weapons of mass destruction and weapons capabilities than had been achieved in the Kuwait War, but the future was still uncertain. It was now time for an awakening. In a speech at Georgetown University on March 26, Albright presented the Clinton administration’s policy toward Iraq, which was interpreted as not accepting, under any circumstances, that UN sanctions against Iraq be lifted as long as Saddam Hussein remained in power. There it was: the “Saddam clause” that French Foreign Minister Juppé had worried about. This marked a radical change from the Clinton administration’s earlier policies, particularly as voiced by Tony Lake, to wit: that if Iraq fulfilled its obligations under the relevant Security Council resolutions, the United States would not oppose lifting the sanctions. Especially with regard to the oil embargo, if the elimination of the weapons of mass destruction and a functioning monitoring system could be put in place according to the cease-fire resolution, the embargo would be lifted. In doing so, the Iraqi people would be freed from their hardships. President Clinton and his administration were criticized for lacking strategic vision. It was certainly true that in the mosaic that constituted US foreign policy, it was difficult to discern a clear pattern. The president himself, with his adroit intelligence and ingenuity, was primarily a first-rate political improviser, whereas his closest political figures, Sandy Berger and Albright, did not distinguish themselves for the deepseated and historical sensibility that would be required to formulate and implement a long-term foreign policy strategy. Berger, with a commercial and practical background, did not particularly like “being a visionary,” or “the vision thing” as he put it. Albright’s talents lay in operational efficiency and the ability to translate, loyally and rationally, her

Working with Israel

193

boss’s ideas into practical action. Such an outspoken security policy talent as Tony Lake, Berger’s predecessor, had made impressive attempts during Clinton’s first term to lay down some ideologically identifiable political guidelines, but with a boss as uninterested in strategy as Clinton, it became a hopeless pursuit. After a few years in the administration, therefore, Lake preferred to resign in favor of pragmatist Berger. Albright’s Georgetown speech in the spring of 1997 constituted a blow to UNSCOM/IAEA. My strongest argument for persuading Iraq to cooperate with us was precisely the link between disarmament and sanctions relief. How then, Tariq Aziz asked me, could he convince his president to facilitate cooperation with me if the final result was the deposing of the president? If Albright’s ploy was cunning domestic politics, it was at the same time pathetically bad foreign policy. Even I became upset and angry though it served no purpose. The new US posture meant that it was more difficult for France and Russia to contribute to maintaining an agreement with the Security Council regarding the commission’s work. I, from day one in April 1991, had worked to persuade the council to unite behind UNSCOM. That had proved possible in the beginning with the support of three brilliant diplomats: Pickering, Hannay, and Vorontsov. I continued to do so until my last day of service on June 30, 1997, not least thanks to my personal relationships with Lavrov and his bosses in Moscow (Primakov and Ivanov). French ambassador Alain Dejammet also voiced strong support for me in Paris, coming especially from foreign ministers Roland Dumas and Alain Juppé, with whom I had several meetings, following a special meeting attended by President Jacques Chirac in 1995.

UNSCOM Under Pressure In September 1996, through German defense minister Volker Rühe, I received information from the German intelligence service about an argument during an Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council meeting, at which, after a presentation by Tariq Aziz on the state of the weapons issues, Saddam Hussein tried to pacify agitated members by ordering Aziz to “give Ekéus what he wants, then we keep what we want.” Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (Chemical Ali) and Hammadi wanted the Republican Guard to occupy UNSCOM’s headquarters in Baghdad and take hostages, including me. Tariq Aziz had responded by appealing to reason and apparently received support from Saddam, as

194

Iraq Disarmed

nothing like that took place. I don’t know if the Iraqi anger directed at UNSCOM was a reaction to a fake news report from Russian Interfax agency that our inspectors had aided US air forces in the area of the Persian Gulf by identifying Iraqi air defense facilities, not only in the north but also in the southern no-fly zone (where UNSCOM flights were permitted). On September 2, 1996, the American UN delegation informed me that Iraq, employing extensive military operations, had attacked the Kurdish city of Erbil in northern Iraq and that US air strikes would be launched against the Iraqi forces. This information was obviously provided to ensure that none of our inspectors would end up under fire. The following day, the Russian news service, Interfax, announced that UNSCOM’s American inspectors had identified the Iraqi air defense facilities that had just been destroyed by US air strikes. When I heard about the Interfax story, I could do nothing but call Sergey Lavrov and explain to him that similar false rumors could lead to serious threats to our inspectors. In addition, I explained that none of our search inspections, neither 143, 150, nor 155, had taken place in the nofly zone, where the US air attacks had been conducted, according to US sources. For Lavrov, the Interfax report was something he was hearing about “for the first time” and he pointed out that, according to Iraqi sources, places like Abu Ghraib and al-Taji, well known to UNSCOM, had also been attacked. I assured him that absolutely no target markings were done by my inspectors. Nor did our inspectors move in the areas where the US air operations were conducted. Albright intervened on September 5, to warn Lavrov that if UNSCOM personnel were harmed as a result of the Interfax story, the United States would hold Russia accountable. Lavrov, like the generals in Russia, was certainly aware that the US target designations in Iraq were made by means other than UNSCOM inspectors. This did not stop Lavrov from asking me for the names of the participants in the three of my inspections mentioned. Of course, I denied that request, well aware that he probably knew two names already (Smidovich and Ritter). However, my response had worried Lavrov enough that he contacted Foreign Minister Ivanov in Moscow. According to Lavrov, Ivanov, like him, had taken the Interfax report as a joke “with humor.” Despite this assurance, Interfax received a call from the US State Department on Monday, September 9, asking whether inspectors had marked targets for the US air strikes, which the Russians unambiguously denied, as expected. Despite this, Iraq took the opportunity on

Working with Israel

195

September 11 to notify the Security Council of the Interfax accusations of UNSCOM’s involvement in target-marking on behalf of the United States. Lavrov reacted in the council by distancing himself from this report and expressing clear support for me.

Continued Search Operations A core task was to achieve a position from which I could assure the Security Council that all prohibited weapons had been found and eliminated, that is, prove that nothing existed anymore—theoretically an almost impossible task. The searches, therefore, had to focus not on known materials but rather on concealed materials. UNSCOM 150, the inspection led by Smidovich, served as a concept model. It was to be followed by another series of inspections, some of them led by our zealous search specialist Scott Ritter. We had come to understand, on solid grounds, that the Republican Guard (Special Republican Guard, SRG) had been assigned the task of hiding sensitive material and relevant documentation. One problem was that the SRG’s main mission was to handle Saddam Hussein’s personal security, not to hide documents and such. A consequence of this was that in requesting access to SRG’s premises, our inspectors could end up in the president’s personal areas, causing concern on the Iraqi side. When discussing the search arrangements with Tariq Aziz, I had made it clear that the inspectors would try to avoid the presidential palaces. However, this did not mean that the extensive areas around the palaces, the socalled presidential areas, would be exempt from inspection. In mid-July 1996, I gave Smidovich the task of following up the UNSCOM 150 inspection by testing the full-scale inspection arrangements and leading another large search operation in Baghdad’s neighboring areas. The objective of this mission, UNSCOM 155, was primarily to search for weapons-related documentation but also any possible weapon components. Not totally unexpectedly—however politically unwise—the Iraqi side also prevented this inspection. When Smidovich and his inspectors were en route to inspect a Special Republican Guard facility during their first operation, they were stopped on the road several kilometers before reaching their target. This meant that my modalities for the inspection of sensitive sites could not be applied given that the inspectors were not able to even get close to the site. This pattern repeated. Nevertheless, we were able to map and identify relevant premises by utilizing the flights of our high-flying U-2 planes (two to three times

196

Iraq Disarmed

a week) in such a way that when a group of inspectors approached a facility, the U-2 could circle high above to photograph any activity. In addition, we were able to use our helicopters for closer scrutiny of Iraq’s evasive ploys. Photos and video footage taken from our planes gave us information about Iraq’s systematic avoidance of inspections. However, we gradually realized that weapons and components were not the primary motivation for their obstruction. They were trying to keep us from finding technical documentation related to procurement and data on the secret destruction operations. UNSCOM 155 inspection activity was obstructed on different occasions. First, the inspectors were stopped by armed troops and were only able to access a facility of interest after al-Saadi intervened. Things got worse a bit later when the road to another facility was blocked. Neither Rashid nor Aziz, both of whom were on site, could arrange access for the inspectors, even though Smidovich invoked the terms of the joint statement that Aziz and I had signed less than a month earlier. The Republican Guard claimed precedence when inspectors moved in the immediate areas around Saddam Hussein’s various accommodations. Rashid, in a resigned tone and with his wry sense of humor, suggested that Smidovich and his team enter the facility by parachuting in. Given the context, it is not surprising that my July reports regarding the inspection problems really got the attention of the Security Council, which followed the developments very closely over the course of several days. The council’s president at the time, Ambassador Dejammet of France, requested and received a detailed account from me in a private session on the morning of July 17, following the first few days of blockades. This clearly demonstrated the French concern for the political consequences of Iraqi inspection resistance. That same evening, we met again. He told me that he met earlier in the day with Iraq’s Ambassador Hamdoon, who assured him that the inspection had been stopped by a young and inexperienced officer in the Republican Guard. Between our morning and evening meetings, the Security Council met in a plenary session, during which I gave a detailed account of the recent events. Ambassador Lavrov led the chorus of support for me. Along with France (Dejammet) and Egypt (Elaraby), he defended the agreement that Aziz and I had reached in Baghdad on June 22, whereas the United States (Gnehm) and the United Kingdom (Weston) expressed strong dissatisfaction with Iraq’s actions, which they felt were in violation of the country’s obligations under the Security Council resolutions. Moreover, they stated that the council should now authorize the use of force against Iraq.

Working with Israel

197

Two days later (July 19), after the inspectors encountered further problems, the Security Council held a new plenary session, which I kicked off by presenting the developments of the previous twenty-four hours. At the behest of Lavrov, the Security Council decided to warn Iraq that the council was looking at the repeated blockading with the utmost seriousness. The president was to convey this reaction to Ambassador Hamdoon, and I was instructed to convey the same message to Tariq Aziz on behalf of the Security Council. In accordance with this mission, on July 19, I wrote a letter to Aziz, pointing out that the council, like myself, came to the conclusion that Iraq had violated, in part, our joint statement of June 22, in addition to several Security Council resolutions. Aziz responded by letter the following day that my complaint was premature, a statement he confirmed in a phone call the same day, when he reiterated that Iraq’s stated intention was to cooperate. On July 21, a planned inspection was finally carried out in accordance with the arrangements. Rashid’s presence at the time could explain why the inspection was carried out so smoothly and completely according to plan. Important findings were made at that time. On the following day, July 22, council president Dejammet was able to present the Security Council’s conclusions: In this intensive process that dragged on for more than a week, with the council reviewing daily the UNSCOM inspection efforts and Iraq’s lack of cooperation, I was constantly before the Security Council. It was then that I began to see signs of a split in the council. The United States and the United Kingdom showed growing impatience over Iraq’s continued delay tactics, while Russia (and especially Lavrov in person), France, and Egypt focused on maximizing their support for me and UNSCOM.

The occasionally bitter US tone toward me and UNSCOM as a result of the inspection modalities softened during the autumn of 1996, which may have been due in part to my recurring presentations before the Security Council. For example, after my extensive presentation in October 1996, Albright, now heading for the post of secretary of state during the second term of the Clinton administration, expressed the US government’s deep appreciation for my leadership and the phenomenal work that the commission’s staff performed in scientific and operational efforts. She slightly moderated her praise by adding what she particularly admired was my optimism, which perhaps resulted from my lack of realism.

198

Iraq Disarmed

Albright and the US government did support my judgment in two respects, namely, that the Iraqi government had the capacity and opportunities to address any remaining problems, and, secondly, that it was Iraq’s deliberate policy to mislead and be highly selective as to when and how the country cooperated with UNSCOM. Iraq’s policy had not changed with the Security Council’s adoption of the monitoring Resolution 715 in 1993. Neither had the situation improved after Hussein Kamel fled from Iraq in 1995, nor had it in 1996 after Aziz and I signed the joint statement in June. Iraq’s policy was to give UNSCOM access to facilities where there was nothing of significance to inspect and to block the inspectors from accessing any sites where there were items of relevance to the weapons programs. Albright also dismissed the unfounded attacks that Iraqi foreign minister al-Sahaf (Baghdad Bob) directed at the commission and me, personally, including his claims that we had informed US fighter aircraft of targets to attack in northeastern Iraq. During the fall of 1996, I could not grasp the whole picture of what we were striving for with the search inspections. That is why I became increasingly convinced that we should gradually reduce this type of inspection. Despite the fact that virtually all technical and factual monitoring inspections of dual-use facilities went smoothly and with few interruptions, the problem was with the search inspections that focused on finding weapons-related documents. Since those documents were handed over to the Iraqi security organizations (such as the Republican Guard) whose primary institutional task was to provide personal security for Saddam Hussein, our document-seeking inspectors repeatedly had run-ins with Saddam’s security service. This nexus with Saddam’s security made it difficult, if not impossible, even for high-ranking figures like Rashid to open corridors into or through areas important for presidential security, to enable our inspectors to reach the facilities they were to inspect. This was particularly true when they needed access to areas surrounding the various presidential palaces or Baghdad airport, for example. At the same time as the search operations were carried out under quite dramatic circumstances, the analysis work at the New York headquarters was proceeding using a flow of data from the monitoring inspections and the document finds, especially from Hussein Kamel’s farm. A clearer image of Iraq’s weapons programs was now taking shape. In the spring of 1997, as I prepared to step down as chairman of the Special Commission, it became clear to me that there was not much to gain from continuing search operations because they tended to

Working with Israel

199

involve Saddam’s personal security areas. That view was shared by my closest staff, with the possible exceptions of Duelfer and Ritter. They may have shared this view but wanted to persevere because of the allure and excitement of challenging and disrupting Iraq’s security apparatus. Because I needed Smidovich to sort out the detailed calculations over the unsettled material balance of Iraq’s missiles and for other strategic purposes, I relieved him of the responsibility for search operations in the fall of 1996. He was replaced by Roger Hill, a daring and skilled Australian, who, along with Ritter, challenged and kept the pressure on Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. Later, just over a year after my departure, even Duelfer and Ritter finally admitted that I was right, as the search inspections degenerated into bizarre and comical mass tourism trips completely out of the commission’s control.

The Commitments of the Middle East Region Since I understood that, in the long run, it would not be enough to have only the five permanent members of the Security Council on our side, in the fall of 1996, Gustavo Zlauvinen (my political advisor) and I laid out a plan to inform the relevant states of the region. I was already briefing Iran during regular lunch meetings with its sympathetic and cultured UN representative, Ambassador Kamal Kharrazi, in his beautiful residence facing Central Park. I also maintained close personal contact with King Hussein, following the Hussein Kamel drama through the mediation of Shukri, that provided politically and operationally relevant cooperation. With Israel, I had good contacts through their UN delegation in New York, led by the brilliant Yael Rubinstein, and in Jerusalem with General Yaakov Amidror, then national security advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. My close friend and colleague Nabil Elaraby, then Egypt’s UN ambassador and later foreign minister and secretary-general of the Arab League, was of invaluable help at the UN in securing support for me and the commission among the nonaligned states, where the politically skilled Tariq Aziz could otherwise try to undermine our work. In order to keep the Gulf states informed and establish a structured dialogue with them, I traveled from one magnificent palace to another in the Persian Gulf with Zlauvinen, Scott, and Platon from November 22 to December 1, 1996, for meetings in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman,

200

Iraq Disarmed

the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. It became clear to me that these super-rich Arab states were hesitant in how to address the Iraqi problem. The fear of possible attacks from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq naturally lingered and was particularly strong in Kuwait. At the same time, I also noticed a growing concern that Iran would begin to exploit Iraq’s weakened position to develop its own increased political and military influence in the Persian Gulf. I also brought with me a map of the area, prepared by the commission’s bioweapons experts Kelly and Spertzel, with which I was able to demonstrate how the biological weapons agent anthrax, in powder form, could be distributed with missiles or bombs over large parts of the Gulf region. For example, if Iraq had released 2,000 of the 8,000 liters produced at low altitude over southern Iraq, under normal wind conditions 90 percent of Kuwait’s population would have died. Depending on the wind conditions, other Gulf states could also have been affected in an equally devastating way. I am convinced that the commission, having accounted for the destruction of Iraq’s 8,000 liters of anthrax, actually helped avert such a potential disaster. This did not prevent, however, some of the Security Council’s permanent members from suspecting that Iraq had managed to produce larger quantities of anthrax than those I was able to confirm and report to the council. My somewhat brutal presentation to the oil-rich Gulf states of the possible bioweapons threat may have contributed to their helpful reactions to the commission’s dire financial plight. The salaries of the commission’s staff of about 150 people were covered essentially by the country of origin for each inspector (except for Russia, where the economic recovery following the collapse of the Soviet Union was just getting underway). On the other hand, I had to find financing for such expenses as flight tickets, aviation fuel, travel fees and technical equipment—costs that regularly amounted to $3 million per month. The United States had given the commission $60 million, not from US tax dollars but from frozen Iraqi assets held in US banks. In November 1996, I confided to the emir of Kuwait how the commission’s financial situation was on the brink of becoming dire. If the situation had not improved by January 1997, we would have ended up in a situation where I would have had to suspend operations at our Iraqi headquarters, the regional office in Bahrain, and the IAEA Action Team in Vienna. Some states (UK, Germany, and Australia) had promised to provide additional technical, but not financial, assistance. After my meeting with the emir, I was able to discuss the financial situation in detail with Kuwait’s Crown Prince Saad Abdullah Sabah,

Working with Israel

201

who assured me that I need not be worried about the finances. Kuwait would assist the commission financially, and other Gulf states would also do their part. During a conversation afterward at the port of Kuwait City, filled with beautiful traditional wooden sailing ships, the crown prince sighed that it was not easy to be one of the world’s richest countries per capita. “Nobody seems to like us. When someone comes here and speaks kindly and highly, we do not know whether it is about us and our historical tradition of trade and shipping, or whether it is our money they are after. It always seems to be the second one.” On November 25, I had the opportunity to have a long conversation with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Saud al-Faisal in Riyadh. The prince criticized Saddam Hussein, who seemed unable to choose between weapons of mass destruction and the welfare of his own people. He made it clear from the outset that Saudi Arabia fully supported the commission. If Albright admired my optimism, Prince Saud admired my patience. Referring to Aziz’s statement that he expected the Security Council’s cohesion on the Iraq issue to soon collapse, Prince Saud explained that in his capacity as Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, he enjoyed excellent contacts with Russia’s foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov and his Chinese counterpart, and was thus able to obtain and transmit clear assurances about strong continued political support for the commission. As for the commission’s immediate financial situation, the foreign minister’s closest associate, Prince Turki al-Faisal, assured me that I could calmly rely on just over $3 million from Saudi Arabia and that more long-term funding would be raised at the next Gulf Cooperation Council meeting. The visit to Riyadh also provided opportunities to walk in its urban environment, where my delegation and I noticed that the Muslim tradition had become stronger in recent years, which was especially evident in women’s attire. Nor did I observe any female car drivers. Our company, walking around the bazaars of the city, looked a bit peculiar when I came wandering along with my male colleagues Scott and Zlauvinen and Saudi bodyguards, being followed ten meters away by my assistant, Olivia Platon, who in accordance with local regulations was dressed in full Muslim attire. We had the opposite experience at Prince Saud’s dinner for our delegation when, contrary to the country’s practice, he happily shook hands with Platon, who for that occasion had worn an elegant Western-style gown. In addition, he placed Platon, the only woman in the all-male company wearing traditional long white kaftans, to his right at the dinner table. This probably surprised the military attendees

202

Iraq Disarmed

more than his colleagues from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, who were more accustomed to Western ways. The Gulf trip continued on November 26 to Muscat, where talks with Oman’s foreign minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah were largely limited to my summarizing the state of the elimination of Iraq’s biological and chemical weapons components and missiles, as well as the commission’s financial situation. While this resulted in sympathetic rhetoric from the foreign minister, no concrete promise of financial assistance was forthcoming. The following day’s visit to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, which included talks with Sheikh Hamdan, the son of the country’s head of state, followed the same pattern as in Oman. Our stay in Bahrain, and the meeting there with Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed al-Khalifa, felt more familiar since I visited our regional headquarters in Bahrain almost every month to take the commission’s flight into Iraq. Here, too, the conversation focused on my summary on the elimination of Iraq’s biological and chemical weapons components, and partly on the missile discussions with Iraq. On the margin of our meeting, Mohammed al-Khalifa, like other leaders in the Gulf states, said he was upset by the US veto that prevented the reelection of UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali. Although not extraordinary as a leader, extending his term of service would have been quite satisfactory. Now the UN’s credibility was being questioned through the US action. Cautiously, I simply replied that a UN Secretary-General should be well qualified. Moving to another topic, I presented the commission’s sensitive financial situation, but received no promises of assistance. Bahrain was paid handsomely by us for the regional headquarters operations, which were for a time led by Wallén before he took over at the Baghdad Center. It was perhaps with some mixed feelings that Bahrain viewed our continuous presence. They had to put up with the constant comings and goings of international inspection groups, the inspectors’ training and preparation, the intensive spy operations, transfers of weapons-related materials, technical equipment, spare parts for the helicopter operations in Iraq, laboratories, and even food for the staff at the Baghdad Center. In addition, there were the daily operations of our heavy transport plane and, for example, most recently my plans to bring a large amount of missile material out of Iraq. If all these inconveniences were weighed against the income they generated for Bahrain, my conclusion was that the government still preferred the commission’s continued presence. Everyone in the Gulf states was now waiting for the result of my upcoming December visit to Baghdad, which Iraq had requested to be

Working with Israel

203

longer than normal and of special significance. Admittedly, Mohammed al-Khalifa thought that Saddam Hussein had tired of me and my presence, and was now hoping for a change of chair for the commission. I replied that I did not think Saddam Hussein’s preferences would matter, as the five permanent Security Council members insisted on my continued leadership. After returning to New York, on December 6, I gave a detailed presentation to the Security Council, which was mostly about the ongoing heated discussions with Iraq over renewed accounting of their missile engines. Nevertheless, the mood was good. French Ambassador Dejammet wished me the best of luck for my upcoming trip to Baghdad and declared in an emotional tone that the Security Council “would never ignore the truth that must always shine through.” In particular, he asked me to bring to Baghdad the words of wisdom expressed by the council members. I was somewhat puzzled by what he meant, but the council members were unquestionably relieved by my account of the Gulf states tour and, in particular, Prince Saud’s financial aid assurances to the commission as a complement to the funds that could be released with the implementation of Council Resolution 986 (the oil-for-food program). My Baghdad visit that began on December 8 was trumpeted eagerly in the Gulf states and the Security Council. It was characterized by a constructive atmosphere and covered a wide range of outstanding issues, the solutions of which would hopefully be facilitated by my large delegation consisting of, among others, Scott, Smidovich, Davies, and Ritter. The mood became jovial in Baghdad when, for the first time, I suddenly reversed our modus operandi. Instead of waiting for Iraq’s weapons declarations in accordance with established international disarmament practice and then verifying the veracity of those data, I first provided a detailed account of UNSCOM’s findings and observations and let the Iraqi side comment and verify our findings and results. In essence, the deliberations, as I described earlier, thereby became primarily about verification of the use and/or destruction of the missiles and missile components imported from the Soviet Union/Russia.

10 Is the Job Done?

WHEN DUELFER LED THE CIA-AFFILIATED IRAQ SURVEY GROUP (ISG) in 2004 and 2005, with its mission to complete the postwar assessment of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, it was then made evident that UNSCOM—aided by the IAEA Action Team—had eliminated virtually all banned weapons and related assets by 1997. The United Nations Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC) during its barely four-month-long operation in 2003 had not carried out any disarmament tasks whatsoever. From a historical perspective, the remarkable thing about the ISG report is that it was able to indirectly prove that UNSCOM/IAEA carried out its mission in full (according to Resolution 687 and monitoring Resolution 715), which was probably unique in terms of implementation of Security Council resolutions. By the autumn of 1996, despite the constant quarrels with Iraq over search operations, the Security Council’s optimism was palpable. The extensive mapping of chemical weapons appeared to be complete, especially thanks to the outstanding destruction operations by the UNSCOM chemical group led by the experienced British chemist Ron Manley, and also to high-risk efforts like those of Wolterbeek and his group. By the spring of 1994, the destruction work that had begun just over three years before was finally complete. That the quantification of chemical weapons went so well was a consequence of a discovery in Iraq’s central bank that provided a

205

206

Iraq Disarmed

bonanza of information. It gave our chemists and IAU staff access to invoices that contained sufficient information about the procurement of relevant chemicals to be able to match these purchases against the destruction work at the al-Muthanna plant, resulting in what we called the material balance. Missile warheads for chemical and biological warfare had also been fully reported and destroyed. Most elements of the biological weapons program had already been uncovered by June 1995 after a brilliant search by our team of biological weapons specialists led by Spertzel and Kelly. In addition, the program was then fully comprehended as a result of Hussein Kamel’s departure and the subsequent clarification review. The missile count was not entirely straightforward because of the concealment of the unilateral destruction that had been carried out by Iraq after the high-level mission I led in 1991. It took UNSCOM’s experts years of work, excavating missile debris and engines, before we began to get a complete picture, starting with the 819 Scud missiles delivered to Iraq from the Soviet Union during the 1980s. We knew, thanks to our contacts with the United States, Israel, and Iran, how many Scud missiles were used in the Iran-Iraq War, and against Israel and Saudi Arabia during the 1990–1991 Kuwait War. However, with regard to the counting of missiles used against Iran, the calculation was a bit complicated because some medium-range Scud missiles were used as short-range weapons. To the count of these expended and fired missiles, we were able to add the missiles destroyed under UNSCOM’s control and the missiles that had been secretly destroyed in the summer of 1991 by Iraq—knowledge revealed by excavations in 1994. The final calculations became possible when Russia, in its account of missiles delivered during the Soviet era, was able to provide our experts with the serial numbers, not only for each missile body but also for engines and fuel pumps. An overall analysis was made in connection with my Baghdad visit on December 8–11, 1996, one where I had two bodyguards (Khalil plus one more person) and my usual circle, Smidovich, Scott, Platon, and Davies. The mood was different this time. Aziz offered me a cigar for the first time and called me “my friend.” Also, while on the same trip, with the help of Smidovich, we were able to present a list of eighteen missiles for which there was no final accounting. During intensive deliberations from Sunday evening to Thursday afternoon, we managed to find models for a lasting settlement. A heavy burden was laid on Rashid, who tried to explain with amazing creativity how each of the missing missiles had disappeared. This proved to be

207

Henry Arvidsson/UNSCOM

Is the Job Done?

A Scud missile prepared for destruction.

a bit difficult. I had asked Smidovich, who sat beside me across from Rashid and Aziz at the long meeting table, to signal me when Rashid’s stories became a product of his imagination, by slowly moving his head back and forth. However, Rashid noticed when Smidovich signaled to me. He interrupted and protested in an upset voice, “I can’t concentrate as long as Nikita Smidovich shakes his head.” Tariq Aziz intervened: “Ambassador Ekéus, can you please ask Nikita Smidovich not to shake his head when General Rashid gives his presentation.” I instructed Smidovich, “Do not shake your head when the general speaks,” whereupon Rashid continued with an even more imaginative description of how two heavy vehicles, each with a Scud missile, disappeared in a ditch and could not be found. Smidovich responded with a smile that lifted his well-groomed mustache up to his ears. RASHID: “I can’t continue when Nikita Smidovich is smiling at me this way!” AZIZ: “Ambassador Ekéus, can you please ask Nikita Smidovich to refrain from smiling at General Rashid.”

208

Iraq Disarmed

ME: “Nikita, please do not smile at General Rashid’s explanations.” Despite the bickering, the December talks led to a breakthrough when it came to bringing missile engines out of Iraq. It was a success for Aziz, who, despite opposition from Rashid and al-Saadi, was able to push through an agreement with me (later signed formally at the Baghdad Summit in February 1997) that covered the missile engines hidden by Iraq’s secret destruction activities during the summer of 1991. We had previously dug them up for authenticity checks, and finally after months of obstacles they were ready to be shipped to the United States, France, and Russia for closer analysis. In order to facilitate a constructive atmosphere, this time I felt obliged to accept Aziz’s repeated offers of Havana cigars. As a nonsmoker, I managed to discreetly retain the smoke in rounded cheeks without taking deep puffs. This was appreciated by Aziz, who expressed his firm hope that I would remain the chairman of the commission in the coming years. He also hoped that the personal relationship we developed over many years would be transferred to and replicated among our staff at the operational level. He also expressed the hope that I would understand his problems with the search inspections that focused on Iraq’s national security organizations, where inspectors invaded the immediate vicinity of the president, thus creating anxiety and a crisis-like mood. The end result of this entire complicated process was that the commission was able to find reasonable evidence that 817 missiles had been used or destroyed. Of Iraq’s 819 missiles procured from the Soviet Union, only two had not been fully accounted for. This is what the final tally looked like: 516 missiles used against Iran in the Iran-Iraq War, 69 used for testing and technical modification, 93 used during the 1991 Kuwait War (against Saudi Arabia and Israel), 48 destroyed by UNSCOM in 1991, 83 destroyed by Iraq in 1991 and declared in 1995, and 8 tested in the early 1980s. Of the eleven imported mobile launcher vehicles and thirteen platforms for indigenously produced launchers, all of which had avoided US attacks during the Kuwait War, six were destroyed by UNSCOM in 1991 and five (secretly) by Iraq in 1991, and all locally made platforms were destroyed/rendered harmless, except one trailer remaining uncounted for by Iraq. My overall impression of the December meeting in Baghdad was that my relations with Aziz had taken a positive turn, which was also evident in the five individual meetings we had while the experts hammered out details on the matter. However, perhaps not everything was

Is the Job Done?

209

as harmonious as I imagined. The Russian ambassador to Baghdad told me that when Aziz had visited Moscow a few weeks earlier, in a meeting with Foreign Minister Primakov, he had discussed my expected departure that would take place the following July (to become Sweden’s ambassador to the United States), saying, “No one can be worse than Ekéus,” and expressed his hope that my successor could put an end to the dossier. He also said, “Bush has left, Thatcher has left, Major has left, and now Ekéus is leaving. The only one left is Saddam Hussein.” Primakov had laughed at this and instructed his ambassador in Baghdad to tell me this story with his greetings.

Poison, Guns, and More Along with the publicity that ensued from the political controversies and the subsequent Security Council actions, there was always a measure of personal animosity directed at me. Although threats were quite frequent and rumored, in hindsight none were serious, but there were a few incidents that left their mark on me. In the fall of 1994, I was informed by the intelligence service in one of the member states that it had learned from internal contacts in the Iraqi political leadership that I would be subjected to a gradual and discreet poisoning process. They had even identified which poison was to be given to me (thallium, a kind of rat poison) when I was staying in Baghdad. As a rule, my visits to Baghdad (and Bahrain) did not last very long (three to four days per visit), although the frequency of visits during the spring and summer of 1995 intensified. I called Dick Spertzel, my most senior biological weapons expert, to find out how seriously he thought I should take this information, and what were the symptoms of thallium poisoning. He answered without hesitation and with a serious mien: “The first thing that happens is that your hair turns white!” Given that my hair prematurely turned white when I turned forty, his response was not very helpful. (I still haven’t figured out if that was his idea of a joke.) The practical consequence was that during my visits to Baghdad, I had to adhere to a diet of canned food and bottled water, during which time the commission’s doctor routinely checked my food intake and my overall health. One late Friday afternoon on a quiet summer day of 1996, I was alone in my office on the thirty-first floor of the UN headquarters. Most of the staff had left for the weekend. As I worked on my schedule for the following week, the phone rang. A group of three people from the

210

Iraq Disarmed

US Marshall’s Office and the FBI (i.e., not from the UN’s own security organization) wanted to meet me immediately. Since they were in the UN building’s entrance hall, I invited them to come up to my office. Shortly, two men and one woman arrived and immediately settled into the chairs around my desk. They had a simple but very disturbing message. They had been informed (by the CIA?) that a small group of individuals from the Middle East (Iraq?) were on their way to New York. The group had a mission, probably assigned to them by the Baghdad leadership, to murder me. It seemed strange. If they wanted me dead, it would be easier to take the opportunity when I was staying in the region, for example, in Baghdad or Bahrain. The three agents theorized that if I were killed in Baghdad, it would have political and diplomatic consequences, but my death in New York could be made to look like an accident. I asked what would happen next, what should I do? The three of them stood up and said that their mission had been limited to informing me before the weekend. A follow-up might come next week. After they left, I sat at my desk and pondered the situation for about half an hour. I did not come up with anything I could do, so I gathered my papers, took the elevator down to the entrance hall, and went out on First Avenue, which like every other late Friday afternoon in the summer was quiet and with little traffic. I looked around. No suspects were moving in the area, so I hailed a yellow cab and headed home to the apartment on the corner of 87th Street and Third Avenue, to rejoin my wife and children. I don’t remember what we did that weekend (maybe took a walk, visited the church, had Sunday lunch at a Chinese restaurant, or played tennis in Central Park), but on Monday morning it became lively, as the police and security experts arrived to investigate the strength of our front door. I firmly stated that I did not want our front door replaced with a reinforced steel one. They told me I would only have myself to blame. On the street, two limousines were waiting (to confuse a potential attacker). I was then taken in a caravan with well-armed bodyguards at a leisurely pace (adapted to the traffic lights) to the UN building at First Avenue and 42nd Street. At work, it was business as usual. In the evening I was picked up outside the office by bodyguards and returned to 87th Street, again in a limousine accompanied by an extra limousine with bodyguards. The caravan transfers to and from the UN building also continued on Tuesday. The following days I had to settle for only one car with accompanying bodyguards. On Friday, an FBI commander came to my office to tell me that they had not been able to identify any group or individual seeking to kill me. Furthermore, he said that they

Is the Job Done?

211

did not have the personnel or vehicles to continue to provide me with a security detail. But the FBI operative offered a solution. He recommended that I buy a revolver and appropriate ammunition. The FBI would help me with both weapon selection and the necessary licenses and maybe, if needed, with training. Without further thought, I declined his offer, which so beautifully illustrated the American culture’s faith in individual gun ownership. In retrospect, it strikes me as peculiar that the protection offer came from the FBI, the US government’s investigative agency, not the UN’s security apparatus. Everything seemed calm in New York. The Iraqi leadership never followed up on the direct threat, although, as I described earlier, the issue was touched upon in their internal discussions.

Demonstration According to the terms laid out in the formal exchange of letters in May 1991 between the UN and Iraq, the Iraqi government was obliged to guarantee the security of the Special Commission and its staff. On August 6, 1995, an event took place with reference to this exchange of letters that enabled me to strongly protest against the government’s neglect. I was about to depart from the Rasheed Hotel for a formal meeting with the Russian ambassador in Baghdad when several ambulances and other vehicles drove up and blocked the driveway from the hotel. A number of women and children emerged from the vehicles. Many of the women carried infants in their arms. They pushed them toward me and lifted them to my face. Several of the youngest children were obviously sick and some looked to be already dead. Together with an array of journalists and photographers, they herded me back toward the hotel entrance shouting accusations of various kinds. No attempt was made by our official Iraqi bodyguards or the hotel’s own security personnel to disperse the unruly horde of demonstrators. My colleagues and I could not leave the hotel until two hours later when the demonstrators and all blockading cars had left. As I stated in my protest to the government, it was obvious that the demonstration had been conducted with the permission and support of the authorities. Iraqi police, as well as hotel staff, could easily have helped us leave the hotel safely. This incident, which was obviously prearranged, in which the government seriously neglected its obligations to protect our group, continued to affect me deeply. I was constantly aware that the economic and social consequences of the Security Council’s sanctions mainly affected the country’s citizens,

212

Iraq Disarmed

especially its poorest, in a cruel manner. But no sanctions could be lifted until I reported to the Security Council that the weapons component of the cease-fire resolution had been implemented. I thus felt directly responsible, while at the same time aware that my mission was to effectively prevent a mass murderer from using nuclear weapons and biological and chemical weapons. And that could only happen if, going forward, I was given the opportunity to fulfill my mission.

A Spy of Our Own To accomplish its work, the commission needed information from various sources. When the commission was established, the Security Council had invited UN members to cooperate with the commission in carrying out its mission. After receiving Iraq’s declarations on relevant weapons-related material for the first two months, I sent the declarations to some sixty governments, requesting information they might possibly have on Iraq’s weapons holdings and weapons programs. The outcome was meager. Throughout my years as UNSCOM chairman, we received intelligence information on weapons programs from some thirty governments, while the number of regular intelligence providers was fewer than five. Aside from the United States, governments had little to share. One exception was Israel, which eventually began to assist with a steady stream of qualitative data. The dramatic inspection in September 1991—the so-called parking lot inspection that led to the unveiling of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program and definitely constituted a huge success—was based on US intelligence information. But within a relatively short time, we noticed the inflow of intelligence from the governments decreased. During the initial six months, UNSCOM needed information in addition to Iraq’s own declarations as a basis for inspection planning. An important source of this information was the institutional knowledge and experience that the newly recruited scientists and experts brought with them. The IAU’s hand-picked staff, trained to manage and protect sensitive data, proved to be an asset that made governments feel more inclined to share their own intelligence material. The commission’s ability to guarantee careful handling of confidential data and protection of information sources made it possible for me to create a corridor between UNSCOM and the foreign intelligence services. We did not disclose any information other than what could help them evaluate the quality of the information they provided us.

Is the Job Done?

213

Information on the foreign deliveries that had contributed to the development of Iraq’s weapons programs was almost impossible for us to access without guaranteeing the confidential handling of relevant data. All governments were keen to protect the interests of their own companies (i.e., those that had cooperated with Iraq on arms issues from international sanctions). In particular, the US administration, cheered on by Congress, was focused on foreign companies that contributed to the supply of weapons-related material to Iraq. I ended up in an arduous dialogue/correspondence with Lee Hamilton, chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, in which he questioned my policy of protecting export data. The committee sought access to these data to enforce sanctions on companies that had cooperated with Iraq and its weapons programs. Nevertheless, the outcome of the dispute with Hamilton eventually concluded with his accepting my argument, which had a strategic rather than a tactical dimension. Hamilton came to understand in retrospect the need for confidentiality in intelligence management. However, during the commission’s continuing operations, it was not uncommon for international media to accuse us of leaking information to intelligence services in the United States and other countries. I know that no such leaks occurred. Our staff took pride in their integrity and competence. Knowledge of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was closely safeguarded by UNSCOM and the IAEA Action Team for the benefit of UNSCOM and the IAU under Rachel Davies’s leadership—and in all cases was accessible only to the operatively responsible scientists and researchers. The clearest evidence for this was that toward the end of the commission’s existence, it turned out that none of the international intelligence services had any comprehensive knowledge that even began to match UNSCOM’s accumulated knowledge base. In the early days of our work, IAEA made the mistake of publishing the names of the companies that supplied products to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, after which governments almost stopped providing such information. This drastically hindered my efforts to carry out the mandate of identifying undeclared facilities for inspection. I eventually managed to persuade Blix and Zifferero to treat all intelligence material with the utmost confidentiality. We were routinely sent information from defectors, which was virtually useless for the most part and more often about politically motivated data than about factual and professional intelligence according to IAU’s assessment. It did not take long, however, for the commission to

214

Iraq Disarmed

process intelligence material received from supportive governments. That said, it turned out that the information that could yield the best results came from reports and material analytically processed by our own inspectors and experts, who as a group demonstrated scientific professionalism that no state, not even any of the world powers, could match in relation to Iraq’s WMD programs and past or ongoing activities. The IAU’s analysts, in their work to generate data for our operations, had unique access to the inspectors who were physically in Iraq. Moreover, we were able to compile all the data from inspection reports with data generated by the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft (two to three times a week)—in addition to that from helicopter flights and our own advanced photo interpretation. All this explains why UNSCOM/IAEA cracked almost all of Iraq’s weapons secrets. The difference between the intelligence gathered nationally and internationally became clear in 2003 when Secretary of State Colin Powell reported to the Security Council about Iraq’s supposed secret retention of weapons of mass destruction. Powell’s report was based on the CIA’s combined intelligence data. However, it turned out that the CIA was not even close in comparison to the insight and knowledge that UNSCOM had generated. A review following the 2003 Iraq War, conducted by the Iraq Survey Group (led first by Kay, then Duelfer), showed that the information presented by Powell was deceptively misleading. From this perspective, the Security Council’s disbandment of UNSCOM in 1999 was an almost unforgivable mistake from a historical perspective. The organization that replaced UNSCOM at the end of that year, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), lacked competence, experience, and insight in important respects, which was demonstrated by its passive role during the US/Powellian Security Council presentation in an almost devastating way. Blix, then UNMOVIC’s chief, at least had the wisdom to inform the council that UNMOVIC had neither the knowledge nor the insight about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and, therefore, recommended postponement of the military operations that would lead to the Iraq War. As early as 1996, I had decided to introduce a period of data interception operations, mainly to facilitate our efforts to detect or track the movement of prohibited material or relevant documents. Duelfer and I oversaw all the intercepts. We had some occasional successes, but the Iraqi side soon got wise to what was going on and switched to hardenciphered code and protected internal signal systems, which reduced the operational benefit of our interception. I decided to slowly phase out the interception operations.

Is the Job Done?

215

My strict rule in terms of data management was that no information about Iraq was allowed to be disclosed to governments (or the media, etc.) without a clear signal from me as UNSCOM’s chairman. The requirement of confidentiality (part of all UNSCOM employment contracts) also applied to time-sensitive information such as inspection planning. We understood that Iraq was developing a comprehensive eavesdropping system to obtain advance information on UNSCOM inspections, which were supposed to be carried out without prior notice (i.e., the so-called no-notice inspections). Our response was to limit full access to inspection information (e.g., the target site) to only the chief inspector and the operations officer. The Iraqi side could, of course, infer conclusions about our plans once they had identified the chief inspector and the skills, equipment, and technology brought in by the group of experts assigned to the operation. Something that struck me later was my staff’s loyalty and dedication to our work. They understood both the political and practical importance of strict control of all sensitive data. Almost nothing leaked. As mentioned earlier, my thirty-first-floor office and the special room used for regular commission morning meetings were regularly checked for eavesdropping equipment. All this was necessary for governments or organizations like the CIA to be comfortable with sharing their sensitive information with UNSCOM, the IAU, and me.

My American Spy However, there was a breach. It involved an American information specialist (and covert CIA agent), Col. Guy Martelle. As agreed with the Iraqi government, and as required by the Security Council resolution concerning monitoring of Iraq sites, we had installed cameras at relevant Iraqi production and research sites at the beginning of March 1996. The photos were sent directly to the BMVC, our headquarters in Baghdad. We had erected a one-hundred-meter-high mast to receive the signals from the field. But in order for the signals from distant areas to reach it, we needed relay stations built around the country that transmitted the camera image signals to BMVC. Martelle and his coworkers (two CIA employees) sent to us from Washington were responsible for building this network of relay stations. During a routine inspection of the BMVC, Wallén found a safety cabinet to which he did not have access, which was in violation of the procedures he had established. Wallén ordered Martelle’s subordinate officer to open the cabinet. He

216

Iraq Disarmed

refused. Martelle supported the refusal of his employees. Wallén reported to me in New York and I, in turn, instructed my operations manager in New York, US Air Force Commander James Moore, to order Martelle to open the cabinet. Despite the instructions from New York, Martelle refused to open it. Had the Baghdad Center been a ship, this would have been a clear case of mutiny. A senior naval officer like Wallén could handle this without any problems. He ordered UNSCOM security experts to break open the cabinet, whereupon Wallén found material showing that Martelle and his staff were in the process of connecting a parallel eavesdropping system, piggybacking on UNSCOM’s relay stations to intercept the Iraqi authorities’ internal signaling operations. The information sought by the United States included Iraqi troop movements and other military-related information, but also Saddam Hussein’s activities. Without delay, I dismissed the American spy, Martelle, and his CIA agents, who of course were sent home by Wallén. In the United States, the administration took its revenge by recalling my competent US operations manager (Moore) home without consulting with me or anyone else at UNSCOM. Moore had criticized Martelle for failing his formal assignment of building a secure system made for sending photographs to BMVC from monitored Iraqi facilities around the country. The US attempt to use UNSCOM as a cover for espionage was essentially unnecessary and useless because the manipulated relay stations were in remote areas with little security relevance. Nevertheless, the US action was politically damaging to the commission and the UN’s already difficult task of establishing stability, security, and peace in Iraq. A couple of years later, on March 2, 1999, Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman wrote an article claiming the United States used UNSCOM as a cover for spying on Iraq by connecting camera surveillance systems to our relay stations. It is not surprising that the reactions were strong. Kofi Annan himself called me to verify the story. Bruce Riedel, my special CIA contact, visited me at my office in the Swedish embassy in Washington to apologize. From Sweden, the radio show Godmorgon Världen called to interview me. On the same day, my wife Christina and I, as Sweden’s ambassador, were invited to a small black-tie dinner at President Clinton’s White House, when Albright, US secretary of state at the time, called to lament about the Martelle affair and this unfortunate act on the part of the United States. In my conversation with Albright, I politely hinted that it might be appropriate to apologize to the UN Secretary-General as well.

Is the Job Done?

217

However, it became clear that the Clinton administration did not want to go that far. The admission became just a personal message to me. When we arrived at the White House, President Clinton’s national security advisor, the always sympathetic Berger, took me aside to formally apologize on behalf of the White House for the serious mistake of trying to infiltrate UNSCOM with CIA agents. CIA director George Tenet also joined Berger with an apology from the CIA. In retrospect, the US security leadership’s actions clearly showed that the Martelle incident indeed was an exception. Moreover, the US administration perceived UNSCOM as an effective and unique tool for unearthing Iraq’s weapons secrets. In fact, many rumors and allegations have surfaced about US attempts to exploit UNSCOM as a spy organization, a viewpoint argued by Ritter. Likewise, experienced and talented writers like the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh and author Kenneth Pollack (in his book The Threatening Storm) also over-interpreted the factual events.

IAEA’s Concerns My experience from Iraq clearly showed that government intelligence material (including that gathered by the US agencies) had significant deficiencies. Nor was it free of political prejudice. Prior to the Kuwait War, awareness of Iraq’s weapons capabilities had been minimal, which, of course, also affected the IAEA’s credibility. Significantly lacking was information that should have been generated by the IAEA’s safeguard inspections under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The problem was that these inspections were only based on Iraq’s own declarations. The components of the nuclear weapons program that Iraq did not declare had, in principle, been outside the IAEA’s inspection scope. It was only in connection with the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution that formal opportunities were created to identify and inspect Iraq’s undeclared nuclear weapons capability. It was precisely the application of the unique powers conferred upon me by the Security Council as executive chairman of the Special Commission—namely, to designate undeclared inspection facilities—that opened up real opportunities to reveal Iraq’s secret nuclear program. When the scale of Iraq’s nuclear weapons activities became known, international criticism, especially from Washington, was fierce against the IAEA and was even seen as a threat to their continued existence as

218

Iraq Disarmed

an organization. The question was asked how the IAEA could have overlooked the development of Iraq’s undeclared, unreported nuclear program. The IAEA reacted by acknowledging its shortcomings and initiating an internal self-examination. According to Mohamed ElBaradei, then the IAEA head of external relations (and Blix’s prospective successor), Blix had tried to implement a Model Additional Protocol, so NPT states parties could give IAEA inspectors greater access to information and facilities for searching for undeclared nuclear material. He was not successful. It was only when ElBaradei succeeded in pressing the issue that it was brought under the direct responsibility of the IAEA member states to draw up a functioning protocol for inspection rights. Finally, in May 1997, the IAEA board of governors adopted an additional protocol for enhanced inspection rights in those countries that were willing to sign the protocol. A significant number of NPT states parties eventually adopted the protocol. Consequently, the IAEA was able to improve its inspection procedures significantly in comparison with the pre-1991 system in Iraq. Overall, UNSCOM’s cooperation with the IAEA was rewarding and successful, although at times, and especially during the first year, there was some friction. But thanks to the good personal relationship between Blix and me, we were able to jointly work out all problems that arose. However, the attitude within the IAEA toward me and my colleagues from time to time was a bit chilly. The fact that I occasionally ended up in the crossfire was a consequence of my mission to identify weaponssuspected facilities and then to direct the IAEA Action Team to conduct difficult and sometimes dangerous inspections. On one such occasion, I and my Finnish friend, Olli Heinonen, one of the IAEA’s leading nuclear material specialists, traveled by air from Bahrain to Vienna. We were seated next to one another on the flight and conversed pleasantly in Swedish about different topics we had in common. Heinonen’s colleagues from the IAEA were also on the same flight. Under his leadership, they had just conducted inspections of facilities in Iraq that I had chosen. A few years later, Heinonen told me that his colleagues banished him for a month once they were back in Vienna because he had been so lively, happy, and friendly to me on that trip. Both Blix and ElBaradei went on to criticize my inspectors in their respective memoirs for having been too aggressive in their investigative pursuits, that is, that they acted like “cowboys.” Personally, knowing these inspectors as I did, these were absurd accusations. My inspectors, as I mentioned before, were mostly middle-aged, professional scientists (men and women), and experienced laboratory managers with quiet and calm dispositions. Perhaps they had high energy: the proactive Ritter and

Is the Job Done?

219

his tireless (at times, intrusive) hunt for documents comes to mind. After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, ElBaradei, normally sympathetic and understanding, wrote in his otherwise excellent book The Age of Deception that UNSCOM had on several occasions ignored Iraq’s religious and culturally sensitive mores. This was an unfair and completely inaccurate statement. Because I alone had the authority to designate and identify facilities in Iraq for inspection, declared by Iraq or not, I was well aware and knowledgeable of all UNSCOM inspections. At no time had my inspectors violated the rule of not entering mosques or other religiously sensitive premises. On one occasion (June 18, 1997), IAEA inspectors, not UNSCOM’s, entered two mosques, something IAEA had to recognize was a mistake by admitting it to the president of the Security Council.

The Last Term of 1997 On January 16, 1997, my first formal meeting took place with the UN’s newly appointed Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whom I had known as a friend for several years. The Secretary-General welcomed me and said he was hopeful that relations between the commission and Iraq, despite all conflicts, could be maintained in good diplomatic order. I pointed out that Iraq’s criticism was mainly directed at me and Duelfer, while our experts and researchers largely escaped being targets of psychological warfare by the Iraqi media. I informed the Secretary-General that the commission’s operational staff then numbered around 150, of which 50 were employed at the New York headquarters and just under 100 at the BMVC, with another small number at the Bahrain Regional Center. Noteworthy was that the government of Chile alone bore the significant cost of the commission’s extensive helicopter operations with five helicopters in Iraq, while the United States paid for the high-altitude U-2 operations over Iraq from a base in Saudi Arabia. None of the commission’s costs during the entire period of operation had impacted the UN budget. In addition, since only recently the operating costs had been covered by the oil-forfood program. When the Secretary-General asked me if I had noted any changes in the Security Council’s position, I said that in the past when informed of obstacles to any of UNSCOM’s search operations, the Security Council had reacted strongly, using threatening language to demand that Iraq rectify its actions, whereas more recently, the council was satisfied with merely “reminding” Iraq of its obligations. On the other hand, with

220

Iraq Disarmed

respect to all the issues I presented, the council remained firmly united in its stance. Even Iraq’s Ambassador Hamdoon, surprised by the recent and somewhat soft language of the Security Council, had reminded me that it was necessary to express the severity of the situation to achieve any results. Kofi Annan noted that Hamdoon’s comment was “absolutely fascinating.” My last spring term (1997) as UNSCOM chairman, not unexpectedly, was characterized by growing disagreement between the major powers as to how paragraph 22 of the cease-fire resolution on the lifting of the oil embargo should be interpreted. Newly appointed Secretary of State Albright’s neocon-inspired declaration that sanctions in the form of a ban on imports from Iraq of oil and gas could not be lifted until Saddam Hussein was removed from power (the Saddam clause) not surprisingly undermined Iraq’s willingness to cooperate with UNSCOM. At the same time, a loss of support for UNSCOM from Russia and France (who had significant financial interests in lifting the embargo) put our work at risk. To get a grip on the US position, on January 9, I visited Berger in his large, bright corner room in the White House’s West Wing, where I had many exciting and inspiring meetings over the years with the two brilliant security policy thinkers, Scowcroft and Lake. I reminded Berger and his colleagues (Parris, Grummon, and Samore) that the commission and the IAEA had succeeded in eliminating the vast majority of Iraq’s banned weapons and weapons systems, and that we also had a well-functioning on-site system for monitoring Iraq’s potential dual-use production capabilities. The question now was why Saddam Hussein so stubbornly kept these limited remnants of the weapons programs secret and blocked search operations that could have unequivocally straightened out the remaining question marks, costing perhaps $100 billion in oil revenues since 1991 as a result of the UN sanctions. Berger answered by telling the story of the scorpion and the crocodile that crossed the river: “A crocodile was swimming across a river with a scorpion sitting on its back. When they reached halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the crocodile. Before drowning, the crocodile asked the scorpion why he had stung him, thereby sentencing them both to death. The scorpion responded that it did so because it was just that, a scorpion.” My intention in visiting the White House was to secure continued US political support for the commission for the coming year, something Berger firmly promised; he said he could speak for Albright and Lake (his former chief, the prospective head of the US intelligence service).

Is the Job Done?

221

(Lake never became CIA chief because Republicans in the US Congress refused to confirm him.) In response to Berger questioning me about France’s position, I replied that it was clear that France thought it was high time to lift the oil embargo and stimulate the Iraqi economy. I pointed out that French support for UNSCOM had been constructive in dealing with the tricky issue of removing missile engines from Iraq’s territory for analysis by outside experts. That issue was now basically resolved after my December 1996 visit to Baghdad. To ensure continued Russian support, I visited Moscow in February 1997, accompanied by Zlauvinen, Davies, and Scott, for a series of talks with Russian political figures and scientific experts. Particularly positive were the discussions with Yevgeny Primakov, who had by then been promoted from the post of intelligence chief to be the foreign minister. He was also one of the few international personalities who had a working personal relationship with Saddam Hussein. Initially, Primakov wondered if I supported Albright’s desire to oust Saddam Hussein through an international campaign. Not only did I firmly state that I did not support her position, but I also expressed my hope that Saddam would understand the importance of prioritizing financial relief for the Iraqi people (through the implementation of paragraph 22) instead of insisting on secrecy with respect to weapons of mass destruction. Although he agreed with me, Primakov questioned whether Saddam valued the fear that his rumored weapon holdings spread in the region even more. Primakov told me that Iraq owed Russia $8 billion for prior arms exports, which explained why Moscow so eagerly awaited the lifting of the oil embargo; it wanted to get paid. Regarding the previous fall’s repeated obstruction of UNSCOM’s search inspections, Primakov wondered if I really thought Saddam was concealing weapons components in his palaces. I replied that it would be unorthodox, unwise, and dangerous. I told him that I had made it clear to Aziz when we met to discuss inspection arrangements that I did not intend to inspect the presidential palaces. I reminded him that our searches were not focused on weapons components at the time and that we were looking for documents as part of an effort to gain ultimate clarity in the connection between Iraqi weapons procurement and the inspections’ findings. To this, Primakov commented that waiting for statistical clarity would be like waiting for Christ’s return to earth. In addition, he thought it would be easier to control Saddam Hussein if he could be kept busy with international oil trading. Russia’s embarrassing sale of its gyroscopes from Russian missile systems that had been procured in Moscow by an Iraqi agent the year

222

Iraq Disarmed

before was under investigation by Russian authorities. Primakov was aware that this deal had undermined the credibility of Iraq’s claims that its disarmament commitments had been fulfilled. The Russian internal investigation, Primakov confided, needed direct physical access to the other smuggled gyroscopes seized by our inspectors. I promised to send to Moscow a couple of the gyroscopes that we fished out of the Tigris River. Later in the conversation, Primakov said he would like to see more Russian scientists and experts at key positions in the commission. I remarked that we had two brilliant Russian employees: Smidovich, who was responsible for the missile issues and all planning for the biological weapons issues, and Igor Mitrokhin, who had overall responsibility for the comprehensive chemical weapons program. I added that I would welcome a Russian nuclear weapons specialist. Primakov promised to consider the matter.

Daily Inspection Problems After the troublesome missile investigation issue was resolved in December 1996/January 1997, I was forced to conduct a series of meetings in Baghdad in the spring of 1997 to deal with repeated incidents that complicated the commission’s inspection activities. Although the political relevance of those discussions was not overwhelming, they do reflect the daily struggles in Baghdad for the commission staff and the center’s director (Wallén). At one meeting in Baghdad, Rashid and his closest associate, Amin, complained that the commission’s chief inspectors were too aggressive during the inspections, giving insufficient notice to the Iraqi authorities. They also complained about the size of the groups of inspectors and inspections carried out on Fridays, considered a sacred day of worship in Islam. I explained that I had increased the number of inspectors (ten to twelve, up from four or five participants before) to be able to divide the inspection assignment into two separate operations and complete the task more quickly. As for the Friday inspections, I could not eliminate them but would try to reduce their number in response to Iraq’s request. Rashid further argued that it would be better if the head of the BMVC in Baghdad would act as a counterpart to Iraq’s monitoring directorate when problems arose during an inspection rather than the respective head of the various inspection groups. Iraqi personnel had confidence in Wallén’s

Is the Job Done?

223

calm judgment and ability to deal with disputes. I made it clear that the head of each inspection group would routinely be responsible for the conduct of their inspectors and contact with their Iraqi counterpart, even when difficulties occurred. Only if specific complications arose would the problem be passed to Wallén, who could deal directly with their head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate (Hossam Amin). Rashid also complained that the inspections started too early in the morning with only half an hour’s warning, which I did not address. Regarding helicopter flights, Rashid noted that some operations covered unreasonably large areas. Some flights had covered areas corresponding to one-fifth of Iraq’s territory, which accounted for half of the country’s inhabited areas. Wallén commented that, according to UNSCOM rules, the helicopter pilot alone commanded the flight and the accompanying Iraqi pilot would only serve as an advisor. Rashid insisted that the Iraqi pilot had the better knowledge of the situation. I replied that our pilots were happy to listen to advisors, without relinquishing their primary responsibility for the flight. Rashid objected that UNSCOM’s pilots must follow ground control, and that it was the Iraqi pilot who knew best where the air defenses were on the ground. He insisted that the UNSCOM pilot should follow the Iraqi advisory pilot’s instructions and, if justified, complain after the flight. Wallén explained that information about helicopter flight plans was submitted to the Iraqi Authority from the BMVC well in advance of the start of the operation, and that Iraq was required to give orders to all Iraqi defense units to stand down at least one hour before the flight originated. Therefore, the commission’s flights should not give rise to any air defense activities. Rashid responded to this by declaring that Iraq’s sensitive air defense positions could not be silenced, to which I pointed out that Iraq had, in any event, a security responsibility wherever its air defenses were stationed. Following this exchange of views, Aziz, who had been quietly smoking his cigar, intervened in the somewhat heated discussion, recalling that the commission had conducted over 2,000 helicopter flights over Iraq without a single one being shot down, something that I should appreciate. I did not acknowledge his remark.

11 Say Goodbye to the Weapons

M Y LAST FORMAL REPORTING TO THE S ECURITY C OUNCIL TOOK place on April 18, 1997. It was based on a comprehensive written report, most of which I presented orally. I pointed out that Iraq’s policy on weapons issues was initially characterized by systematically withholding information, issuing denials, and obscuring the facts. With these challenges in mind, the commission had resorted to innovative and creative inspections that were planned, organized, and implemented in a way that overcame Iraq’s countermeasures. The commission had produced results by integrating an analytical methodology with advanced technology and science. The system had ultimately revealed a complete Iraqi program for the development and production of biological weapons, a sophisticated operation for producing the extremely toxic nerve gas VX, and a complex operation for developing and producing missile engines based on the Russian Scud model. As a result of our work, the commission, in close cooperation with international weapons experts, had come to the conclusion that Iraq’s chemical weapons, including the equipment for the production of the VX, could be neutralized and eliminated. The commission had a complete list of the chemical equipment, chemicals, and weapons components to be destroyed. The commission was also in the process of identifying Iraq’s previous international procurement of chemical precursors. There was considerable evidence that the situation was largely under control.

225

226

Iraq Disarmed

Regarding biological weapons, Iraq’s declarations still contained significant deficiencies. In a departure from the normal process, Aziz had agreed to allow the commission’s experts to participate in the preparation of Iraq’s declarations. We had ample evidence that Iraq had produced anthrax, botulinum, and other biological toxins, such as aflatoxin, which Iraq claimed had been secretly destroyed. However, we had not uncovered sufficient evidence of their destruction. The quantities declared were significantly smaller than what our experts estimated. However, this did not necessarily mean that Iraq was deliberately seeking to mislead the commission. Finally, the advanced biological weapons production plant, al-Hakam, had been destroyed under UNSCOM’s supervision (and in my presence). As to the stock of missiles, the commission had verified the destruction or use of 817 of the 819 Scud missiles procured by Iraq during the 1980s in the Soviet Union, leaving only two missiles unaccounted for. UNSCOM’s verification of Iraq’s secret destruction had involved time-consuming searches and analysis. After an arduous process, exacerbated by unrelenting resistance from Iraq, the commission had established an inventory of warheads by sending several missile engines and parts to laboratories in the United States, Russia, and France for analysis. In regard to our monitoring of Iraq’s capability to acquire prohibited weapons, our experts, in accordance with Council Resolution 715, were conducting regular monitoring inspections of Iraq’s approximately 300 high-tech facilities, weapons factories, and laboratories. In conclusion, I reminded the council of the successful and quickly established export-import monitoring mechanism that I had ordered prepared for the eventual lifting of financial sanctions and the oil embargo. In Resolution 1051 dated March 27, 1996, the Security Council adopted an export-import monitoring mechanism prepared by my UNSCOM experts, which enabled the commission and the IAEA to closely monitor all trade to and from Iraq bearing a possible relationship to weapons production (the so-called dual-use). In simple terms, this meant that all states were required to report to UNSCOM any exports to Iraq of materials that could have a potential relevance to the production of prohibited weapons. Moreover, Iraq had the corresponding accounting responsibility for its imports. In the commission, a special unit had been established within the framework of the IAU to manage and analyze these data. Following my presentation, several council members raised concerns and questions. Inderfurth (who was representing the United States

Say Goodbye to the Weapons

227

until Albright’s official successor was appointed) blamed Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi military for the disruptions and incidents involving the commission’s aviation activities. He stated that UNSCOM would not be able to finish its work until they cooperated. He concluded with positive reviews of my work and paid special tribute to Wallén, who was about to step down as head of the BMVC, saying he had done an outstanding job in Baghdad. Lavrov (Russia) also raised a question about the helicopter incidents. I reported that the Iraqi copilots on two occasions tried to take control of the helicopter, which put the pilots in grave danger and violated all the safety rules in place. Moreover, on two occasions, Iraq had threatened to shoot down our helicopters. In addition, the Iraqi military had repeatedly refused to allow helicopter flights over certain areas that Iraq labeled “important.” Lavrov said the commission had the full support of the Russian government. In particular, he appreciated the progress regarding potential prohibited weapons production. He noted that it was an example of how difficult problems could be solved through personal contacts with Iraq, which he hoped would continue. He also agreed with me that Iraq most likely had not fully disclosed all the banned material and that the disarmament process could not be declared complete. He could not decide whether or not the Iraqi leadership made the necessary political decisions, as I argued in my report to the council. It was enough, Lavrov thought, if the commission could report that the monitoring system was working and that all prohibited material had been destroyed. Political decisions would then only be an abstraction. Lavrov wanted me to give an account of what was complete and what remained to be resolved. What did I think? For example, was a single missile with a warhead a big threat? Would the existence of a single such weapon prevent the commission from declaring that the work had been completed? Lavrov had noted that I had said previously that Iraq was no longer a threat to the region. Did I think Iraq was a threat now? Had I changed my mind? Lavrov claimed that Iraq did not block the analysis of the excavated missile engines. Iraq merely wanted to discuss where these items should be sent for analysis. Adding that my assessment was unfair, he asked how many of these disruptions were there, and how much harm did they really cause? Regarding missing information on suppliers to Iraq’s banned programs, it was not Iraq that should be liable. If certain supplier countries failed to cooperate with the commission, the Security Council should address their lack of cooperation with those countries.

228

Iraq Disarmed

Lavrov also criticized the IAEA for continuing to claim that Iraq had an undeclared nuclear capability, now that the monitoring system and export-import program were in place. If the IAEA had a reason for not putting an end to Iraq’s ordeal, it should report it to the Security Council. Lavrov ended his intervention by reaffirming Moscow’s firm support for the commission and hoping for its continued influence on Baghdad to cooperate. Lavrov finally congratulated me on my new assignment (as Sweden’s ambassador to Washington) while regretting my departure from the commission. Egypt’s Elaraby, who spoke on behalf of the Arab states and the nonaligned states, expressed support for me and my work as chairman of the commission. Regarding the monitoring inspections, he noted that the problems were of a limited nature and that it was impressive that 300 dual-use facilities in Iraq were under monitoring. He understood that in the day-to-day work there were many confrontations between UNSCOM and Iraq, but he noted with satisfaction that I had refrained from complaining about any and every minor issue to the council. Regarding weapons supplies, Elaraby noted that a number of governments failed to report to the commission as they should have. Iraq claimed to encourage all states to cooperate, but if this was not the case, the council should be informed and on its own initiative invite all states to report to UNSCOM their supplies of weapons components and relevant technology to Iraq over the years. In his remarks, Weston (UK) observed that the commission believed Iraq had not decided to cooperate on matters of substance. It was unclear whether Iraq still possessed banned weapons and related equipment. Iraq continued to lie, and it would only cease when confronted by the commission. He supported my statement that even a small number of weapons could pose a major threat. Therefore, all weapons of mass destruction must be eliminated. In conclusion, Weston also praised Wallén’s skill and leadership over the commission’s operations in Baghdad. China’s Ambassador Wang hoped that my departure as chairman would not affect the commission’s work. He had carefully studied my report and was pleased to note that results were achieved, thanks to contacts at both the political and technical levels. Dejammet (France) praised me and my staff, noting that I, as the UNSCOM chairman, highlighted cooperation with Iraq and that this led to progress, even if my report did not answer every single question. Dejammet went on to say that the scope of the biological weapons program had not been fully clarified, while he noted the improved climate

Say Goodbye to the Weapons

229

as a result of my enormous efforts to create better relations between the commission and Iraq. My regular meetings with Aziz were excellent and encouraging. Like his Egyptian and Russian colleagues, Dejammet was disturbed by the lack of information from many states about technical deliveries to Iraq, as not all governments had reported what they knew. This could prevent paragraph 22 (the lifting of the oil embargo) from being implemented. France appreciated my stubborn efforts to achieve results in accordance with the cease-fire resolution. In my responses and comments, I mentioned two important points. First, Iraq had not fully disclosed all its banned weapons capabilities. That was a fact. Second, Iraq knew quite well what steps needed to be taken, all of which were feasible. But Iraq had not taken the necessary decisions. Aziz’s statement on cooperation did not reflect the political decisions I had called for. Of Iraq’s weapons technology, 90 percent had come from abroad, which is why it was important for Iraq to have reported all this material, which it had not done. Likewise, it was important that the supplier countries also inform the commission of their exports to Iraq. UNSCOM had found hundreds of items that could be usable in weapons production that Iraq did not declare in accordance with the rules of the monitoring plan. Nevertheless, UNSCOM’s scientists and experts had, in fact, a full grasp of what remained of the banned materials. I was thus able to declare that Iraq was essentially disarmed in accordance with the ceasefire resolution. Moreover, with the monitoring system up and running, the Security Council resolutions had been implemented.

More About Helicopters and Stopped Inspections Oddly enough, even though the Security Council members had reacted strongly to Iraq’s disruption of the commission’s helicopter operations at my meeting with them in April 1997, Iraq engaged in even more violent and disturbing attacks in the ensuing months. On June 4, the commission’s chief inspector and photographer were physically attacked in their helicopter that circled a facility during inspection. (The attackers—Iraqi personnel on board—tried to shut off the fuel pump.) On June 5, the Iraqi accompanying pilot seized the helicopter joystick, forcing the commission’s pilot to cancel the mission and return to base. On June 7, two more incidents occurred. An Iraqi escort helicopter placed itself in front of the UNSCOM helicopter at the same time as the accompanying Iraqi pilot stamped violently on the

230

Iraq Disarmed

accelerator pedal of the UNSCOM helicopter, almost causing a collision. On the same day, an Iraqi helicopter flew near and obliquely above one of our helicopters, leaving just two meters between the two choppers’ rotors. I made it clear in a letter to Aziz that the commission would not allow any Iraqi personnel who had tried to sabotage flights to reboard our helicopters as Iraq’s actions risked the lives of our staff and constituted a serious obstruction of UNSCOM’s inspection activities. At the same time, I sent a letter to the president of the Security Council (Lavrov), who convened the council on June 11. The Security Council responded to my presentation of the helicopter events with a strong condemnation of Iraq’s actions. I was never able to find out why Iraq took these clumsy and dangerous measures at that stage of disarmament in June 1997, when the possibility of a serious discussion in the Security Council on sanctions relief was still on the table.

The Last Security Council Meeting Although I gave my last routine report to the Security Council on April 18, my final appearance as executive chairman was June 18, 1997, two months later. It marked the last of over 150 occasions when I addressed the Security Council members in the dark, cramped room, large enough for only two representatives from each of the fifteen delegations, plus a handful of assistants to the Secretary-General. The group gathered in a cloud of cigarette smoke in a building where the antismoking campaign was in full swing, despite opposition from numerous delegates, including Lavrov. In that final report, I pointed out that it was now essentially clear that Iraq, and especially the Republican Guard, had been busy destroying documents and technical documentation regarding the weapons programs. An inspection in early June, the last of its kind that I authorized, had been stopped, even though the inspection modalities established by me with the right to immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to facilities to inspect had been applied. I reported to the Security Council that my aim before stepping down as executive chairman was to find certain documentation that was missing from Hussein Kamel’s chicken farm: specifically, manufacturing manuals for weapons of mass destruction and data on foreign suppliers. By blocking the inspection, Aziz and Iraq had clearly violated our joint statement signed in June 1996. My ambition to bring Iraq back into the fold of the international community

Say Goodbye to the Weapons

231

may not have been entirely successful; nevertheless, it had been my sincere hope that my final report would be positive. A negative report would be the worst outcome for the Iraqi people. Back in June 1996, when I declared that UNSCOM had no intention of inspecting the four presidential palaces, it was not a blanket reference to all presidential areas, which of course would be inspected if deemed appropriate. In addition, we had access to air surveillance with our U-2 plane and helicopters. I deemed it highly improbable that President Saddam Hussein would store weapons of mass destruction and components in his private residences. This did not prevent my successors from trying to enter the presidential palaces, an action that yielded no results. Newly appointed US ambassador Bill Richardson (Albright’s successor) unequivocally expressed support for the commission and our work. Ambassador Dejammet stressed that the burden of proof of additional prohibited weapons fell to the commission. He said that while France fully supported UNSCOM, it was the job of the Security Council to live up to its commitment to ease the sanctions if, as it seemed, all prohibited weapons capabilities were eliminated. At this point, Lavrov asked me, “Are Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction still a threat in the Middle East?” I explained that there were some uncertainties, and that Iraq was trying to maintain some level of capability to produce weapons in the future by holding onto manufacturing manuals and lists of international suppliers; but as there were no chemical or biological weapons, nuclear weapons, or missiles found, it was highly unlikely that they had any in their possession. In summary, such a threat simply did not exist. When I said goodbye to the Security Council ambassadors, I was struck by how vital it had been over the past six years to keep the council unified and united in its support for the Special Commission and its historically important mission to create lasting stability and peace by completely dismantling weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. For me, it had been an all-out effort to prevent any use of force. That I had been involved in developments that led to three major missile attacks against Iraq that resulted in several innocent civilian victims was a fact that haunted me. My only consolation was that I had used every conceivable diplomatic means to avoid violence, especially during my last year as executive chairman. The joint statement signed in June 1996, while the US plan to attack loomed like a dark cloud over our heads, is perhaps the best example. The modalities for the inspection of sensitive sites, with all their shortcomings, determined that the feared use of force was not needed. On the other hand, personal criticism of me became exacerbated, not only from

232

Iraq Disarmed

some US and British politicians but also from Richard Butler, my successor as UNSCOM’s executive chairman. During this final encounter with the Security Council, I noted with pride that my diplomatic efforts to ensure unity in the Security Council’s support of UNSCOM had succeeded, despite continuous efforts by Iraq to fracture it. This was all the more remarkable because we were constantly working under the threat of conflict, war, and air strikes, wrapped in endless accusations. Proof of our success was that the Security Council during my time at UNSCOM adopted ten resolutions, all unanimously, without a single delegation abstaining. Furthermore, the council had adopted thirty-one substantive statements, without any council member ever deviating from the joint decision. It was precisely that agreement in the support of UNSCOM that enabled the Special Commission, in cooperation with the IAEA, to carry out its mission.

The Assignment Ends My family and I saw the Swedish government’s offer for me to take on the assignment as Sweden’s ambassador to Washington from July 1, 1997, as a welcome opportunity to see each other more after over six years of seven-day work weeks, under constant media pressure and growing security threats. When the Swedish government confirmed my posting to Washington, I informed Tariq Aziz in a private call that I would resign on July 1, 1997. He responded by appealing to me to reconsider my decision. Our personal cooperation was central and an important factor in our efforts to find workable solutions to the remaining problems related to the weapons issues. I admitted that I believed that the unanswered questions and outstanding technical issues would have been resolved within a year. I even went as far as to hint that I felt a certain degree of envy toward my successor, who would have the opportunity to internationally announce such an important accomplishment. Iraqi media, on the other hand, unlike Aziz, did not rue my departure. The official newspaper al-Qadisiyya wrote on the occasion of my announced departure that “Ekéus leaves without any regrets, but Iraq remains. All those who have misled international opinion and threatened Iraq and its leadership will be marginalized by history. Ekéus’s hands are not clean. He has dug a gap between Iraq and the United Nations on behalf of his master in the White House.”

Say Goodbye to the Weapons

233

I informed Secretary-General Kofi Annan of my decision to leave UNSCOM. I recommended Australia’s UN ambassador Richard Butler, with whom I had worked for many years in the field of disarmament, as an ideal candidate to replace me. We had both been ambassadors of our respective countries at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament, and as delegates in the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament successfully coordinated our countries’ initiatives in establishing a Nuclear Test Ban Prohibition and on issues such as a nuclear winter. In addition, we had participated in the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, which, in my opinion, managed to formulate the internationally most qualified and wellresearched study of the subject. Although Albright and Elaraby advised against it, Kofi Annan followed my advice. But in his memoirs, Annan wrote that the appointment of Butler was a colossal mistake and the worst appointment he ever made. Although Annan praised me in his book for having succeeded in destroying large quantities of prohibited weapons and at the same time retaining the confidence of the Security Council, it was noted that he found it difficult to forgive me for recommending Butler. I was a bit surprised and somewhat worried when Butler declined my offer of consultation during the transition of leadership. Of course, this should not be unexpected, as a new entrant often wants to avoid his predecessor’s comments and advice. In this case, it was for the best because it turned out that we had completely different views on the assignment and on the work process. In Jean Krasno and James Sutterlin’s serious and professional book The United Nations and Iraq: Defanging the Viper, they describe our different ways of working. My method is characterized as firmly dressed in diplomatic language and close consultations with members of the Security Council and with other influential groups within the UN, preserving the independence of UNSCOM and its chairman as responsible only to the Security Council; moreover, I was prepared to compromise with Iraq if necessary, without abandoning UNSCOM’s mandate and privileges under relevant Security Council resolutions. Butler’s method was more confrontational, fierce, and aggressive toward the Iraqis with little contact with Security Council members, except for the United States. Butler preferred to challenge Iraq over UNSCOM’s right to win a principled victory, which unfortunately became a pyrrhic victory, unlike my method of seeking diplomatic compromises. Butler also involved the media to a higher degree.

234

Iraq Disarmed

Profile of a Leader I received a positive long-term evaluation of my working methods in 2012 when the United Nations published its UN management handbook, Profile of a Leader. In the chapter on leadership, the UN gave just two examples of a “leadership profile in the UN.” One was of Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello, who was named United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He was temporarily assigned to lead the UN mission in Iraq after the 2003 war, where tragically he was murdered in a terrorist attack. The other leadership profile was of me. The UN handbook stated, Early in May 1991, in the aftermath of the Iraq-Kuwait war, a discreet Swedish diplomat, Ambassador Rolf Ekéus, arrived in New York. At the request of the Security Council, he had agreed to take on the position of Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). His job was to direct the destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and to take the necessary steps to prevent Iraq from rebuilding its arsenal. Never before had an armed conflict ended with a mandate for a civilian organization to dismantle the weapon infrastructure of a sovereign country. Ambassador Ekéus had no precedent or best practices to follow. He also had no budget to speak of. SCR 687, which established the commission, demanded that Iraq finance the cost of the destruction of its weapons arsenal. Iraq was not a willing partner, neither in disclosing its weapons program, nor in the idea of covering the cost of its destruction. The only asset Ambassador Ekéus had at his disposal was a resolution that gave him the authority to decide where, when, and what he wanted to inspect in Iraq. Within days of his arrival in New York, to everyone’s amazement, inspection teams were zooming in and out of Iraq, crisscrossing the country to implement Ambassador Ekéus’s vision of how to ensure that Iraq disposed of its WMDs. Member states were knocking at the door of his office ready to provide air assets, equipment, and technical experts. Information agencies were opening their top-secret files on Iraq weapons programs to him. Ambassador Ekéus was a natural-born leader, and this is how some of his former inspectors and staff remember him. “His door was always open and there was no hierarchy to speak of in the commission. Anyone, whatever their position, could attend the daily 9:30am meeting where he got a briefing on the status of inspections in Iraq, and would tell us very openly about his meetings with foreign ministries and ambassadors. This allowed us to understand the political context of what we were doing,” explained one of his former staff. “He could get upset for little things but never, never stressed on the big issues. Some of these inspections brought us to the brink of

Say Goodbye to the Weapons

235

armed confrontations. If he was nervous, he kept his nerves to himself. I knew that I could call him 24/7, and I did more than once. He never complained.” “He had no problem confronting the Iraqis or taking on any of the members of the Security Council. Some liked him, but some clearly didn’t. It didn’t matter to him. He never took it personally. But he couldn’t manage any conflicts between the inspectors. And there were many, especially in the mid-’90s when there was little progress. To deal with issues like that, he designated one of the staff he trusted as deputy director of operations. It was his way to get away from dayto-day problems.” “He also knew when to change course. By 1997, there was no real progress, and the political climate had shifted. He had given it his best shot and realized it was time to move on. Looking back at the way he projected himself and the commission, people assumed that we had thousands of inspectors in Iraq. In fact, most of our intrusive inspections had at most fifty people.”

When I read this description, I think of two things that are missing. The first is found in the report on operations from April 1991 to July 1997, namely, we now know that during that time, from a militarily significant perspective, all weapons of mass destruction and related capabilities were identified and destroyed either by Iraq in secret or under the supervision of the Special Commission in collaboration with the IAEA Action Team. Even when Iraq destroyed some of its proscribed weapons in secret, it did so under the mounting pressure of UNSCOM’s painstaking investigations. Second, it should be noted that upon my departure, a fully functioning monitoring system was in place with inspections of existing dual-use production capabilities in Iraq. In addition, an export-import mechanism under UNSCOM’s management enabled sanctions relief. Furthermore, after the Iraq War, the US official investigation into Iraq’s remaining weapons capabilities, conducted from 2003 to 2004 by the Duelfer-led Iraq Survey Group, formally confirmed UNSCOM’s mission had been accomplished as early as 1997.

12 On the Path to Disaster

AFTER LEAVING MY POSITION AS UNSCOM’S EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, I couldn’t resist the temptation to follow the drama. As Sweden’s ambassador in Washington, I continued to keep close contact with the main actors, including Albright. I also had access to the reports from the Swedish UN delegation under Hans Dahlgren’s leadership on the Security Council starting January 1, 1997, as well as continued contact with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, with whom I had a close personal relationship. What ensued was a series of crises for UNSCOM under Butler’s leadership, which eventually led to an embarrassing setback for the UN and, worse, a tragedy for Iraq and its people. From my position in Washington, I followed the events as an onlooker, no longer as someone living the whole debacle and its dramatic development. Although I believed the commission had been successful by the time I left, I had some residual concern about Iraq’s potential ability to produce new weapons. That said, it was reasonable to expect that this would be prevented by the commission’s monitoring system with their on-site inspections and the fully operational BMVC. All that remained for UNSCOM to accomplish under Butler was to obtain any remaining documentation pertaining to weapon technology and international procurement, thus effectively preventing future development or purchase of weapons of mass destruction.

237

238

Iraq Disarmed

For Iraq, it should have been an obvious choice to hand over all such material at this point. When they did not, their behavior was interpreted as some form of preparation for future weapons production and procurement. That is why I had commenced concealment inspections in 1996 with the objective of finding and eliminating the documentation that Iraq so stubbornly withheld. During the initial search inspections, led by Smidovich and Ritter, we had learned that the material for which were looking was stored with Iraq’s security organizations, especially the Republican Guard, which resulted in it being inaccessible in principle, given their role in protecting the president. Even the June 1996 inspection modalities were not enough to give inspectors access. As mentioned, I had invited Butler to systematically go through all aspects with me in order to orient himself in preparation for taking over the commission’s leadership on July 1, but he was always “too busy” or hard to reach. It had been my intention to discourage Butler from continuing the search inspections (or at least downgrade their importance). The fundamental problem with these inspections was that they did not reflect the basic principles of Resolution 687, namely, that it would be Iraq’s responsibility to declare and bring forward its prohibited weapons to be eliminated under the commission’s supervision, which the latter would then announce had happened. It was not the commission’s job to prove that Iraq had failed to disarm the weapons, but it was Iraq’s burden to prove that it had, in fact, disarmed them. For the inspectors to try to gain access to the security organizations that were responsible for Saddam Hussein’s personal security would be problematic. It was understandable, especially from the Iraqi side, that intrusive inspections in close proximity to the president’s own security apparatus would be a highly disquieting concern—one I had tried to neutralize with my inspection arrangements. In addition, Iraqi security organizations were well aware of UNSCOM’s ambitions and certainly able to conceal any weapons components well in advance of the inspectors’ arrival, which would make the entire exercise pointless. It was the experience of the unsuccessful search operations designated UNSCOM 150 and 155 that led me to try to discourage my successor from continuing this type of inspection. To my disappointment, Butler did not follow my advice in this regard. He also tried, perhaps at Duelfer’s request, to distance himself as soon as possible from my operational models, in particular, the sensitive-site inspection arrangements. In his first meeting with Aziz in Baghdad, Butler promised that he would maintain scientific and technical objectivity, and that as soon as

On the Path to Disaster

239

he had total proof, he would declare Iraq disarmed. Encouraged by Ritter, Butler tried and failed to carry out a search inspection of Iraq’s security headquarters in October 1997. Butler hoped to convince the Security Council to cancel the inspection arrangements that I had hammered out with Aziz in 1996—an impossible task since it had received support from all of the council’s members, except the United States and United Kingdom. Butler argued before the council that my modalities were in direct conflict with Security Council Resolution 707 (August 1991) and constituted the initiation of a capitulation by the Security Council to Iraq. Butler’s ploy bred distrust of him and of UNSCOM among the majority of the Security Council’s members. As a result, for the first time since the adoption of Resolution 687 in April 1991, the Security Council could not all fully agree on a critical resolution on Iraq. Resolution 1134 was admittedly adopted in October 1997, but five members abstained from voting, including France and Russia. Iraq took advantage of the emerging Security Council disaffection by notifying Butler that it would not accept US participation in the inspections. Butler refused to agree to that demand and withdrew all inspectors from Baghdad, which in my opinion was a reasonable response. It would not be appropriate for Iraq to determine the personal composition of our inspection teams. For Butler, however, the problem arose that Secretary-General Kofi Annan questioned his decision and seemed eager to intervene. I myself had experienced something similar when, on a few occasions, Secretary-General BoutrosGhali had tried to get involved in UNSCOM’s leadership, which never went further than him offering his services in support of the commission, which I kindly but firmly rejected.

The Secretary-General’s Envoy In the new situation, Kofi Annan expressed his full support for UNSCOM, yet at the same time, to a certain extent, undercut UNSCOM by putting together a group of three well-known international diplomats in November 1997—Lakhdar Brahimi, former foreign minister of Algeria, Jan Eliasson of Sweden, and Emilio Cardenas, Argentina’s ambassador to the Security Council—to deal with the crisis. The group’s mission was simply to travel to Baghdad to resolve the conflict between the commission and the Iraqi government over the composition of the inspection groups. Butler said that when he briefed the three emissaries on the matter, he could note that Brahimi was unequivocally hostile to

240

Iraq Disarmed

UNSCOM, Eliasson was primarily interested in the serious humanitarian situation in Iraq, while Cardenas was the only one who showed any interest in the weapons issue. When I was informed in Washington of the Secretary-General’s initiative, I contacted Butler and advised him to protest the entire project, which, in my opinion, undermined the principles of the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution and risked weakening UNSCOM’s independence. This initiative greatly benefited Saddam Hussein. Butler shared my view but did not want to enter into a conflict with the UN SecretaryGeneral. This modesty surprised me because I recalled Butler from our mutual time in Geneva as being quite a cunning negotiator who never backed down. Butler realized, however, that the delegation could undermine his position if the participants did not understand Iraq’s obligations. He, therefore, succeeded in convincing Kofi Annan to send Zlauvinen (formerly my political and diplomatic advisor, and now Butler’s) as an expert on the mission. Zlauvinen prepared a detailed written account of Iraq’s obligations and responsibilities in accordance with the Security Council resolutions. Brahimi completely ignored this written and oral information and made it clear that he saw the mission of the delegation exclusively as an opportunity to let the Iraqis speak their mind and be treated with respect. In accordance with Brahimi’s therapeutic model, the delegation spent the entire first day of the mission listening to Aziz’s extensive complaints. During day two, they watched a video of UNSCOM inspectors smashing windows and breaking down a door. Zlauvinen had been forced to sit outside the meeting room during the screening, so he was unable to explain that it was standard procedure for the Iraqis to claim that they lacked keys to the facility to be inspected. For example, he could have explained how I personally ordered inspectors to break down both a door and a window in the search for documents at Kamel’s chicken farm in August 1995. As I feared, the three-person delegation was a setback for UNSCOM and the IAEA. None of the three gentlemen, with the possible exception of Cardenas, had any real knowledge of the complexity of the weapons issues and inspection activities. Although Cardenas understood the political dimensions of the UNSCOM issues, Brahimi completely dominated the discussions with Aziz, while ignoring UNSCOM’s accompanying experts. In his memoirs, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that Baghdad decided that the best strategy now was to involve the UN at the highest level and declare that it did not want confrontation—that it had imple-

On the Path to Disaster

241

mented all the Security Council resolutions without protest despite the lack of respect for Iraqi sovereignty, integrity, and security and that a member state, the United States, used UNSCOM for its own purposes. As for the latter point, it was true that the Americans were worried. Both Pickering, who was then the US deputy secretary of state under Albright, and Strobe Talbott contacted me at my Washington residence on Saturday morning, November 8 (following the return of the Brahimi delegation) and asked me to contact Eliasson and warn him about being pulled into Brahimi’s Iraq-supporting position. According to my diary notes, Eliasson became quite annoyed by Pickering’s (and my) criticism of Brahimi and Cardenas and the way they handled their assignment. He said Pickering’s warnings were just a variation of Aziz’s, though in the opposite direction. However, there was no doubt that the hostile US tone worried Kofi Annan, who on Sunday, November 9, called me from New York and asked me to use my contacts in the White House and the US State Department to restore unity between the UN and the Americans in the Security Council. He proposed three starting points: 1. Confirm Iraq’s legal obligations regarding the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction. 2. Seek to begin the relief of financial sanctions against Iraq. 3. Admit that bombing Iraq was pointless. I wholeheartedly supported these three points. I contacted Pickering, who responded kindly as always. I did not get any further because Foreign Minister Primakov of Russia took the initiative after Annan’s three-man visit to Baghdad had failed to produce any concrete results, and arranged an odd meeting at the UN Palace in Geneva on November 19, 1997, at 2 a.m., with Albright, British foreign minister Robin Cook, and his French counterpart, Hubert Vedrine. At that meeting, the four foreign ministers agreed that Iraq should now unconditionally accept intrusive inspections and the other conditions presented by Primakov, taking into account the US requirements. Peace was restored between the great powers, but only temporarily, as events would prove.

Continued Intervention by the Secretary-General There was no further opposition to American inspectors after the Russian-US pressure on Iraq. Instead, in a meeting with Butler in Baghdad,

242

Iraq Disarmed

Aziz presented a list of eight areas, so-called presidential sites, that were off-limits to inspectors. The idea of establishing a list of exceptions was rejected in the Security Council by the United States and the United Kingdom, which in response began to prepare a large-scale military action against Iraq, possibly with the aim of regime change. Sensing something was amiss, Russia, France, and China reacted against this by blaming the growing tension on Butler. Aziz also seized the opportunity to fiercely criticize the commission and its chairman at a meeting in New York with Kofi Annan, and urged the Secretary-General to visit Baghdad for talks with Saddam Hussein. Kofi Annan’s response was to initiate an examination of UNSCOM-Iraq relations, an indirect signal that UNSCOM also bore some responsibility for the crisis. Butler understood, not without reason, that the UN Secretariat began to regard the situation as a confrontation between two equal players, Iraq and UNSCOM, which had long been a part of Aziz’s strategy, rather than merely one of implementing the UNSCOM disarmament mandate. The Secretary-General now viewed Butler as overly inclined to confrontation and seeming to prefer TV appearances rather than careful attempts to persuade Iraq to cooperate. Butler’s obdurate negativity, primarily toward Iraq but also toward Russia, China, and France, made it more difficult to disarm Iraq by peaceful means. Kofi Annan felt that Butler’s mistake was to regard the United States, not the United Nations, as the commission’s main partner in Iraq’s disarmament. Matters went so far that after a bizarre session with the Security Council at which Butler had treated the nonpermanent members like small-town mayors, Annan called Butler to his office and explained to him that every UN employee who chose to work for only one of the permanent members would immediately lose the support of all the others. Even worse, such action would undermine the council’s overall ability to act as a decisionmaking body. In addition, Annan warned Butler that if his credibility with other Security Council members was damaged, the United States would have little use for him or his leadership at UNSCOM.

The Secretary-General’s Baghdad Mission Kofi Annan now saw it as a good time for initiating intensive consultations with the Security Council members, in particular the five permanent members, about the conditions for a trip to Baghdad. His aim was to prevent US air strikes against Iraq, and to support the effective disarmament

On the Path to Disaster

243

of Iraq. At the same time, he wanted to demonstrate respect for Iraq and its leadership. He also had several meetings with Butler, but as indicated by Butler’s description of these meetings, Annan did not seem to take his views seriously. Thus, despite Butler’s objections, Kofi Annan sent a preparatory mission led by Staffan de Mistura, a Swedish-born Italian diplomat, to Iraq to conduct land surveying of potential inspection areas in the so-called presidential sites. This move seemed to call into question UNSCOM’s inspection authority and expertise given that the commission had already done the sites’ assessments and surveys. Moreover, the Secretary-General did not want de Mistura to include any UNSCOM or IAEA inspectors in his delegation. However, Molander, my first political advisor to the Special Commission who was serving at the time as Sweden’s ambassador to Geneva, was allowed to accompany the delegation, which included two other Swedes from the UN Secretariat, UN legal counsel Hans Corell and Rolf Knutsson from Annan’s executive office. The Iraqi hosts were certainly pleased that the Secretary-General in this way clearly displayed distance from the commission. Kofi Annan, on the other hand, hoped the Baghdad meetings would rise above the hostility and mutual distrust that characterized Butler’s recent meetings with Aziz. Annan, however, could not leave for Baghdad without first meeting his special guardian angel, Albright, in New York. She also took the opportunity to lay out the United States’ “red lines” at a private lunch on Sunday, February 15, in the Secretary-General’s private residence, meaning that Iraq had to admit the inspectors at all places they wished to inspect, even for repeated visits. Annan called me that same evening and presented Albright’s views. He mentioned that Albright accepted his idea of creating a special group of neutral diplomats for inspection of presidential facilities, but she had insisted that UNSCOM be the basis for each inspection. According to Albright, “UNSCOM Plus” could be implemented, where UNSCOM inspectors were accompanied by diplomats from UN delegations, appointed by the Secretary-General. I had hardly hung up the telephone when Pickering called me from the US State Department. Aware of my close contacts with Kofi Annan, he wanted to “clarify” what had emerged in the conversation hours before between Albright and Annan. It was important that Annan understood that he was not to interfere in the inspection process. The United States would not accept UNSCOM being excluded from the inspections. Annan’s idea of allowing Brahimi to lead the inspections was firmly rejected by the United States, which did not trust Brahimi’s alleged friendship with Saddam Hussein. Pickering emphasized that all inspections must be

244

Iraq Disarmed

carried out under the aegis of the Security Council, with UNSCOM as the sole operator. He went on to say that Annan, of course, had the right to take the initiatives he wanted, but as much as the United States accepted the Secretary-General as a mediator, it was opposed to him acting as a weapons inspector. Later, I was told that the following day, British UN ambassador Weston read Albright’s “red lines” into the Security Council’s procedures and thus made them binding for the Secretary-General. Annan and his delegation arrived in Baghdad on February 20, 1998, in an aircraft lent by French President Chirac. The first two days were spent listening to Aziz, who, in monologue style, rattled off his usual complaints about UNSCOM and, of course, Butler. (After returning to New York, Kofi Annan called me to say, “Aziz showered you with praise.” Personally, I felt those kind words were really meant to demean Butler.) On February 22, the main event took place: a private conversation with Saddam Hussein in a smoke-filled room. The concrete result of the entire visit was a so-called memorandum of understanding, the details of which were elaborated in negotiations between Hans Corell and the Iraqi Foreign Ministry’s skilled chief legal counsel, Riad al-Qaysi, and signed by the Secretary-General and Aziz. This agreement did not differ much from the joint statement Aziz and I had signed in June 1996, in that it contained an unconditional commitment by Iraq to cooperate with UNSCOM and the IAEA. It also established procedures that, despite other wording, assured my inspection arrangements would be maintained. The only new point was that inspectors of presidential sites would be accompanied by diplomatic observers from neutral countries. The innovation may have had a somewhat unpredictable aspect, but in essence it was certainly Aziz’s estimate that such an arrangement would help to undermine the authority of UNSCOM inspectors. When Kofi Annan returned to the UN headquarters in New York on February 25, he was greeted by hundreds of enthusiastic UN staffers who rushed down from their offices to pay tribute for what he had accomplished with his trip. The only ones who did not come down to join in were my former staff up on the thirty-first floor. They felt disappointed, abandoned, even betrayed by the Secretary-General’s mission. Nobody in the world seemed to have understood the quality and sacrifice of the commission’s work. The Security Council unanimously supported the memorandum of understanding, signed by Aziz and Annan, even though the United States and the United Kingdom had minor reservations.

On the Path to Disaster

245

In front of the cheering staff and the large press gathering, Annan declared, “Saddam Hussein is a person with whom I can do business.” He quickly regretted his statement, but it was too late. He understood that he might have come off as slightly naive. Unfortunately, in the Security Council debriefing, Kofi Annan also referred to UNSCOM’s inspectors as “cowboys.” This group of accomplished middle-aged scientists, some of whom were the world’s foremost specialists and authorities on weapons of mass destruction, came from countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, France, Australia, Sweden, and the United States, combining a competence that none in the UN Secretariat could match.

UNSCOM Returns to Baghdad With the Secretary-General’s trip, opportunities were opened for UNSCOM to return to Iraq, to the BMVC facility, and to resume their routine of monitoring inspections, especially in the factories, laboratories, and research institutions with possible links to weapons development or production. Helicopter flights for aerial surveillance also resumed. Perhaps to give Butler political support, US ambassador Bill Richardson organized a separate meeting between Butler and President Clinton in New York in March 1998. Clinton encouraged Butler not to be intimidated by all the attacks he endured, despite not finding the weapons, and said that he should know that the United States supported him. Meanwhile, the personal relations between Aziz and Butler gradually became even worse, which contributed to an increase in the overall tension between the inspectors and their Iraqi counterparts. However, the Security Council urged Kofi Annan not to interfere in the growing crisis between Iraq and UNSCOM. At the same time, the US and British attitude hardened against the idea of easing the oil embargo, while Russia and France pushed in the opposite direction. Contributing to the deteriorating situation was that Butler continued search inspections at presidential sites and security agencies, a type of activity that, in my opinion, was fruitless because Iraq had complete knowledge of the eight presidential sites to be inspected and, therefore, of course, emptied them of weapons-related materials. In addition, in accordance with the Secretary-General’s mutual agreement with Saddam Hussein, the inspectors were accompanied by a group of diplomats with limited technical expertise and experience, which made these inspections seem a bit inane. It was also inevitable that UNSCOM’s

246

Iraq Disarmed

inspections in areas around Saddam Hussein’s personal accommodations were perceived as direct threats, including by Saddam himself, and as opportunities for possible coup attempts against the regime. In August 1998, Aziz demanded that Butler report to the Security Council that Iraq was disarmed and recommend lifting the oil embargo. Butler replied that he could not do that. Iraq then informed the Security Council that the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council and the Baath Party had decided to suspend all cooperation with UNSCOM/IAEA pending the lifting of the oil embargo. Not surprisingly, the Security Council unanimously condemned Iraq’s decision. When the United States and Britain appeared to be preparing for an attack on Iraq, Kofi Annan took the initiative to write a letter directly to Saddam Hussein to appeal for a diplomatic solution. Pressed by both the threat of attack and the Secretary-General’s plea, Aziz backtracked on the decision, but the peace did not last long.

The Annan-Butler Crisis On November 10, 1998, Butler received a warning that the United States and Britain were preparing military attacks against Iraq, prompting him the next evening to withdraw inspectors from Baghdad and send them to UNSCOM’s regional headquarters in Bahrain. To Kofi Annan’s dismay, Butler neglected to inform him of this action, about which Annan was first informed at half past four on the morning of November 12 during a telephone call from IAEA chief ElBaradei. Annan immediately called Albright in Washington for an explanation. At half past five, Albright called back and announced that she had just sent him a draft statement from the Secretary-General (written by the Americans, British, and French), which he should publish immediately. Annan replied that he considered himself fully capable of writing his own statements and that he intended to come up with one himself. Annan wrote in his memoirs (I quote the English-language edition in an abbreviated version), I was still furious at Butler’s deeply unprofessional behavior and in no way inclined to meet his master (Albright!). By the hasty withdrawal of UNSCOM personnel without informing me, he had exposed close to four hundred UN staff in Iraq to extreme danger. Butler thought he could force me to withdraw UN personnel, but I refused.

On the Path to Disaster

247

In this situation, Kofi Annan tried to contact Saddam Hussein to request improved Iraqi cooperation with UNSCOM. He received a prompt and positive response in a letter from Aziz on November 14 with a renewed promise of cooperation with the weapons inspectors. As a result, the planned US air strike was disrupted. Butler was then able to let the inspectors resume their work in Iraq. However, Kofi Annan received no thanks from the White House, whose national security advisor (Berger) was furious and made it clear to the Secretary-General that planes were already in the air and ready to strike. The American side felt that it was embarrassing to let Iraq go unpunished for stopping the inspections. Consequently, there remained an active US-British threat of attack.

Baghdad Under Attack Under imminent threat of war, UNSCOM’s experts sought to take the Iraqi pledge of cooperation as a starting point to draft a report on Iraq’s actions with respect to the inspection process. The council, which had requested this report, planned to discuss it on December 16. At this stage there were signs that Iraq might be on its way back to a cooperation policy. UNSCOM legal counsel Scott and political advisor Zlauvinen could, therefore, after consultation with UNSCOM’s senior experts and IAU, prepare the final five-page draft report. In the draft, UNSCOM’s weapons experts reported a wide range of successful activities, such as verification of relevant production operations and functioning conflict-free monitoring of facilities with potential dual use. In one of the last paragraphs of the draft, it was stated that Iraq had returned to full cooperation. The draft was submitted to Butler on December 14. When Zlauvinen and Scott saw the final report on December 15, they found that the first four pages were unchanged but that the last page was rewritten in a way that harshly criticized Iraq, stating that Iraq had failed to live up to its commitments and obligations in all weapon areas. Iraq’s actions, according to the text, meant that no progress on disarmament would be possible. Zlauvinen and Scott objected to Butler’s revisions, which, in their view, in addition to being factually misleading, opened the way for air strikes with tragic consequences for innocent people in Iraq. Zlauvinen refused to submit the report to the Security Council. Butler had to do it himself. As soon as the report was circulated to council members on December 15, Butler was called by the US UN delegation’s second man, who

248

Iraq Disarmed

explained that, based on Butler’s report, he had received instructions from Washington to inform him that measures should be taken immediately to secure UNSCOM personnel in Iraq. It was evident that the last page of the report in American eyes was the signal for military action against Iraq. President Clinton stated that the report made clear that there was now an obvious threat (clear and present danger) to the security of the Persian Gulf and all the people in the region. British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that UNSCOM’s report was devastating. Saddam had not abandoned his malign plans to procure weapons of mass destruction to threaten his neighbors and international security. The United States and the United Kingdom immediately began to reduce their embassy staffs throughout the Middle East. Butler went to his office and began the withdrawal of regular personnel from Baghdad to Bahrain, and a twenty-man large-missile inspection squad in northwestern Iraq to Jordan. Butler’s and Duelfer’s books both describe what happened when the Security Council met the following day, December 16, to discuss the report. Ambassador Lavrov was upset and skeptical. He pointed out that Butler had visited Moscow only a week earlier and had told him that UNSCOM was ready to solve the remaining problems within three to four weeks. Now there came suddenly a report that contradicted this: “Either Butler lied [then] or he does now in this report.” Lavrov claimed that the report had been deliberately designed to justify US bombing of Iraq. Just at that moment, a message was given to the SecretaryGeneral, who immediately left the room. Just minutes later, Lavrov and the other participants received the same message: Baghdad was under attack! Together with the United Kingdom, the United States had initiated extensive air strikes on Iraq. Operation Desert Fox, which would last for four days, was in full swing. It is not difficult to imagine the chaos that erupted in the Security Council when the meeting resumed an hour later. Butler demanded the floor to respond to Lavrov’s criticism, which only led to Lavrov leaving the meeting room when Butler opened his mouth. Now everything was over. The impressive consensus that was maintained for seven years among the permanent members of the Security Council was shattered. UNSCOM’s inspectors had left Iraq with little prospect of returning. Distrust of Butler in many people’s eyes combined with his overly pro-American stance had seriously undermined his credibility as UNSCOM’s leader.

On the Path to Disaster

249

New Reports of Espionage

UNSCOM

A period of “a lot of talk, no action” followed. No UNSCOM personnel were allowed to visit Iraq. At the New York headquarters, the core group of experts and scientists were able to process and analyze available data and continue to obtain additional information from sources outside Iraq. The U-2 operations continued, so the photo interpreters were kept busy. The field inspectors were dismissed. But one issue kept being raised: UNSCOM spying on Iraq. Suspicions about this flourished in US and Russian media and in the UN Secretariat around the Secretary-General. The rumors obviously did not refer to the search for the production, storage, and import of prohibited weapons, or the commission’s surveillance of Iraq from the U2 high-altitude plane. These were, after all, activities that were part of the implementation of Security Council Resolution 687 (and the many subsequent resolutions) carried out within the framework of the principles of international law. Instead the rumored spying allegedly was on

Photo taken of Iraqi territory from UNSCOM’s high-altitude plane with an ironic greeting from the Iraqi side.

250

Iraq Disarmed

Saddam Hussein’s personal movements and security arrangements, carried out on behalf of the CIA. One source of these claims appeared to be Scott Ritter, whom I had hired as early as 1991 for mainly operational duties. Since Ritter had an ego that matched the more boorish Butler, it was no surprise that the two gentlemen did not agree. Ritter said Butler was a car salesman rather than a diplomat. For impatient, proactive Ritter, an UNSCOM without risky field inspections was entirely mundane. When there was no longer need for such inspections, Ritter left UNSCOM. That did not prevent him from actively engaging in public debates with sometimes quite fanciful depictions of previous inspection activities. As already described, in 1996 I had tried a data intercept operation against Iraq solely for the purpose of detecting and identifying Iraq’s attempts to conceal banned weapons and related documentation and capabilities in order to defeat UNSCOM’s search operations. The interceptions initially proved to be quite effective but had only short-lived success as Iraq began encrypting its communications. Once the eavesdropping activities did not produce immediate results, they were discontinued by me, clearly proving that intercept activity had no espionage aspect. Both Butler and I had upheld the strict principle that all UNSCOM activities should be exclusively linked to the tasks assigned by the Security Council in their resolutions. But apparently there were those who doubted us. Just before Christmas 1998, I received a visitor in Washington. He presented himself as a consultant to the UN, engaged to investigate whether UNSCOM had spied on Saddam Hussein. The consultant turned out to be an old American acquaintance of mine, William “Bill” Arkin, whom I’d met many years before when I worked for the Swedish government in disarmament policy. Arkin’s consulting assignment originated with John Ruggie, assistant secretary-general at the UN Secretariat and close American advisor to Kofi Annan, who was on leave from Columbia University in New York where he held a professorship. Arkin, who had held extensive talks with Ritter, said he was convinced that UNSCOM carried out such espionage against Saddam. On the basis of my own experience, I denied any such activity, except for the American spy exposed in Baghdad by Wallén. After Arkin’s visit, out of loyalty, I informed Butler by phone that an investigation had been initiated against him by the Secretary-General’s executive office on the thirty-eighth floor. Butler claimed to be unaware of it. One day later, he called back and said that in separate discussions with the Secretary-General and John Ruggie, he had raised the issue of Arkin and his assignment. Both had denied knowledge of Arkin’s inquiry.

On the Path to Disaster

251

The day before Christmas Eve, I had a conversation with Thérèse Delpech from France, chair of the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (ABDM), of which I was a member. She wanted to hear my views on the future of UNSCOM and what I recommended France to do. On New Year’s Eve, the Secretary-General called me at my Washington residence for a briefing on the ABDM’s plans. What worried him was the pressure from the Security Council members (with the exception of the United States and the United Kingdom) demanding some form of initiative regarding the Iraq issue and UNSCOM. I presented some ideas that built on Iraq’s continued existence as a unified state, open investment in Iraq’s economy, the lifting of the oil embargo and other sanctions, in addition to UNSCOM’s continued monitoring inspections under Resolution 715 (ideas I had shared with Thérèse Delpech). Kofi Annan liked these thoughts and suggested that he would send “two of his boys” to Washington to discuss them in depth with me. The following day, Pickering called and expressed concern about the Secretary-General’s investigation into UNSCOM and Butler. I told him what I had learned in my conversation with Arkin. On Sunday, January 3, the New York Times praised Kofi Annan for his first year as head of the UN. But at the same time, the newspaper warned that the Iraq issue could lead to serious difficulties in relations between the Secretary-General and the United States, a message I interpreted as a warning signal from the US administration (read Pickering). On January 5, Ruggie called from the UN and warned that the Washington Post was going to publish an article the next day harshly criticizing UNSCOM. He mentioned in passing that he had remained in contact with Arkin. He said it was clear that the newspaper article was created in collaboration with Arkin. On January 6, the article, written by Barton Gellman, was published. It claimed that UNSCOM was spying on behalf of the United States to gain access to Saddam Hussein’s personal security arrangements. The article stated that one of the Secretary-General’s confidants had said that “Annan is convinced that Washington has used UNSCOM’s weapons inspections operation to penetrate the security apparatus protecting President Saddam Hussein.” At the UN, Kofi Annan’s spokesman rushed to declare that the Secretary-General knew of no espionage, saying that “if it were true, it would be considered very serious.” On the same day, I issued a written refutation, clear and transparent, with regard to my time as UNSCOM’s chairman. Butler denied the accusations in a CNN interview. Albright, assisted by James Rubin, refuted it on behalf of the United States. We knew, as stated in the section “My American Spy” in

252

Iraq Disarmed

Chapter 10, that there had been eavesdropping operations for a short time. However, it was not true, as stated in the Washington Post article, that UN weapons inspectors helped collect information for espionage purposes. On the contrary, Wallén had discovered the American spy infiltration in March 1996, for which the US leadership belatedly apologized in March 1999. The following day, January 7, US media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, accepted the UN leader’s repudiation about the alleged espionage. Their focus was, in principle, on UNSCOM’s methods of eavesdropping to access weapons of mass destruction. However, in one article, the Washington Post vehemently attacked the Secretary-General for his “meandering and unclear retraction,” and hinted at serious breaches between the United States and the United Nations. The same day, I was visited in Washington by Ruggie, accompanied by Rolf Knutsson, for a review of the ideas on the Iraq issue that I had presented to Kofi Annan on New Year’s Day. Ruggie agreed with me that UNSCOM would continue to be the best instrumentality for weapons inspections, while Knutsson seemed to play with the idea of disbanding UNSCOM and dividing the disarmament task among various UN-related institutions. The meeting of the Secretary-General’s Special Advisory Board on Disarmament took place in Geneva, led by Thérèse Delpech. The Russian representative seized the opportunity to accuse UNSCOM of having become a political body. I pleaded not guilty, and despite the Russian remarks, the board declared continued support for UNSCOM as a disarmament mechanism. Regarding their espionage accusations, I felt especially relieved when, after the Iraq War, John McLaughlin, the CIA’s deputy chief, made it clear that, during my time in UNSCOM leadership, spy operations had been solely focused on recruiting Iraqi scientists who had left the country and who might provide possible insights into Iraq’s banned weapons program. US intelligence hoped that some of them would return to Iraq and from there report to the CIA on Iraq’s weapons development.

Attempts to Harmonize the United States, the UN, and UNSCOM After the Geneva meeting, I stayed in touch with Pickering, who sought to start a US-French dialogue on liberalizing Iraq’s export opportunities and on a weapons control arrangement focused on a model I had previously proposed. The goal was to eliminate the kind of search inspec-

On the Path to Disaster

253

tions that had caused so many problems. One American thought was to dedicate part of the income from Iraq’s oil exports to be used to repay Iraq’s debts to Russia and France, which would make a deal more politically attractive. I worried that diverting money toward repayment of Iraq’s foreign debt might undermine the primary purpose of oil revenues going to Iraq’s humanitarian needs and reconstruction. Pickering explained to me that he remained concerned about the activities of the Secretary-General’s office directed at UNSCOM, but he was not dismissive of a role for Kofi Annan. He, therefore, appealed to me to help ameliorate his chilly relations with Annan. To assist in that I managed to host a possibly crucial meeting in the form of a four-hour, high-level luncheon seminar on February 23, 1999, in my residence in Washington. Kofi Annan came with his closest associate (Ruggie) representing the UN. Also in attendance were Pickering, Jessica Mathews (Carnegie Foundation’s global think tank), Zbigniew Brzezinski (national security advisor under Carter), Tony Lake, Lee Hamilton (chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee), Martin Indyk (White House), Anthony Cordesman, and Morton Halperin (director of policy planning at the US Department of State). Mathews and Brzezinski began the conversation by assessing the US capabilities and role from a global security perspective. Pickering developed and defended US policy toward the UN. Lake presented a pessimistic view about the Security Council’s diminished role in recent years, partly due to attempts to bypass the council’s majority through the use of veto votes. The main part of the discussion was devoted to how the UN (and the Secretary-General) could help break the deadlock on the Iraq issue in the Security Council. The group gave cautious support to the thoughts I had aired in my contacts with Annan and Ruggie. Pickering recalled that the United States had repeatedly tried to involve France in discussions at a high official level, an invitation France had repeatedly declined. Only a few days earlier, on February 19, President Clinton had proposed a USFrench consultation on the Iraq issue directly with President Chirac, but Chirac had been unclear and evasive in his response. The Secretary-General and Ruggie, both of whom actively participated in the discussion, welcomed the seminar and the thoughts presented, and suggested continued contacts. It was clear that Annan was now very cautious about the Iraq issue. He knew how explosive it was, and that it had strained his relations with the US leadership and Congress. As for the latter, I succeeded in organizing an informal meeting between Annan and influential Republican senator John Warner in the

254

Iraq Disarmed

late afternoon. Warner had previously declared his willingness to help improve relations between the United States and the United Nations. One sign of this was that he, as a Republican senator, was in the process of assisting Richard Holbrooke, President Clinton’s nominee for the post of US ambassador to the UN, in gaining the Senate’s approval for the assignment. The participants in the seminar finally agreed that as an influential circle of friends of the UN, they would maintain informal contacts to help improve relations between the United States and the UN. A direct consequence of the seminar was that Annan and Ruggie terminated Arkin’s consultancy, thereby apparently concluding that UNSCOM was not spying on behalf of the United States. But what was particularly interesting and significant was the evident US internal divide that lay as a shadow over Iraqi policies. Albright, despite her disastrous Georgetown speech that no sanctions could be relieved until Saddam Hussein was removed from power in Iraq, still seemed to have clear backing from Vice President Gore. The latter was preparing for an upcoming campaign to succeed President Clinton. Perhaps President Clinton also supported the so-called Saddam Hussein clause. On the other hand, Pickering, who was chiefly responsible for drafting Resolution 687, attempted to preserve, along with Lake, a most basic element of its paragraph 22, namely, that once Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and related materials and facilities were eliminated, and the monitoring system was in place, the embargo on Iraq’s oil exports would be lifted and the economic and social suffering of the Iraqi people reduced. It became increasingly clear that Pickering was losing ground in preserving the principles of Resolution 687 when Lake left his post as White House’s national security advisor to be replaced by Sandy Berger. Berger was close to Clinton, at a time when the president’s private conduct had a deleterious psychological and political impact on US foreign policy. It became all about not acting softly toward a dictator like Saddam Hussein. The standing of the UN-friendly side (who participated in the seminar) was also harmed by Republicans in the Senate who were preventing the appointment of Lake, the president’s nominee as director of the CIA. Aziz, always well informed about the domestic American political game with the help of his skilled ambassador, Hamdoon, had stated in conversation with me in reference to the Saddam Hussein clause that Iraq had only two choices given the US refusal to lift the sanctions. It had to choose between “sanctions with inspections” or “sanctions without inspections.” For Iraq, that choice was obviously not difficult. UNSCOM would be kept out of Iraq!

13 The End of UNSCOM, the Beginning of UNMOVIC, and the Second Iraq War BUTLER’S UNSCOM REPORT TO THE S ECURITY C OUNCIL ON December 16, 1998, had dramatic and upsetting consequences. It also served to make Butler unpopular among many delegations in the Security Council, which began to tire of the repeated confrontations. But, in my view, the Secretary-General’s and the UN Secretariat’s factually illfounded campaign against UNSCOM for alleged spying had created even greater distrust of the Special Commission. In addition, there had been a lot of hype in the media. Once the disastrous December report was published, no inspection activity could proceed, as Iraq could refuse UNSCOM inspectors’ access without fear of any serious pressure from a substantively divided Security Council. Therefore, it came as no surprise when, in January 1999, France proposed in a formal motion before the Security Council that UNSCOM be disbanded. Politically, this meant that France now completely terminated its Security Council cooperation with the United States and the United Kingdom on the Iraq issue. The French proposal meant that a “new control commission” would be established, which would be independent (implied: of the United States). The task of the new commission would be to continue the monitoring inspections of Iraq’s potential weapons production capacity, but to cease “intrusive” inspections and the hunt for concealed weapons. At the same time, sanctions against Iraq (i.e., the oil embargo) would be lifted. Both Russia and China supported the proposal, but, not surprisingly, the

255

256

Iraq Disarmed

United States opposed it. Albright, as secretary of state, tried her best to adapt to the changing signals from the White House in a situation where the president was under extreme scrutiny (especially over the Lewinsky affair) and faced the possibility of impeachment by the Congress. With all this going on, and US policy becoming both ambiguous and inconsistent, France and Russia decided to push to end inspection activities entirely, or possibly with less intrusive monitoring inspections in accordance with Resolution 715. Admittedly, they occasionally talked about wanting “enhanced monitoring,” when they actually meant the opposite, a limited system. However, the most important thing for France and Russia was to end the economic sanctions against Iraq. The United Kingdom, while striving to maintain the partnership with its US ally, had difficulty formulating its policy on the Iraq issue. China, as usual, kept a low profile. Although the Americans seemed to have difficulty understanding and dealing with weapons issues politically and diplomatically, one thing was decided, namely, to uphold the sanctions and, in particular, the embargo on Iraq’s oil exports. As a result, the inspection activities were not maintained, which contributed to a lack of control over Iraq. However, after a period of confusion and indecision, the Security Council established a panel to study the situation. The panel led by Brazil’s UN ambassador, Celso Amorim, concluded in March 1999 that monitoring inspections (Resolution 715) would continue, while acknowledging that the vast majority of prohibited weapons had been successfully eliminated by UNSCOM. The task for future inspections would thus be to prevent Iraq from obtaining new weapons. The permanent members were unable to formulate a policy until December, when the United Kingdom and the Netherlands presented a joint draft resolution on the Iraq issue. On December 17, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1284 (1999), with France, Russia, and China abstaining. With the new resolution, the Security Council dissolved the Special Commission. In its place, the council established, in accordance with the proposal from Amorim’s panel, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which was tasked with implementing the weapons portion of the cease-fire resolution. However, unlike UNSCOM, responsibility would be limited to three categories—missiles, biological weapons, and chemical weapons—thus excluding nuclear weapons, an area where UNSCOM had been responsible for finding and identifying undeclared prohibited weapons and systems. For that part of the quest, full responsibility was now transferred to the IAEA under its director general, ElBaradei (Blix’s successor).

The End of UNSCOM

257

Upon hearing the news of UNSCOM’s demise, I felt sad that the institution I had been responsible for building and implementing was now being decommissioned. It was especially disheartening that it had been an initiative of the UK and the Netherlands, the two nations that perhaps more energetically than any others had initially given political support to UNSCOM and provided it with some of the world’s foremost weapons experts in their respective fields. Before the new resolution was adopted, Pickering, who helped create UNSCOM in 1991, sent me a draft to hear my views. I made a number of proposals for amendments to the text, paying special attention to the new organization, UNMOVIC. What I thought most important was that the recruitment of staff be based on experience. I wanted to help the future leadership of UNMOVIC by ensuring that as many UNSCOM weapons specialists as possible could continue to participate in the disarmament and weapons control work, thereby preserving the unique knowledge and skills they represented. The resolution was slightly modified following my proposal so that it mentioned the need for experience, but that was all. Thus, in contrast to UNSCOM’s practice during my time, it seemed that UNMOVIC’s personnel would be recruited in accordance with the regulations governing standard recruitment for UN personnel. Accordingly, under the new scheme, the staff would also have regular UN salaries and terms of employment. UNSCOM’s staff had previously been hand-picked exclusively by me from among the world’s foremost weapons technical, scientific, and academic experts. Most of them had their salaries paid by their respective home governments. One could say that they were “on loan.” Typical of the practice I successfully established was that I was able to recruit many of the international experts involved in the negotiations on biological and chemical weapons at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament, to which governments since the early 1990s sent their foremost and most experienced experts and laboratory managers. Examples included Santesson and Sellström from the Swedish Defense Research Agency. The missile experts had formed an even more exclusive body, not to mention the nuclear experts, where only four countries could assist: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia. Such researchers were not normally prepared to leave their permanent posts in their home country and were hired on a temporary basis. Under this hiring modality, the core of UNSCOM’s staff had come to be experienced weapons experts and laboratory-trained researchers, who had signed a contract with UNSCOM to work at the New York headquarters on analysis and inspection planning and in Iraq to reveal

258

Iraq Disarmed

weapons secrets through inspections. As UNSCOM leader, I had thus recruited solely on the basis of competence and experience, without regard to national affiliation. A weakness of the UN model used in the recruitment of UNMOVIC staff was that it largely avoided recruiting the existing expertise of UNSCOM, with its unique insights and experience. Instead, recruitment to UNMOVIC focused on finding a political balance by employing staff based more on their national origin and less so on competence and experience. As a result, UNMOVIC’s organizational and operational activities also came to be somewhat based on political and national affiliation, when the mission was really about science and weapons technology. UNMOVIC’s staff composition came to consist in part of generalists with hopes of getting a permanent job within the United Nations, although some well-established weapons scientists were also recruited.

Why Was UNSCOM Disbanded? From my perspective in Washington, I questioned how the Security Council could disband its own creation. The two most important UNSCOM evaluations in retrospect have been in Jean Krasno and James Sutterlin’s well-researched 2003 book, The United Nations and Iraq, and, of course, the Duelfer Report, formally the “Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD,” from 2004. The first study focuses on how UNSCOM worked and the second on the result of UNSCOM’s work. Admittedly, one might wonder if Duelfer could be completely impartial in the evaluation, given that as the deputy chairman he had been an important player in UNSCOM’s operations (1993–2000), but no one has been able to question the factual accuracy of his report (prepared with a staff of 1,700 people). Despite years of systematic resistance and hostility from the Iraqi side, the overwhelming conclusion of these studies was that UNSCOM had already fully implemented its two tasks by 1998: 1. All prohibited weapons and related capabilities had been identified and destroyed. 2. A continuous and fully functioning monitoring system to ensure that Iraq does not reacquire banned capabilities had been established. In the words of Hannay, cited by Krasno and Sutterlin, UNSCOM was “one of the most important and innovative developments in modern

The End of UNSCOM

259

times.” Especially important was UNSCOM’s independence from the UN’s usual bureaucracy. The chairman had exercised full executive authority and was solely responsible to the Security Council, and thus not subordinate to the UN Secretary-General. As UNSCOM’s funding was independent of the UN General Assembly, the UNSCOM chairman was able to recruit staff solely on the basis of expertise without having to take into account national identity as did UNMOVIC. As Krasno and Sutterlin pointed out, a professionally strong organization had been built that was held together by a shared sense of the urgency of the common task, and a feeling of unity was unusual among the various UN organizations. The authors further considered that UNSCOM was a model for multilateral cooperation. Its inspection teams had worked harmoniously under stressful and sometimes dangerous circumstances. Similarly, intelligence specialists from countries with different political systems had worked most effectively within the framework of the IAU, by gathering large amounts of data—some reliable, other less so—to form comprehensive insights into Iraq’s procurement of weapons technology, weapons production, and disposal of weapons of mass destruction. Never before, or later, had intelligence material been so successfully collected, used, and kept so protected by any of the UN organizations. UNSCOM was able to utilize the most advanced technology (U2, among others) in inspection, verification, and monitoring contexts. In the book by Krasno and Sutterlin, Ewen Buchanan summarized his impressions from within UNSCOM: Governments were willing to share secrets with the UN [UNSCOM] and provide intelligence, satellite photos and access to Iraqi defectors. They shared such intelligence material that we could only have dreamed of a couple of years earlier. This was a victory not only from a national perspective but also from an international perspective. Over the years, UNSCOM had evolved into a huge laboratory, exploring the possible use and development of new sensors and the like. The special remote monitoring developed by UNSCOM would certainly be useful in other contexts.

Before UNSCOM, it would simply have been impossible to imagine that a multinational UN body would be treated as a reliable recipient of advanced technology for the collection of sensitive intelligence. In the evaluation of UNSCOM, it was stated that the United Nations had never before been so proactive in disarmament. To the extent that the United Nations was involved in disarmament work, it had been about negotiations on agreements of the kind that I myself participated

260

Iraq Disarmed

in as leader of the Swedish delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, namely, the ban on chemical weapons and radiological weapons and the convention on the ban on nuclear weapons tests. UNSCOM’s disarmament program for Iraq was not based on its voluntary participation—as in typical arms control treaties—rather the Security Council imposed it as legally binding upon Iraq.

UNMOVIC’s Chairman Richard Butler resigned as UNSCOM’s executive chairman on July 1, 1999. His contract, which expired on June 30, was not renewed, mainly because of the lack of support for his tenure from Russia and France. Moreover, his departure had been preceded by a series of conflicts with the Secretary-General. It was equally obvious that neither Lavrov nor Dejammet was going to support Butler’s continuing position at the helm of UNMOVIC. During the days leading up to Christmas 1999, Secretary-General Kofi Annan probed whether I was willing and prepared to take on the responsibilities as chairman of UNMOVIC. I responded immediately that I was not interested, and it was highly doubtful that I would change my mind. I recommended the skilled Dutch disarmament negotiator (and friend) Ambassador Jaap Ramaker as the most suitable candidate in my opinion. He had led the successful negotiations in Geneva on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Ramaker was also a natural choice as the leader of the new entity as he was behind the drafting of the UNMOVIC resolution. My second candidate was the skilled Argentinian UN ambassador Emilio Cardenas, a member of the diplomatic trio that Kofi Annan sent to Baghdad in November 1997 to appease Saddam Hussein. On January 4, 2000, I had a private lunch with Kofi Annan at his New York residence on East 57th Street. Annan asked me again if I would take the job, but my answer was clear: “Try someone else” (meaning Ramaker or Cardenas). Then I said (according to my diary), “If that is not possible—come back to me,” but added that I was very doubtful. As I write this now, I know that day Kofi Annan had a realistic grasp of the political situation and understood that my name would not win the necessary consensus despite my good relations with the five permanent members of the Security Council. This became all the more apparent a few days later when a French colleague told me that France had mentioned my name in Baghdad, at

The End of UNSCOM

261

which Aziz, with his knowledge of the Bible, said, “One should not pour old wine in new bottles.” So, it was no surprise that Saddam Hussein opposed Kofi Annan’s stubborn campaign to appoint me. As a result, my family and I felt a collective relief. At Security Council consultations on January 13, it also became obvious that Baghdad’s message had hit home, with Russia and France making it clear that they wanted “a clear break with the past.” However, at the same time, the Americans and the British, together with China, insisted on approaching me again to accept the assignment. An attempt to appoint Finnish disarmament ambassador Pasi Patokallio was firmly blocked by Russia. Brazilian Ambassador Amorim’s candidacy (an excellent choice in my opinion) was thwarted by the Americans and the Brits. In this situation, France proposed a candidate: Hans Blix. It was a proposal that proved acceptable to the Americans and the Brits. Saddam Hussein had no objections, considering the proposal may even have come from him via Aziz. In any event, the Iraqi side was satisfied. With Blix’s consent, the Secretary-General on January 26 was able to officially nominate him as executive chairman of UNMOVIC, a proposal adopted by the Security Council without objection. Blix came to the assignment with a unique combination of experience and a fresh set of eyes. As the IAEA’s general director for sixteen years (1981–1997) he had earned international respect by maintaining a high professional standard and a well-functioning organization. Ironically, the only real setback for the IAEA under Blix’s leadership was with respect to Iraq, where IAEA’s traditional inspection system (Safeguard Inspections) proved to be completely incapable of coping with Iraq’s systematically deceptive conduct surrounding their national nuclear program. Ironically, Blix and the IAEA had even, at one point, explicitly praised Iraq for its cooperation, which became embarrassing once UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors had mapped out Iraq’s nuclear ambitions and nuclear weapons program. The Action Team organized by Blix in 1991 received assistance from UNSCOM’s nuclear weapons experts who supplemented the IAEA’s knowledge of nuclear materials with its weapons expertise, which helped to ensure the team’s success despite Iraq’s failure to cooperate. However, things were different now under UNMOVIC. Blix found himself in a situation where nuclear issues in Iraq would be handled exclusively by his successor at the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei—a former protégé and current rival. This new dynamic meant that Blix would not have the same input and responsibility for the nuclear weapons issues that I had as head of UNSCOM.

262

Iraq Disarmed

UNMOVIC Realized It was obvious that Blix critically examined his predecessor’s approach when he set up his new organization; it was wise, when tackling a new problem, to study what Butler had done well and what had not worked. As for the personnel, Blix had a theory that inspectors should be widely recruited (i.e., from many countries), a principle that was also expressed in the Security Council’s decision on UNMOVIC’s design. Furthermore, staff would be employed according to the UN principle of geographical representation. Thus, one should expect the employee to show loyalty to his or her new organization and ahead of one’s nationality, or so Blix hoped. This was somewhat naive since recruitment would be based largely on nationality and not primarily on competence. As a consequence of this policy, Blix dismissed from UNMOVIC a large number of former UNSCOM staff. When Blix talked about staff, he used the term “inspectors,” but by doing so he overlooked the fact that the UNSCOM staff he had not hired were primarily composed of scientists, researchers, and analysts who reviewed and processed the inspection reports and planned continuing operations at the New York headquarters. As I described earlier, the inspections themselves were normally led by a specialist from the headquarters, together with an operations officer. For each effort, inspectors from different countries were quickly recruited from a roster. As stated earlier, UNSCOM’s practice had been that each inspection group first met at its Bahrain regional headquarters for planning, coordination, and training. This work included identifying and updating search tools, collecting and reviewing photo material from UNSCOM’s independent U-2 operations and helicopter searches, and preparing ground and building drawings based on the photo material. Upon completion of the inspection, the group would return from Iraq to Bahrain to prepare a comprehensive inspection report to be returned to the New York headquarters by the chief inspector. Blix, who disapproved of UNSCOM’s Bahrain-oriented inspection preparations and reporting arrangements, consequently closed down the Bahrain operation. UNMOVIC did not, unlike UNSCOM, have access to its own U-2 photo material but had to adhere to what the US intelligence service, the CIA, was willing to hand over. This did not prove a big role, as UNMOVIC’s ground operations were suspended for close to three years and thereafter limited to just under four months. In his ambition to widen the geographical breadth of the new organization, Blix seemed to overlook that only a few countries had enough

The End of UNSCOM

263

qualified personnel with the necessary expertise in weapons of mass destruction and high-tech missiles that they would be willing to lend any out. As far as nuclear weapons were concerned, only the nuclear powers had full weapon competence, and biological and chemical weaponry expertise also was limited. In my work with UNSCOM, I initially had to turn to Sweden, Finland, and Norway when it came to questions about biological and chemical weapons; but eventually, I managed to recruit experienced and knowledgeable expertise from Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, the UK, Australia, and Canada. Needless to say, it was extremely unfortunate that Blix’s recruitment policy called into question the loyalty of UNSCOM personnel—a group of mature, experienced, and scientifically competent personnel who had undertaken years of risky and dangerous work on behalf of the Special Commission and the United Nations. At one point, I was tempted to send him the list of names of my staff and ask him to point out even one individual he thought was disloyal to UNSCOM/UN or me. It was, paradoxically, Blix who, despite my warnings, recruited Martelle to the IAEA, after Wallén outed him as a full-fledged spy for the US intelligence service. Blix also tried to snidely criticize UNSCOM as being under US “remote control,” a totally unfounded statement. He surely was aware of my political turmoil with Albright regarding my inspection arrangements. Also, the charge of “remote control” appears somewhat bizarre considering that, after three years of waiting and when finally set in motion, UNMOVIC chose facilities for its inspections exclusively from the lists of places identified by UNSCOM or the facilities submitted by the CIA and British MI6. The facilities that I had selected for inspections during my tenure were picked through internal systematic analysis work developed by UNSCOM and its Information Assessment Unit (IAU) at the UN headquarters. Another point of criticism from Blix was his claim that UNSCOM under my leadership—and I personally— exchanged spy data with governments. As stated, no such thing happened. Through the information unit I created—the IAU under Rachel Davies—we kept full and independent control over all data according to the principles I set. While we welcomed all relevant intelligence data that different governments were willing to share with us, I decided (in consultation with Rachel Davies) what information and data were shared with governments. For UNSCOM, it was important for operational planning to have exclusive access to air surveillance with both U2 planes and helicopters. All this had been under my direct command as UNSCOM’s chairman. UNMOVIC, on the other hand, had no such

264

Iraq Disarmed

independent capability. If Blix wanted pictures or photographs, he had to ask the US/CIA for them. Once UNSCOM’s regional headquarters in Bahrain was closed, access to blueprint drawings, confidential training, and operational planning with the inspection groups or coordinated reporting was lost. In addition, over the years during which I served as UNSCOM’s chairman, I had outstanding deputy managers, all of whom were knowledgeable and experienced US diplomats and officials who also became my friends: Robert Gallucci, Michael Newlin, Pierce Corden, and Charles Duelfer. Instead of retaining Duelfer for his exceptional skills, Blix peremptorily asked him to resign, explaining only that he did not need a second in command. (I am certain that Duelfer had plans to leave his post before Blix’s request came in.) To summarize: As a completely new team, handicapped in developing and handling intelligence data, UNMOVIC’s start was shrouded in institutional uncertainty. In my opinion, maintaining an experienced and trained team of experts from the UNSCOM era would have made it easier for the new organization to act more effectively. Although Blix himself had both good political insights and considerable knowledge of the many complications of the Iraq disarmament portfolio, it was somewhat surprising that he consciously relinquished the opportunity to retain UNSCOM’s excellent scientific expertise and working knowledge combined with the local insights built up over eight years of intensive analysis and operations in Iraq. But because UNMOVIC, due to the Security Council’s surprising passivity on the Iraq issue, continued to be barred from Iraq for three years to come, the staff and its leader during that period had a quiet and comfortable time on the thirtieth and thirty-first floors of the UN building with well-paid international salaries from the UN and without serious pressure on them other than intensive training led by Smidovich. The lack of experience and scientific expertise was partially offset by the ample time for studying UNSCOM’s comprehensive archives (carefully constructed by me and my historian, Stephen Black) that contained detailed inspection reports from a period of over eight years, together with the IAU’s in-depth analyses and aerial photo data from the U-2 flights over Iraq. However, some data were missing—namely, highly confidential intelligence material that governments allowed to be shared with UNSCOM provided it was well-protected. The IAU and Duelfer were instructed to return such sensitive material to the governments or to destroy it when UNSCOM was disbanded, while some of the U-2 photographic material was returned to the United States.

The End of UNSCOM

265

A New US Administration on the Way On January 30, 1998, Sandra Day O’Connor, one of the nine members of the US Supreme Court, invited me and my wife Christina to a dinner in the US Supreme Court building. At a prior official dinner in Washington, I had been seated next to Judge O’Connor and told her that as a leisure activity I used to play the piano, partly by improvising classic American songs. She had also invited our neighbors in Washington, Japanese ambassador Kunihiko Saitō and his wife Akiko, who were a skilled pianist duo. Judge O’Connor invited us to play before dinner on an impressive grand piano that had been donated to the court by composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. After I (playing some pieces by Gershwin) and the Japanese ambassador couple (playing Schubert) entertained the guests, I quickly realized that the event had a far different purpose than music. Present at the event were former President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara, their sons George W. and Jeb, and their wives Laura and Columba. Brent Scowcroft, former national security advisor, and some other prominent members of the former Bush administration were also there. George W. Bush, governor of Texas at the time, was preparing to run as the Republican Party’s candidate for the presidency after Bill Clinton’s second term in office that would soon expire. While music was finished and the dinner was eaten, Bush Sr. took me aside and at the same time called over George W., who somewhat reluctantly, it seemed, interrupted his conversation with a couple of friends. In the presence of his son, Bush Sr. asked for my assessment of the state of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and of Saddam Hussein’s intentions regarding security in the Middle East. George W. seemed interested in the latter but was clearly displeased when I said that UNSCOM had been successful and Iraq no longer held banned weapons of mass destruction. During this conversation, I began to sense that a future Bush administration would not welcome overly positive evaluations of the Iraqi weapons issue. Rather, there were reasons to fear that George W. Bush, like US neocons, the new wave of conservatives in Washington, would search for a way to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, on the pretext that he retained banned weapons of mass destruction in violation of the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution. Bush Sr. noted his son’s increasingly skeptical demeanor, pulled at his arm, and said, “Now listen to what Rolf says, the UN has removed all prohibited weapons.” The son grew less and less interested in our conversation despite the

266

Iraq Disarmed

fact that Scowcroft also joined in and supported my account of the removal of the weapons of mass destruction from Iraq by UNSCOM. In my opinion, this exchange of ideas in a family environment foreshadowed what the new Bush administration would prioritize, namely, a change of regime in Baghdad by eliminating Saddam Hussein. That, however, would necessitate a new war against Iraq, and for such a war to be internationally accepted, it had to be motivated by the removal of weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein’s hands. To me, it is now apparent that Bush Sr. and his brilliant advisor Scowcroft already in October 1999 foresaw with trepidation what presidential candidate George W. Bush might have had in mind—a war to place new political leadership in Baghdad—which would become a political setback for the United States and cause a serious crisis in the Middle East. However, one must note that George W. Bush in his memoir Decision Points claims that he had no predetermined agenda to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. In August 2000, I finished my assignment as Sweden’s ambassador to the United States and left Washington to return to Europe, where I was given the exciting assignment of High Commissioner for National Minorities in Europe (within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). I was to be based in The Hague in the Netherlands. At the same time, I was appointed by the Swedish government as chairman of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in Frösunda, north of Stockholm. As part of that mission, I was able to continue to follow developments in Iraq through contacts in Washington, partly with the US Departments of State and Defense (and occasionally the White House) and with important think tanks such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Mathews and Joseph Cirincione), the Brookings Institution (Strobe Talbott, Martin Indyk, and Helmut Sonnenfeldt), and the Washington Institute, as well as independent writers and thinkers such as Henry Kissinger, John Newhouse, Tony Lake, Sidney Blumenthal, Robin Wright, and Christopher Hitchens, with whom I had developed good personal contacts during my years in Washington.

Iraq and the 9/11 Terrorist Attack on the United States Initially, the newly elected Bush administration copied the ClintonAlbright policy by stubbornly advocating oil sanctions and isolationist policies against Saddam’s Iraq in the Security Council without making any serious attempts to reactivate a UN weapons inspection program.

The End of UNSCOM

267

After the tragic terrorist attacks against New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, the US stance on Iraq hardened even further. It was relatively soon after September 11 that it became clear that the Afghanistan-based terrorist organization al-Qaeda, under Osama bin Laden, had been responsible for planning and carrying out the attacks. Although George W. Bush and the White House tried to find a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, there were no signs that Saddam and Iraq were connected in any way with the terrorist campaign against the United States. It was also clear that Saddam’s regime had no connections with wider Muslim terror at all. It was evident, for example, from the initiatives (which I have mentioned earlier) that Saddam wanted—through Aziz and Kamel with me as a contact—to establish with the United States an Iraqi-American information exchange in order to jointly fight religious-based terrorism in the Middle East. It was clear to all who were actively working on the Iraq issue that, aside from his family ties (such as Sunni Muslims from Tikrit), Saddam built his political base in Iraq on the secular Baath Party, for which Islamic terror, whether Shiite or Sunni based, was a constant threat. From its beginning in 1968, when the party carried out its coup d’état in Baghdad, the Baath Party had been a uniquely nationalist, secular socialist party—of the Soviet model, that is, without Islamic elements. This was a cornerstone for keeping the nation unified and religiously balanced between the Shiite Muslim majority and the Sunni Muslim minority to which Saddam Hussein belonged. Until the advent of the 1980s, the party had continued to stay away from religious issues, but with the war against Iran from 1980 until 1988, for tactical reasons the Ba’athists gently sent positive signals to the Shiite majority, seeking to limit the Iranian Shiite leadership’s efforts to influence opinion in Iraq to its advantage. In this way, Saddam sought to create an element of religious tolerance in Iraq. However, this did not stop him from brutally crushing the Shiite uprising against him in southern Iraq after the Kuwait War. The Baath Party, under Saddam’s leadership, gradually began to dismantle any socialist identity in favor of a purely Iraqi nationalism. After Saddam Hussein proclaimed that the international opposition to him following the Kuwait War in 1990 came mainly from Western powers with the United States in the lead, he started to show a growing interest in Islamism, for example by purchasing prayer mats and being photographed in prayer posture. Many new mosques were also built in Baghdad around the same time. In response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, it was not enough for President Bush to try to eliminate al-Qaeda in Afghanistan’s

268

Iraq Disarmed

mountainous country. For him and Vice President Dick Cheney, removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq by military means would demonstrate their power, despite the lack of any link between him and al-Qaeda. According to the US leadership, Saddam Hussein posed a continuous strategic threat to the oil-rich sheikhs in the Persian Gulf as long as he was able to gain increased control over the oil resources of the Middle East. As a result, a broad consensus within the US administration formed around Bush and Cheney, which included National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose interest in war was partly dictated by his quest to test the military’s new high-tech capabilities that he had developed. Their main opposition came from the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, joined by Colin Powell—a four-star general, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now secretary of state—with the ability to think in both strategic and diplomatic terms, and the only one in the administration’s internal high-level consultations to argue against the link between the attacks on September 11 and Iraq. This minority position received strong support outside the administration, in particular from Brent Scowcroft, former national security advisor to President George H. W. Bush. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, he (prophetically) argued that an attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq would undermine international cooperation and destroy efforts to create an international campaign against the growing terrorism in the Middle East. A war against secular Iraq would be an ill-advised and detrimental action. Few doubted that Scowcroft’s argument was supported by his friend and former boss (George H. W. Bush). Vice President Dick Cheney’s response to this was simply to declare that there was no doubt that Iraq was in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons, despite UNSCOM’s and IAEA’s previous assurances to the contrary. According to him, chemical and biological weapons were certainly included in the arsenals of the Iraqi armed forces. Later, it would be Colin Powell’s thankless task to try to convince members of the Security Council that weapons of mass destruction continued to exist in Iraq. US critics of the war plans warned of the security-political vacuum that would arise when Iraq lost the war (the obvious result), following which Iraq would be taken over by various warlords and organized crime syndicates while local security agencies, police organizations, and the judiciary would be disbanded. President George W. Bush gave clear signals of his intentions when, in his State of the Union speech in January 2002, he defined Iraq, North Korea, and Iran as “the Axis of Evil,” which, together with terrorists, prepared to threaten world peace.

The End of UNSCOM

269

In October 2002, the US national intelligence community (the CIA and other agencies) presented its analysis. They stated that Baghdad had chemical and biological weapons and missiles with ranges of up to 150 kilometers, and that without control and supervision the Arab nation would be able to acquire nuclear weapons within ten years. The otherwise cautious CIA chief George Tenet characterized these conclusions as indisputable “slam dunk” evidence. Those were the conclusions he made without the UN inspectors, whether UNSCOM or UNMOVIC, having been able to operate in Iraq for four years, ever since the inspection activities had ceased in December 1998. As we now know, this assessment by the CIA and other intelligence services (British) was completely erroneous and misleading. One explanation for this, in my opinion, was that the CIA and MI6 took a step back during UNSCOM’s successful work, as they had nothing to add to the commission’s reports to the Security Council. When UNSCOM was forced out of Iraq in 1998, the British and US organizations had no functioning independent intelligence system regarding Iraq’s weapons capabilities. Another reason for their catastrophically unsuccessful assessments may have been psychological, namely, to overcompensate for the severe underassessment of Iraq’s weapons capabilities made by them in 1990, prior to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. However, the intelligence and security services did prove right in one important area: that there was no operational cooperation between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. This would also later be confirmed by Saddam Hussein after his arrest when under interrogation by US intelligence officers George Piro and John Nixon he reiterated that, as a secular leader, he feared the rise of religious fanatism in the Middle East and internationally, and consequently he hoped that Iraq and the United States would cooperate against alQaeda and its various components, such as al-Nusra and others. In Saddam’s eyes, the United States and Iraq were natural allies in the fight against Islamic extremism. He never understood why the US leadership did not realize this. As I described earlier, I had personally been involved in taking messages transmitted by Saddam through Kamel and Aziz for direct delivery to the White House in Washington, aimed at US-Iraqi exchange of information on jihadist terrorism. With these resurrected and, as we now know, unfounded suspicions against Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs, in November 2002, the Security Council issued a new resolution (1441), which proclaimed that Iraq had breached its obligations under previous resolutions (687, 707, and 715) and 1284 (the UNMOVIC resolution) to comply with the

270

Iraq Disarmed

disarmament requirements. As a result, Iraq could face serious consequences if the country continued to breach its obligations, particularly if it refused to grant UNMOVIC inspectors access to Iraqi territory. This broad and threatening language prompted Iraq to finally give up its political opposition and open itself to inspections by both UNMOVIC and the IAEA. Such inspections would not begin until the last days of November 2002, after four years of idle interruption.

UNMOVIC Starts Its Inspections It was on November 25, 2002, that UNMOVIC began its operational activities in Iraq. Inspections were ongoing for a period of almost four months, up to March 17, 2003, when the Second Iraq War started. They totaled 731 UNMOVIC inspections, or perhaps to be more accurate, “visits,” to 411 sites. I refer to these operations as visits because it can hardly be considered realistic to conduct that many thorough inspections in such a short time. To start with, inspections must be designed as routine visits in order for inspectors to reacquaint themselves with facilities that were already well known and documented through several years of UNSCOM inspections. Traditional weapons inspections using the UNSCOM model would have required extensive planning and target identification based on elaborate preparation in Bahrain, whereas UNMOVIC inspectors were forced to work under pressure with considerable time constraints without baseline data and using only their own current photo data. They did not have access to a regional base in Bahrain for direct operational planning, technical support, and technical evaluation. Nor could they, like UNSCOM, work with the support of a helicopter unit in Iraq. Despite the list of shortcomings, it must be noted that the new inspectors under Blix’s leadership maintained a high professional standard and carried out their tasks in an impeccable manner, considering the circumstances. UNMOVIC was given the most important facilities for inspections listed by the CIA and the British intelligence service, according to Blix himself. This, of course, was in stark contrast to Blix’s own introductory statement about the importance of not accepting “remote control,” and his unfounded claims that UNSCOM, under my leadership, based its inspections and operations on materials from the US intelligence service. UNMOVIC’s dependence on US and British intelligence services caused, as we all later learned, its knowledge and insights on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to be myopic and insufficient. Also,

The End of UNSCOM

271

it came as no surprise that UNMOVIC’s activity did not strike any lodes of prohibited material—the decisive reason being that Iraq did not, in fact, have any significant quantities of weapons of mass destruction, as UNSCOM had managed to identify and eliminate all prohibited capabilities during its previous eight years of operation.

Reports to the Security Council—Blix, Powell, Blix On January 27, 2003, Blix and IAEA’s ElBaradei reported to the Security Council. Blix criticized Iraq severely by declaring that the regime did not genuinely embrace and implement the disarmament required to earn the world’s trust and to live in peace. There was no evidence, Blix continued, that Iraq had made the strategic decisions required to achieve the disarmament commitments. Iraq had been given ten years to report its banned capabilities, and Blix no longer had any confidence in the country’s leadership. It was now five minutes to midnight; time was running out! This message was music to the ears of a war-hungry administration in Washington as it provided political support for the invasion plans. Now the real draft for a US invasion began. On the other hand, the Americans were deaf to ElBaradei’s simultaneous declaration in the Security Council that no nuclear weapons or related banned weapons were found, and to his proposal to the Security Council to give Iraq at least six more months for reporting and for the inspectors to do their work. Shortly thereafter, on February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the US view of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction to the Security Council. Powell’s presentation was spread by media around the world. It was built on the condemnatory assessment Blix had made against Iraq the week before. Among other things, Powell talked about mobile laboratories for biological weapons and aluminum tubes to be used in nuclear weapons (in fact, the tubes proved to be spare parts for missiles). The central message was that Iraq had violated Resolution 687 by failing to fully disclose its possession of banned weapons and related capabilities, constituting legal preconditions for military action against Iraq under Resolution 678. Powell also considered Resolution 1441 (from 2002) to be grounds for military intervention. Powell’s presentation received an enthusiastic reception in US media. The sole exception happened to be the independent TV station PBS, on which Jim Lehrer interviewed me just one hour after Powell’s performance because I happened to be in New York that same day. I

272

Iraq Disarmed

was skeptical of Powell’s presentation, especially the claims of the mobile laboratories, and graded his performance with a C. During the interview on his show NewsHour, Lehrer looked increasingly concerned about my criticism. Several years later, I met Lehrer at a reception in Washington. He shook my hand and thanked me for “saving” NewsHour by making their broadcast the only correct and realistic evaluation of Powell’s presentation. What I subsequently found so fascinating about Powell’s report, which seemed to be based solely on CIA data, was precisely its lack of substance in contrast with UNSCOM’s dense and compact factual basis. The situation changed with Blix’s presentation to the Security Council on February 14 of the following week in the presence of the foreign ministers of all permanent member states: Colin Powell, Jack Straw from the UK, Dominique de Villepin from France, Igor Ivanov from Russia, and Tang Jiaxuan from China. Blix reported that Iraq had not offered any new concessions or reported any banned weapons or capabilities. Nor had UNMOVIC found any prohibited objects at the facilities designated by (the US and UK) intelligence services. He also praised Iraq’s cooperation with UNMOVIC and made the assessment that Iraq’s policy was now set for cooperation with the UN. Therefore, Blix suggested, as ElBaradei on behalf of the IAEA had done earlier, that inspectors should be given more time. This came as a surprise to the US administration that had so complimented Blix’s earlier, extremely critical report. Now they could barely hide their disappointment and irritation. US media, especially those with neoconservative writers, attacked Blix. It was impressive how calmly and serenely Blix handled this surge of indignation directed at him. At the same time, he received overwhelming praise and acclaim in the international press, especially in Europe. With his latest presentation, he had helped to stop the United States and Britain from mobilizing sufficient support in the Security Council to obtain formal approval for a military attack on Iraq. The permanent members France, Russia, and China made it clear that reasons for supporting military intervention could not be found. France’s President Chirac prophetically predicted that a war of the kind that the United States seemed to be seeking would only reinforce terrorism.

The Mathews Plan In Washington, my friends, especially in the Carnegie and Brookings Institutes, were signaling that George W. Bush and Cheney (with his ties

The End of UNSCOM

273

to the oil industry) were becoming increasingly impatient with the status quo on Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s continued leadership. Although the CIA could not find any evidence that linked Iraq and Saddam to the terrorist attack on the United States on 9/11, there was still a sense that Saddam should be punished and removed from power. My understanding of the White House’s reasoning was that the weapons issue was now at most of secondary importance in the shaping of US politics. However, it was significant in that it could lend legitimacy to attacks against Iraq. But the real problem was Saddam Hussein’s ambition, which could have far-reaching consequences for the strategic balance in the energy-rich Gulf region. Through the Iraq-Iran War, Saddam Hussein had neutralized Iran’s influence. Furthermore, he had occupied Kuwait, attacked Israel, and invaded northeastern Saudi Arabia. There was the possibility that by military and political means he could eventually dominate the Persian Gulf and its critical energy supply. I already knew from Madeleine Albright that members of Bill Clinton’s administration had been thinking similar thoughts: “First, get rid of Saddam Hussein—then sanctions relief, and peace.” The fact that in 2002, after four years, Iraq continued to refuse UN weapons inspectors access, not even the soft UNMOVIC variety, certainly did not lighten the atmosphere in the White House. Jessica Mathews, Carnegie’s inspirational leader (and daughter of historian Barbara Tuchman), understood this better than most. In early autumn 2002, Mathews assembled a working group in Washington, to which I was invited. There she presented two extreme alternatives: the first was to do nothing at all, and the other, to go to war. Her compromise proposal was “Iraq: A New Approach,” a report in which she talked about “coercive inspections.” Such weapons inspections would be conducted under the protection of a well-equipped, multinational military force, organized and structured by the UN Security Council, which would operate in Iraq and enable UN and IAEA weapons experts to conduct intrusive inspections. Based on the Washington Working Group, Mathews, Air Force General Charles Boyd, who had recently retired from the Pentagon, and I formed an operative group to provide political support for the idea of intrusive inspections as an alternative to full-scale war against Iraq. It was General Boyd who, with his special skills, formulated a plan for how the military dimension of intrusive inspections would be implemented in practice. The UN inspectors would be accompanied by a multinational military force and would be free to determine the inspection objectives and the time of implementation. In September 2002, our working group presented an elaborate proposal on how inspections

274

Iraq Disarmed

could be conducted without Iraq’s right to raise objections. We explained that the military aspect of intrusive inspections would represent a balance because the group would be both limited in size and multinational so that it would not be perceived as an invasion force, but at the same time organized in a way that it could use force, if it proved to be necessary. The proposal for intrusive inspections would provide an alternative to war, invasion, and regime change in Iraq. In a couple of articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times, Mathews and Boyd warned that the risks for war were imminent against an Iraq that would not permit inspections. Russia’s initial sympathy and understanding of the United States following the terrorist attacks on September 11 had gradually hardened into a definite resistance to the United States’ warlike tone against Iraq. Germany, which entered the Security Council as a nonpermanent member on January 1, 2003, faced a dilemma as a loyal European nation to the United States, while at the same time harboring genuine disgust for a war against Iraq and seeking to nurture cooperation with France. Moreover, it was Germany, out of all nations and governments, that perceived the diplomatic and political possibilities offered by Jessica Mathews’s plan when looking for alternatives to Bush administration policies that sought a Security Council war mandate to invade Iraq. In a series of interviews with leading German political journals, I explained and developed the alternative initiative, something I also urged in meetings with German government officials. The weekly political magazine Der Spiegel labeled it the “Der Ekéus-Plan” and argued that the plan was an ideal starting point for the Security Council’s consultations in New York. Nor had Mathews’s campaign gone unnoticed in the United States. On September 2, the White House informed General Boyd that Condoleezza Rice wanted to meet with us the next day. I was in Stockholm hosting the Monterey Strategy Group, so I couldn’t participate. Mathews and Boyd’s meeting with Rice, who was accompanied by her closest colleague, Stephen Hadley, lasted for an hour and a half. Rice started by saying, “I like the word intrusive,” and continued to listen intently about the plan. In particular, she wondered if the inspections did not reveal any prohibited weapons, would it still be possible to remove Saddam Hussein from power and free Iraq from his malign rule? To that question, Mathews answered firmly, “We are looking for a policy that can be supported in the Security Council.” As it became clear that the plan was gaining more attention, I traveled to New York where, together with Mathews and Boyd, on September 13, 2002, we presented our ideas to Kofi Annan, who was accompanied

The End of UNSCOM

275

by his chief of staff, Iqbal Riza. Annan was strongly positive. Here was a possibility for the Security Council to agree on a resolution. The experienced Riza was more skeptical. He thought the United States was going to protest: Bush wanted war. Iraq would object because of sovereignty. We also had a meeting with the French UN delegation, minister Yves Doutriaux, who displayed keen interest, and with my old friend, the Norwegian ambassador Ole Peter Kolby (also in the Security Council as a nonpermanent member), who was patently positive. Kolby said that the majority of the Security Council members wanted to restart inspections and monitoring without military intervention. British ambassador Jeremy Greenstock kindly said, “Don’t worry! We have another plan! Your ideas are clever—maybe we will implement them in the future.” The next day, I went to Washington for a Saturday meeting in a seemingly empty Pentagon building with Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary at the Department of Defense, whom I knew from his time as a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Over an improvised lunch at his desk, Wolfowitz expressed his conviction that Saddam Hussein was behind many acts of terror. I cautiously doubted this and recalled the offer that Tariq Aziz had extended through me to the United States for Iraqi-US cooperation in the fight against terrorism. Then I presented our plan for intrusive inspections as an alternative to an invasion of Iraq and Saddam’s removal from power. Wolfowitz did not appear impressed. He felt that the military dimension of the plan was too arbitrary and too risky to implement. At this stage, US Defense Minister Rumsfeld entered the room and settled down at the desk. I was pleasantly surprised when he expressed clear skepticism over the CIA’s theories of Iraqi terrorist links, a skepticism I also shared. With his typically ironic humor, Rumsfeld explained that the problem with the CIA was that they never read any official nonsecret material, such as newspapers and books, but only secret documents. This explained the CIA’s many mistakes and oversights. In addition, he was most interested in discussing Iraq’s missiles with me, as he recalled that in 1998 I had assisted his “Rumsfeld Group” on the missile issue as an independent advisor. At my next Washington visit a month later, I was invited to the White House on October 9, 2002, to meet alone with deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley. In his office, a few steps from the Oval Office, I was thoroughly questioned about my analysis of the weapons situation, and the conditions for functioning weapons inspections in the event that UNMOVIC was granted access to Iraq. Despite my doubts about UNMOVIC’s competence and professionalism, I tried to give as positive an assessment as possible, given

276

Iraq Disarmed

that a new round of inspections could delay or even prevent a war against Iraq. Despite my attempts to argue in support of the Mathews plan, Hadley did not want to discuss it at the time. In response to US and UK skepticism toward launching new weapons inspections, in February 2003, France, Russia, and Germany proposed a strengthened inspection regime that reflected ideas in the Mathews plan, but without the most important component, the military element. On February 6, 2003, I had a meeting in New York with Kofi Annan, who said that Powell had told him that President Bush had asked for more policy options on Iraq, regarding alternatives to an invasion. Annan thought that may have created an opening for our plan. The following day, Boyd and I were invited to the White House. Mathews, whose antiwar campaign had made her unpopular with the US administration, was not invited. It turned out that Rice was not present when we arrived, but it was Hadley, who would soon succeed her as national security advisor, accompanied by Robert Joseph, who welcomed us. The atmosphere felt foreboding. War hung in the air, but strangely enough we talked once again about our idea for an alternative to war. I argued vigorously to give UNMOVIC inspectors more time and for ground troops to accompany the weapons inspectors in accordance with our plan. This was not helped by UNMOVIC’s boss, Blix, having officially argued against the plan, a fact Hadley gladly pointed out to me. Nevertheless, Hadley did listen politely to our arguments, although I got an unpleasant feeling that it was too late for our ideas to prevail. A decision for war seemed inevitable. We were thanked politely and escorted from the White House. The following Sunday, February 9, I recounted the White House meeting to Annan at his residence. Together we exchanged and discussed different thoughts on how we could influence the situation. That our ideas did not go completely unnoticed was shown by the fact that at that time (the beginning of February, i.e., the very last moment), Germany and France proposed an alternative plan that was presented to Bush and Tony Blair, that borrowed from Mathews’s plan on more intensive and intrusive inspections as an alternative to war. With these ideas in mind, on March 5, our trio sent a revised version of Mathews’s plan to Hadley in the White House, Annan at the UN, as well as Germany and France. We called our version a “negotiation compromise.” In it, we proposed that Russia, Germany, and France declare their readiness to approve military arrangements in support of the weapons inspections and that if inspectors were

The End of UNSCOM

277

stopped, an international coalition would intervene. Germany and France answered and thanked us, but the White House kept silent. On March 20 the war began, bringing an end to the Jessica Mathews plan.

The Second Iraq War and the Rise of ISIS At the same time as these somewhat peculiar side events were taking place, the Bush administration systematically relegated itself to a war. It was quite clear that Bush, and in particular Cheney, had long since decided on war. They would not allow Saddam Hussein to gain a controlling influence in the Gulf region with its abundant energy riches. In my opinion, there was no threat of weapons of mass destruction that drove US politics. Given that UNSCOM essentially eliminated Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities as early as 1997, it is hard to believe that cynics and realists like Bush and Cheney truly saw this nonexistent weapons program as a threat. It would have been enough to read UNSCOM’s detailed factual reports of 1997 and 1998 to realize that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capacity posed no serious threat as no such capability existed. They wanted a regime change in Iraq with the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. At that stage, the United States and the United Kingdom circulated a draft resolution among members of the Security Council, which included an authorization to militarily attack Iraq. Bush and Cheney probably had no intention of asking the United Nations for approval to attack. But for Bush’s closest ally, Britain’s prime minister Tony Blair, who had concerns and opposition in his Labour Party, it was important to demonstrate that an international blessing was sought for an armed intervention. Without the Security Council’s authorization, an invasion of Iraq would be a flagrant violation of international law. The president of France, Jacques Chirac, responded to the US/UK draft with a resolution calling for more time for the inspectors’ activities. Thus, it became increasingly clear that France was considering vetoing a resolution that would legitimize a military attack on Iraq. It was already obvious that neither Russia nor China was prepared to give any support to the Americans. In this situation, two problems arose for Bush and Cheney: (1) Would they submit a resolution that was doomed to be stopped by a (French) veto? (2) Could they mobilize a majority in the Security Council large enough, despite the veto, to morally justify a war against Iraq?

278

Iraq Disarmed

The latter plan eventually collapsed as US consultations revealed that, in addition to determined partner Tony Blair’s UK, only Spain, Bulgaria, and Pakistan appeared to be safe votes for war against Iraq. Through a campaign in Africa, led by Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, France managed to persuade the nonpermanent members of Angola, Cameroon, and Guinea to declare themselves ready to vote against the draft resolution. Mexico and Chile—the two Latin American countries on the council—made it clear that they would not vote in favor of a military attack. It didn’t get easier for the United States when Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared at a press conference that a US invasion of Iraq without the authorization of a Security Council resolution would violate the UN Charter prohibiting military aggression, and hence international law. Under those circumstances, with just seven votes in favor, and the threat of a French veto, the United States and the United Kingdom withdrew the draft resolution. Without Security Council authorization, the United States and the United Kingdom initiated military action against Iraq on March 20, 2003. The war was fast-moving. About 150,000 soldiers were deployed. Per Rumsfeld’s plans, the United States attacked with a force significantly less than Powell’s “overwhelming force” of over 500,000 soldiers in the Kuwait War in 1991. Their advanced equipment and developed tactical capabilities compensated for fewer ground troops. With support mainly from British troops (about 35,000 soldiers), in just six weeks the United States carried out its planned operations with few losses. The Iraqi defense collapsed. On May 1, 2003, standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, President Bush declared to the world’s media, “Mission accomplished!” But what Bush and Rumsfeld overlooked was that military postwar operations would require large troop reserves and extensive resources. This factor had been completely overlooked in the planning of the invasion, which had resulted in rapid troop movements outside cities and in densely populated areas. What happened now was that the cities were filled with hostile troops and armed Iraqis. When considering this in retrospect, one must be aware that the US leadership had listened to academics and Iraqi exiles who claimed that the Iraqi people would welcome the Americans and their allies as liberators and that there would be no need for the usual resources for a heavy occupation. What actually happened was that the Iraqi police surrendered their stations and the entire civil society order dissolved. The widespread looting of virtually everything not nailed down that followed in the wake of the

The End of UNSCOM

279

advance of the US troops clearly showed that US military leadership had not anticipated or understood what would be required. The situation also did not improve when President Bush appointed Paul Bremer III as head of the coalition authority responsible for the occupation. In reality, this authority was unilaterally controlled by the Americans, ignoring their British allies. Bremer became directly responsible for two decisions that had devastating long-term consequences. The first was that all senior executives in the civil, state, and municipal Iraqi administration under Saddam, who were all members of the Baath Party, were forced to resign. This involved over 150,000 well-qualified public servants. Membership in the party had been a prerequisite for access to higher education and positions within the public administration. This decision deprived Iraq’s governing apparatus of the experience and knowledge that the country so desperately needed in the new situation, which affected the country’s Sunni Muslims in particular. Many leading people who lost access to and influence over the governance of the new Iraq and its major corporations turned to support or at least tolerate the violent elements that emerged in their own community with links to the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. If possible, the situation became even worse when Bremer handed over the responsibility for expelling the members of the Baath Party to Iraq’s Shia majority, who had lusted for revenge for mistreatment during Saddam’s era. The US occupation forced Iraq’s provisional government to write a new constitution and hold general elections, but in ways that ignored minority rights and fomented bloody battles between the Shia majority and Sunni minority. The thoughtless actions of the US occupation made Iraq a land of sectarian rivalry and violence, enabling terrorist strikes in that region and beyond. Every month, thousands of Iraqis were killed (and about a hundred US and British members of the occupation force). The growing violence that the occupying power was unable to prevent caused over a million Iraqis to flee the country, a large proportion of them highly educated and skilled. As if that were not enough, Bremer’s other disastrous decision was to dissolve the Iraqi army and the security apparatus, which, of course, included the Republican Guard. The army, together with the Baath Party, had formed the two pillars of the Iraqi state and Iraqi society. The army’s arsenal disappeared, with no control over in whose hands the weapons ended up. Young soldiers were sent home; officers lost their income. That decision was made by Bremer without Colin Powell’s authorization. The former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, General Jay Garner, protested that it was completely wrong to

280

Iraq Disarmed

deprive 250,000 soldiers of salary and pension. President Bush supported Bremer in his decision, despite Powell and Garner’s objections. Initially, the incompetence of the new Iraqi government was hardly surprising, as Iraq throughout its existence had lacked democratic institutions. In addition, the actions of the US occupation force led to the dissolution of the secular character of the Iraqi state maintained by Saddam Hussein, and to the ensuing political, economic, and social chaos. Religious animosity and rivalry developed that polarized the nation’s two religious groups—Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims—something Saddam Hussein had sought to avoid by every means. Thus, for the isolated Iranian Shia regime in Tehran, a new opportunity opened to establish heavy influence in Iraq and in Baghdad with its large Shia majority and thereby end Iran’s isolation from the Arab world. Not surprisingly, internal conflict between the Shiite Muslim majority and various Sunni groups intensified. In particular, the Sunni Muslim al-Qaeda movement, led by Osama bin Laden, developed a presence in Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq from bases in Afghanistan, by allying with and recruiting dissatisfied Iraqis and mistreated Sunni Muslim minorities. Iran sought to counteract this in various ways by supporting the government of Baghdad. At the same time, one could note how radical Sunni Muslim Wahhabists, financed by Saudi actors, moved their operations to Iraq to counter the growing Iranian influence. From this mess a new organization emerged, ISIS (later IS, for Islamic State) in Iraq and Syria, a Sunni-based movement that quickly developed significant regional power. Gradually, IS grew into a brutal terrorist organization launching extensive operations in much of the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria but also in Libya and subsequently in Europe, with focused terrorist attacks that created profound concern and uncertainty. The organization’s nexus to Iraq has been illustrated by the fact that, along with its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (who died in a Special Forces raid directed by President Trump in October 2019), two of the caliphate’s deputy chiefs had previously belonged to the dissolved Iraqi Baath Party, namely, Abu Muslim alTurkmani from Saddam’s military intelligence service and Abu Ali alAnbari from the Iraqi army. These two had abandoned their secular Baath Party stance and readopted their former Sunni identity as a reaction to the Shiite regime in Baghdad and its harsh policy toward the Sunni minority. It is hardly a tragedy that the dictatorial and brutal Saddam Hussein and his regime were removed from power in Iraq as a conse-

The End of UNSCOM

281

quence of the US-British invasion and occupation. However, the internal political and religious contradictions between Shia and Sunni Muslims that followed the disintegration of Saddam’s regime, as well as the rise of Islamist terrorism and the human suffering caused, leads one to seriously question the thinking and the motivation behind the Second Iraq War. At the same time, UN Secretary-General Annan recognized the necessity of a UN presence in the US-occupied and chaotic Iraq. Therefore, in June 2003, the Secretary-General sent a group of experienced UN personnel to Baghdad under the leadership of Sérgio Vieira de Mello, one of the UN’s most respected diplomats. Their task was to try to help stabilize Iraq through contact with all sides of the socially and politically divided country, according to a traditional UN model, independent of the occupying power. De Mello’s group moved into UNSCOM’s former BMVC headquarters at the Canal Hotel. Both de Mello and Kofi Annan agreed that the UN could not work from within the highly protected Green Zone established by the US occupying power. That zone was too effectively shielded from Iraqi society, while the Canal Hotel was more accessible because it was located outside the Green Zone. The UN group considered its special mission to promote the rapid and effective integration of Iraqi personnel into the postwar Iraqi government. Secretary-General Annan and de Mello argued that democracy could not be imposed on Iraq by the US occupying power. These important initiatives were sadly destroyed on August 19, when a truck (most likely driven by al-Qaeda, which later took responsibility for the attack) with 1,000 kilos of explosives was parked under de Mello’s office window and exploded, killing him. Also killed in the attack were more than a dozen of de Mello’s UN colleagues, including his chief of staff Nadia Younes, who had worked with UNSCOM and was a personal friend of mine. The Swedish rescue service in Baghdad arrived on the scene almost immediately and made great efforts to rescue the injured, which helped reduce the death toll. This terrorist attack constituted a serious setback to the UN and Secretary-General Annan’s desire to stabilize Iraq. There was no reason for further UN presence in Iraq, as long as the US occupation authority refused to surrender any of its governance and influence to the UN. However, in the following year, the experienced Lakhdar Brahimi did set up a series of meetings to facilitate efforts to stabilize Iraq, although with limited success.

282

Iraq Disarmed

The Evaluation of the Weapons Issue Soon after the occupation, the search for weapons of mass destruction began as their alleged existence had been used to legitimize the attack on Iraq. Initially, despite an intensive search, the US military found nothing of relevance, so it was up to the CIA to assume responsibility. Hoping for a quick solution, they called in David Kay, who had led some of the first weapons inspections in Iraq in 1991 before being dismissed by then IAEA chief Blix, who was not happy with Kay’s intrusive inspection methods. In the months leading up to the Iraq War, Kay had been deeply involved in the US debate. His wavering assumptions and speculation that Saddam Hussein had managed to preserve and develop significant quantities of undeclared prohibited weapons were reminiscent of Colin Powell’s unconvincing presentation to the Security Council. Kay, who had contributed to the motivation for the Iraq invasion, was now expected to prove the theories he and others had peddled. He commenced search inspections in occupied Iraq, but could not, despite his earlier expectations, find any prohibited weapons or capabilities. Being the impatient person he was, Kay clashed with both the CIA commanders and the US military in Iraq, and soon (in January 2004) quit his post after officially declaring that Iraq had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that everyone who claimed the opposite, including him, had been wrong. In other words, he reaffirmed UNSCOM’s conclusions and the assessments that UNMOVIC later reached under Blix. At that point, Bremer and the CIA realized that they needed to take a different approach. CIA Director Tenet decided to appoint Charles Duelfer to head the new Iraq Survey Group (ISG). Duelfer was formally appointed in a meeting with Bush in February 2004. The new ISG grew to include about 1,700 employees, primarily members of the US Army, who now worked on this issue under CIA direction. The operation, which lasted less than two years, cost an astronomical sum of around $1 billion. This compared to UNSCOM’s permanent staff of about 100 people (without counting the U-2 group’s 75, the helicopter unit’s 25, and the heavy transport plane’s 6-person staff), as well as the IAEA’s Action Team, which consisted of about 10 people. Duelfer quickly realized that expertise in scientific terms was severely limited in this multifaceted crowd, and that the art and technical ability to search for chemical and biological weapons capabilities, missiles, and nuclear fuel was close to nil. He also needed to gain

The End of UNSCOM

283

knowledge on UNSCOM’s methodology, and he did this by recruiting one of my close colleagues at UNSCOM, Stephen Black, who came into the ISG with extensive experience of both ideas and practices. In a second meeting with Bush, Duelfer managed to explore the possibility of regular meetings with Saddam Hussein’s closest associates, in particular Saddam’s chief of staff Abid Habid Mahmud al-Tikriti, an arrangement that gave him more political insight than technical weaponry information. In addition, he was able to regularly interview George Piro, the US specialist appointed to interrogate the captured Saddam Hussein. As with the UNMOVIC staff, Duelfer’s large set of CIArecruited personnel was not in line with what he had been used to during the UNSCOM era. Figuring out the concepts of biological weapons created problems, so Duelfer was wise enough to recruit some more of UNSCOM’s experienced bioweapon experts, including Rod Barton from Australia, Hamish Killip from the United Kingdom, and Richard Spertzel from the United States. On October 6, 2004, Duelfer was able to present his final report to the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. It was fairly well received. Of particular interest was that Duelfer had been able to build part of the report based on in-depth interviews with leading figures in Saddam Hussein’s government. On December 21, he presented the final socalled Duelfer Report to President Bush. Although it contained a lot of new, interesting, and unknown material on Iraq’s weapons programs, its conclusions can be interpreted as proving that Iraq’s final disarmament was implemented, in accordance with the Security Council’s cease-fire resolution, by and through UNSCOM and the IAEA Action Team in the operations that ended in 1998. I felt vindicated by Duelfer as I still remembered Kay’s first unsubstantiated claim in his article in the Washington Post as early as July 2003 that warned of the theoretical possibility that Iraq could have utilized the long absence of inspectors since 1999 to create an improved capacity to secretly and quickly produce nerve gases for terrorist attacks. Although the article could have been conceived as a justification of the Bush-Blair war, not long afterward the Duelfer Report was able to refute such concerns. Perhaps the most important interpretation of Duelfer’s report was that in-depth US interviews with an incarcerated Saddam Hussein and his closest collaborators made clear that the regime had no written or formal strategy or plan to revive the weapons programs when the sanctions were lifted. Neither had the Duelfer investigation identified

284

Iraq Disarmed

another group in Iraq that could develop or produce weapons of mass destruction. But first and foremost, after the Iraq War in 2003, it showed that UNSCOM and IAEA operations from 1991 to 1998 fully succeeded in carrying out their mission, as stated in the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution of April 1991. All prohibited weapons and components had been found, identified, and destroyed. A well-functioning system for monitoring Iraq’s dual-use capabilities had come into place as early as 1995. This was achieved despite Iraq’s systematic efforts to make the work of the inspectors difficult and complicated in every way.

14 Iraq’s Catch-22

WHEN THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL ADOPTED RESOLUTION 687, IT also created UNSCOM with powers to inspect any building and production facility, to confiscate weapons documents, and to seize and destroy weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, biological) and their delivery systems. This was the first, and only, time the Security Council established an organization directly under its exclusive guidance. However, it imposed on UNSCOM a nearly insurmountable task: to disarm Iraq without the regime’s voluntary disclosure. In Washington, the drafters of the resolution were not concerned about the difficulties of the task assigned to UNSCOM. They thought that Saddam would soon fall and be replaced by a friendlier government, and thus the long-term verification mechanism would not be necessary. However, as time went on and UNSCOM started to accomplish more than expected, Washington began to consider what would happen if sanctions were lifted and Saddam was still there. With money flowing into Iraq, would Saddam truly comply with the limitations established by Resolution 687? Would the monitoring system established by Resolution 715 be solid enough to detect or deter possible cheating? And most importantly, was it reasonable to think that the Security Council would muster the will to reimpose sanctions, absent some major event, like war? On the other hand, by refusing to consider lifting any of the sanctions as long as Saddam was in power, despite substantive progress on the disarmament file, Washington risked losing the unity of the council.

285

286

Iraq Disarmed

For the Iraqi leadership, Resolutions 687 and 715 constituted a dilemma: full disclosure of its WMDs was necessary to get sanctions lifted, but at the cost of becoming vulnerable to a potential attack by Iran. During one of my many meetings with Tariq Aziz, he recalled that it had been the use of chemical weapons against the waves of Iranian troops overrunning Iraqi defenses during the Iran-Iraq War and the firing of long-range missiles against Tehran that had forced Ayatollah Khomeini to accept the cease-fire in 1988. Saddam feared that Iran would seek to exact revenge if given the opportunity. That posed the dilemma. On the one hand, Saddam needed the sanctions lifted in order to improve the shattered economy of his country. For that purpose, he needed UNSCOM to report to the council that the disarmament obligations were met. On the other hand, we can assume that Saddam believed that, if UNSCOM were to provide a clearcut certification that all of Iraq’s WMDs had been effectively destroyed, Iran would attack them. To resolve this dilemma, Saddam tried to retain a portion of Iraq’s WMDs, in the belief that UNSCOM inspectors could be easily fooled by Iraqi contrivances. Secondly, he admitted the largest but less sophisticated parts of his WMD programs and provided as much information on those weapons as necessary for UNSCOM to close the disarmament file while leaving some ambiguities to keep the Iranians guessing about the true status of those weapons. The strategy didn’t work. In 2003, when the ambiguity was used as an excuse by Washington to claim that Iraq still constituted a real and present danger, it cost Saddam his grip on power and his life. The dynamic between UNSCOM and the Security Council created by Resolution 687 presented a complex situation. For UNSCOM it was difficult to state categorically that Iraq had fully complied with its disarmament obligations unless Iraq was to provide genuine, full disclosure of all its WMD programs. Like any inspection system that depends on the subject under inspection to declare in full the “universe” to be verified, UNSCOM could not ascertain that “every single” weapon, part, and component had been accounted for without receiving Iraq’s full disclosure. Caught between these two challenges, UNSCOM was forced to devise tactics and tools that went beyond the traditional disarmament methods. It also developed a diplomatic approach to keep all relevant actors, particularly the members of the Security Council, abreast of and engaged in the developments and challenges, which in turn allowed it to retain solid and unified support for UNSCOM. Politically, the work under my leadership was characterized by almost complete unity in the

Iraq’s Catch-22

287

council. That, however, did not exclude repeated US air strikes against Iraq and attempts to oust Saddam. But the unity of the council would not last forever. Once Washington lifted the veil and made it clear that it would not approve any removal of sanctions while Saddam remained in power, the unity started to falter and the political cracks in the Security Council became increasingly clear. And the less united the council was, the more defiant the Iraqi regime became, creating a vicious circle. It is now, with the passage of time and the exhaustive work of the ISG, that we know that virtually all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and related programs were eliminated under UNSCOM and the IAEA supervision and pressure. We were more successful than we knew at the time. Two basic elements made this success possible. First, UNSCOM was able to mobilize an extremely qualified, competent, courageous, and committed group of scientists, experts, and inspectors. Second, the Security Council, and in particular the five permanent members, showed unique consensus in their support for UNSCOM and the IAEA. This combination of operational methods, scientific competence, and constructive political unity signaled a potential future role for the United Nations in the struggle for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

Index

Abu Ghraib army barracks: IAEA inspection, 41–42 aflatoxin, 142, 161 The Age of Deception (ElBaradei), 219 Ahtisaari, Martti, 16 Aimé, Jean-Claude, 89 air strikes: accusations of UNSCOM complicity, 198; destruction of Iraqi mobile missile launchers, 70; fake news from Interfax, 194–195; Iraqi obstruction of UNSCOM flights, 84; military attack as response to inspection obstruction, 180–181; Operation Desert Fox, 248; US response for Iraqi detainment of the inspection team, 57 air support for UNSCOM, 31–35; documenting Iraqi prevention of inspections, 195–196; helicopter base location, 60, 62; inspection of “sensitive sites,” 185–186, 231; Iraq’s prohibition against UNSCOM transport planes, 81–85 Akashi, Yasushi, 14, 42, 48 al-Anbari, Abdul Amir, 21–22, 41, 52– 55, 59, 77 al-Atheer nuclear weapons plant, 106, 168 Albright, Madeleine, 117, 201; acceptance of monitoring inspections, 98; accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 251–252, 254; Annan’s

appointment to the UN, 88–90; Annan’s mission to Baghdad, 243; Aziz’s criticism of US policy, 153– 154; Butler’s withdrawal of inspectors from Baghdad, 246–247; concerns over a second Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, 114–115; creation of UNSCOM, 20; disbanding UNSCOM, 256; doubting UNSCOM’s “soft” resolution methods, 191; entrance into the Security Council, 86–88; inspection of “sensitive sites,” 187–189; the Martelle espionage affair, 216–217; oil embargo, 93, 220–221; oil-forfood resolution, 128; praise for UNSCOM, 197–198; Primakov advocating intrusive inspections, 241; response to Iraq’s implementation of Resolution 687, 162–164; shifting US policy on Iraq, 191–192; UNSCOM’s role in biological weapons discovery and identification, 161–165; US threat of military action, 179–180 al-Daura plant: uranium enrichment, 149 al-Fallujah facility, 41, 46–48 al-Hakam biological weapons facility: anthrax production, 125; development and production of biological weapons, 149; discovery and elimination of weapons at, 107–108; the existence of

289

290

Index

biological weapons, 125–126, 129– 130; Iraq’s procurement from Switzerland and Czechoslovakia, 152; UNSCOM preparations for demolition, 168–169 al-Hindawi, Nassir, 131, 149, 152 al-Hussein missiles, 69–70 al-Khalifa, Abdul Rahman, 38 al-Khaliq, Abd, 46; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 75; obstacles to al-Fallujah inspection, 47 al-Majid, Ali Hassan, 157–158, 193–194 al-Muthanna chemical weapons facility, 93–94; chemical weapons inspections, 104; completing the mapping and destruction of chemical weapons, 205–206; destruction of evidence, 38–39; elimination of chemical weapons, 165–167; the existence of biological weapons, 131; inspection and destruction of materials, 104; Iraqis’ admission of biological weapons possession, 142; uranium enrichment, 149 al-Qaeda terrorism, 118, 267, 280–281 al-Qaqaa explosives plant, 58, 169 al-Qaysi, Riad, 73, 140–141, 181–182, 244 al-Rashidiyya nuclear plant, 148–149 al-Sahaf, Muhammed, 22, 134; criticism of the inspection team, 60–61; defection, 140–141; the existence of biological weapons, 135; false news of US air strikes, 198; Iraqi obstruction of UNSCOM flights, 84; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 75, 79–80; UNSCOM implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 72–73 al-Samarrai, Wafiq, 123 al-Tarmiyya nuclear plant, 148–149 al-Tikriti, Abid Habid Mahmud, 283 al-Tikriti, Barzan, 48–49 al-Tuwaitha nuclear site, 41 al-Zahawi, Wissam, 38–39, 41, 43, 54, 56–57 Amidror, Yaakov, 158, 171–172, 199 Amin, Hossam, 92, 105, 118, 142, 155, 182 Amorim, Celso, 256, 261 Annan, Kofi: accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 250–252;

Albright’s relationship with, 87–88; appointment as UN Secretary General, 88–90; the author’s resignation from UNSCOM, 233; Baghdad mission, 242–245; Butler’s withdrawal of inspectors from Baghdad, 246–247; creation of UNSCOM, 19; envoy to Baghdad, 239–241; Iraq-UNSCOM confrontation, 242; the Martelle espionage affair, 216–217; the Mathews Plan for military action, 274–277; negotiating the cessation of search inspections, 252–254; the second Iraq War, 278, 281; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 260–261; UNSCOM-Iraq relations, 219; UNSCOM’s resumption of inspections, 245–246 anthrax, 125, 132, 142 Arafat, Yassir, 174, 178 Arkin, William “Bill,” 250, 254 Atomic Energy Commission (Iraq), 10, 47, 49, 58, 61 Axis of Evil, 268 Aziz, Tariq, 22, 143(fig.); Annan’s envoy undermining UNSCOM, 240–241; Annan’s mission to Baghdad, 244; author’s resignation from UNSCOM, 232–233; biological weapons, 124– 126, 132–135, 153–155; Butler’s UNSCOM leadership, 238–239; Butler’s withdrawal of inspectors from Baghdad, 247; concerns over impending terrorist activity, 117–118; criticism of Kamel, 143–145; criticisms of the UNSC Resolution 687, 44–45; demands for oil embargo relief, 246; fears of Iranian revenge, 286; guaranteeing Iraqi cooperation after lifting the oil embargo, 101–102; Hamel’s defection, 153; impatience over sanctions relief, 113–114; implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 72–73; information on weapons programs suppliers, 107; inspection of “sensitive” sites, 184– 186; Iraqi interference in helicopter missions, 230; Iraqi leadership’s disagreement over inspections policy, 109–110; Iraqi protests of surveillance cameras, 93–94, 96; Iraq’s acceptance

Index of Resolution 715 allowing inspections, 98; Iraq’s nuclear policy, 61–62; Iraq’s weapons strategy, 137; Kamel’s defection, 140–141; listing exceptions to inspections, 242; meeting with Kamel Hussein and, 46– 49; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 76, 78, 80; missile count and verification, 207–209; missile gyroscopes, 173–174; murder of Kamel and his mother, 157–158; negotiating Iraqi cooperation with UNSCOM, 117; oil-for-food resolution, 127–128; plan to occupy UNSCOM headquarters, 193–195; relations with Kamel, 109–110; relations with Saddam, 161; religious affiliation, 151; resistance to inspections, 196–197; Resolution 678, 4–5; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning UNSCOM, 121–122; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 261; US desire for regime change, 67, 254; US threat of air strikes, 181–186 Baath Party (Renaissance Party), 1–2, 62, 147–148, 267 baby formula factory, 152 Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Center (BMVC), 36, 99, 119, 215– 216, 237 Bahrain, 33–35, 202 Baker, James, 6, 20, 61 Barak, Ehud, 174–176 Barton, Rod: biological weapons, 125, 129–130, 132, 135 baseline inspection system, 99, 110–111 Baute, Jacques, 140 Berger, Sandy, 189–191, 217, 220–221, 247, 254 Biermann, Achim: Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 79–80 biological weapons, 102(fig.); discovery in the face of Iraqi denials, 123–126; Duelfer Report, 283; Gulf states visit, 200–203; initial declarations and inspections, 70; international political response to the discovery of, 159–161; international response to UNSCOM efforts, 228–229; Iraq’s denial of possession and manufacture, 37–39, 105, 142, 145, 153–155; Kamel’s

291

position on, 146–147, 149, 151–152; ongoing secrecy surrounding, 123– 126; recognition of the existence of, 129–134; response to the discovery of, 137–138; Russian intelligence information, 105–108; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning, 120–121; UNMOVIC mission, 256–257; UNSC response to Kamel’s intelligence, 161– 165; UNSCOM implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 73; UNSCOM mission, 11; UNSCOM report on evidence of, 226; UNSCOM’s success in identifying and mapping, 164; US assertion of Iraq’s acquisition of new weapons, 269 Black, Stephen, 27, 264, 283 Blair, Tony, 248, 277 Blix, Hans, 8–10, 24; Abu Ghraib inspection, 41; al-Fallujah facility inspection, 42; criticism of UNSCOM personnel, 217–219; history of Iraq’s obstruction of inspections, 47–48; IAEA monitoring draft proposal, 66; Kay’s dismissal from service, 62–63; nuclear weapons-related documents, 51–52; obstruction of al-Fallujah inspection, 47–48; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 53–54, 59–60; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 261; staffing UNMOVIC, 262–264; UNMOVIC inspections, 270–271; UNMOVIC’s lack of competence and experience, 214; UNSC report on Iraq’s failure to disarm, 271–272; UNSC response to Iraq blocking inspections, 42–43; UNSCOM organization, 28 Bonnier, Elisabet Borsiin, 65–66 Boothby, Derek, 22 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 89(fig.); advocating cessation of inspections, 111–112; Albright’s relationship with, 87; Annan’s appointment to the UN, 88–90; creation of UNSCOM, 19; Iraq’s response to Resolution 715, 71; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 77–78; US veto of the re-election, 202 Boyd, Charles, 273–276 Brahimi, Lakhdar, 239–241, 243–244 Bremer, Paul, III, 279–280, 282

292

Index

Britain: UNSC-UNSCOM relations, 20 Brzezinsky, Zbigniew, 253 Buchanan, Ewen, 26–27, 181, 259 Bush, George H.W.: George W.’s presidential aspirations, 265–266; Gore’s call for regime change in Iraq, 55; Iraqi nuclear weapons program, 58–59; Iraqi obstruction of UNSCOM flights, 82–83; Iraq’s blocking of inspections, 43; June 26 air strikes on Baghdad, 92; Paris Charter, 13–14; restoring political order in the Gulf, 5; the second Iraq War, 277–281; stabilization of a secular Iraq, 191–192 Bush, George W., 191–192, 265–266, 272–277 Butler, Richard, 232–233, 237–239; accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 250–251; Annan’s envoy to Baghdad, 239–241; Annan’s mission to Baghdad, 243; disbanding UNSCOM, 255–256; Iraq-UNSCOM confrontation, 242; resignation from UNSCOM, 260; Ritter’s friction with, 250; UNSCOM’s resumption of inspections, 245–246; US threat of military action, 247–248; withdrawal of inspectors from Baghdad, 246–247 C-160 transport planes, 33, 54, 60, 62, 79, 81, 83–84, 145 calutrons, 47–48 camera crisis, 91–96 Cardenas, Emilio, 163, 239–241, 260 cease-fire resolution. See Resolution 687 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 20; attempt to depose Saddam Hussein, 178; erroneous assessment of Iraq’s weapons capabilities, 269; espionage and security breach, 215–217; inspection group composition, 45; inspectors’ reports, 59; Iraq’s links to terrorist activity, 275; Kamel’s defection, 141; misleading intelligence, 214; U-2 air operations, 33; the unfruitful search for weapons of mass destruction, 282 Chalabi, Ahmed, 155 chemical weapons, 24, 102(fig.); alMuthanna plant, 93–94; completing the mapping and destruction, 205– 206; creation and military deployment,

152; evolution of Iraq’s weapons strategy, 136–137; first missile inspections and accounting, 69–70; first year of inspections, 69–70; Gulf states visit, 202–203; IAEA draft proposal for dual-use monitoring, 67– 68; identification and elimination process, 165–167; implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 72; implementing monitoring protocols and equipment, 110–111; inspection model, 67; Iran’s accusations of Iraq, 49; Iraq’s failure to provide requested information, 104; Iraq’s possession, 6; Iraq’s response to threats from Iran and Israel, 133–134; release of documents on, 145; UNMOVIC mission, 256–257; UNSCOM implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 73; UNSCOM’s first inspection team and preparations, 37– 40; US assertion of Iraq’s acquisition of new weapons, 269 Cheney, Dick, 268, 272–273, 277–281 chicken farm inspection, 154, 167, 177– 178, 198–199, 230, 240 Chile, 33, 219 China: disbanding UNSCOM, 255–256; paragraph 22 difficulties, 128–129; praise for UNSCOM, 228; sabotaging UNSCOM inspections, 180–181; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 261; UNSC-UNSCOM relations, 21 Chirac, Jacques, 97, 158 Christian minority, Iraq’s, 150–151 Christopher, Warren, 92 civilian casualties, 84 Clarke, Richard, 55–57, 59–60, 116–117 Clinton, Bill, 84; Albright’s appointment to State, 86–89; concerns over second Iraqi attack on Kuwait, 114–115; hard line on the lifting of sanctions, 191– 192; Iraqi noncooperation leading to the threat of military action, 247– 248; June 26 air strikes on Baghdad, 92; military attack as response to inspection obstruction, 181, 188–189; praise for UNSCOM, 158; public scrutiny and impeachment, 256; UNSCOM’s return to Iraq to resume inspections, 245; US demand for regime change, 97–98, 191, 254

Index Clinton, Hillary, 86 “concealment inspections,” 171–174, 238 Cook, Robin, 241 Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Plan, 175–176 Corden, Pierce, 26, 81–83, 104, 171, 264 Cordesman, Anthony, 253 Corell, Hans, 243–244 Countryman, Thomas, 188 coup attempt, 179–180 Cuban missile crisis (1962), 100 data interception operations, 214–215, 250 Davies, Rachel, 28, 30, 140, 156, 158, 171, 263 de Mello, Sérgio Vieira, 234–235, 281 de Mistura, Staffan, 243 de Soto, Álvaro, 89 declarations of weapons, Iraq’s, 37–38; chemical weapons, 39; effect of Kamel’s defection, 140–142; first missile inspections, 69–70; Iraq’s failure to disclosed all capabilities, 229; Iraq’s rejection of Resolution 715, 68–69; possession and manufacture of biological weapons, 37–39, 105, 123–126, 129–134, 142, 145, 153–155; Russian skepticism over the thoroughness of, 227; Scud missiles, 103; UNSCOM’s first chemical weapons inspection, 39–40 Defense Research Agency (FOA; Sweden), 24 Dejammet, Alain, 162–163, 193, 196– 197, 228–229, 231 Delpech, Thérèse, 251–252 Desert Fox, Operation, 248 Desert Storm, Operation, 70, 131 detainment of inspectors, 52–57, 60–61, 66, 141, 167–168, 177, 212 Deutch, John, 179 Dhaif, Abdel, 182 document searches and seizures: concealment of procurement and destruction activities, 195–196; continuing resistance to inspections, 198; detailing Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, 58–63; final report supporting Iraq’s concealment and destruction of, 230–231; Iraqi’s uncooperative attitude towards, 142–143; Iraq’s continued concealment of, 182–184; Kamel’s

293

intelligence, 169; monitoring future production capabilities, 177–178; parking lot confrontation, 51–57, 59– 61, 66, 141, 167–168, 177–178, 212; preparation for future weapons production, 238; release of nuclear weapons program documents, 145; UNSCOM 155 mission, 195–196; VX production evidence, 166 domestic policy, Saddam’s, 147–148 Doutriaux, Yves, 275 dual-use capabilities, monitoring, 11, 36, 66–67, 73, 98–99, 184, 198, 220, 226, 228, 235, 284 Duelfer, Charles: al-Samarrai questioning, 123; inspection of “sensitive sites,” 186–187, 189; intrusive inspections, 171; Iraq Survey Group, 282–284; Kamel’s defection, 151–153; UNMOVIC staffing, 264; UNSCOM organization, 26; US and UK threat of military action against Saddam, 248 Duelfer Report, 258–259 Dunn, Peter: UNSCOM’s first chemical weapons inspection, 37–38 Ebola-type virus development, 145–146 Egypt: Nasser’s stance on Saddam, 160; UNSCOM relations, 21, 197, 228. See also Boutros-Ghali, Boutros; Elaraby, Nabil Eid (Muslim holiday), 44–45 Elaraby, Nabil, 21, 99–100, 179, 187, 196, 199, 228 ElBaradei, Mohammed: criticism of UNSCOM personnel, 217–219; history of Iraq’s obstruction of inspections, 47–48; IAEA director, 261; IAEA monitoring draft proposal, 66; increasing inspection rights, 218; Iraqi resistance to inspections, 43; Kay’s dismissal from service, 63; UNMOVIC mission, 256–257 electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS), 45, 145, 148–149, 168 Eliasson, Jan, 14, 239–241 embargo. See oil embargo; sanctions, economic Englund, Doug, 27, 75 espionage, accusations of, 55–56, 249– 252, 254

294

Index

Evstafiev, Gennady, 105–107 export data, 212–213, 226 fake news, 194–195 Fleischhauer, Carl-August, 16–17, 92 France: control of technology procurement, 176; disbanding UNSCOM, 255–256; the existence of Iraqi bioweapons, 135; Iraqi inspection resistance, 196–197; Kamel’s defection, 158; media attempts to discredit UNSCOM, 101; negotiating the cessation of search inspections, 252–254; oil embargo concerns, 97, 115, 221; praise for UNSCOM, 228–229; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning, 120–121; the second Iraq War, 277–278; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 260–261; support for UNSCOM’s methods and results, 162–163; UNSC-UNSCOM relations, 20–21 Gallucci, Robert, 264; Abu Ghraib army barracks inspection, 41; Aziz’s criticism of inspection teams, 62; creation of UNSCOM, 14–15; document center search, 51–52; Iraq’s prohibition against UNSCOM transport planes, 82; joint report on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, 58– 61; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 52–57, 59–60; Resolution 687, 7; status agreement, 22; UNSCOM organization, 24–26; UNSCOM-Iraq conflict, 79 Garner, Jay, 279–280 Gellman, Barton, 216 geostrategic importance, Iraq’s, 3–4 Germany: continued air support of UNSCOM, 159–160; control of technology procurement, 176; the imminence of war, 274 Gnehm, Edward “Skip,” 113, 119–120, 187–188 Gore, Al, 55, 191, 254 Goulding, Marrack, 89 Graham, Tom, 99 Gulf states: addressing the Iraqi problem, 199–203 gyroscopes, 172–174, 221–222

Hadley, Stephen, 274–276 Halperin, Morton, 253 Hamdoon, Nizar, 21, 175; false news on sanctions relief, 101; Iraqi obstruction of UNSCOM planes, 82–83; Kamel’s defection, 140; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 80; obstacles to inspections, 178, 196–197; praise for UNSCOM’s stance, 220 Hamilton, Lee, 213 Hammadi, Hamed, 134, 193–195 Hammadi, Saadoun, 47–48 Hammond, Owen, 168–169 Hannay, David, 117; Albright’s relationship with, 86; creation of UNSCOM, 20; guaranteeing Iraqi cooperation after lifting the oil embargo, 102; Iraqi obstruction of UNSCOM flights, 83–84; Iraqis protesting cameras at missile tests, 91–93; joint report on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, 58–59; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 74, 78; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 52, 54; unifying the UNSC over Resolutions 687 and 715, 98; UNSCOM evaluation, 258–259 Harris, Elisa, 99 Hassan, Watban Ibrahim, 139, 158 Hecht, Alice, 26–27, 75, 79–80 Heinonen, Olli, 79, 218 helicopter support, 33–35, 62, 219, 223, 227, 229–230 Hezbollah, 117 Hill, Roger, 28, 92, 199 Holbrooke, Richard, 254 Holum, John, 99 Hurd, Douglas, 57 Hussein, Ahmed: Butler’s withdrawal of inspectors from Baghdad, 247; first UNSCOM meeting, 39; history of Iraq’s obstruction of inspections, 48; implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 72; Iraqi resistance to inspections, 43–44; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 75–76; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 52, 55–57; Resolution 715 position, 74; UNSC Resolution delaying the removal of sanctions, 68 Hussein, Qusay, 157–158, 190

Index Hussein, Raghad, 139, 156–157, 161 Hussein, Saddam: accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 249– 250; Albright’s policy, 86; Annan’s mission to Baghdad, 244–245; Aziz’s allegiance, 44–45; bioweapons materials and systems, 126; Bush’s (George W.) priorities for Iraq, 268; deaths of Kamel and his family, 157; debate over the oil embargo terms, 101; intent to terminate cooperation with UNSCOM, 114–115; invasion of Kuwait, 2–3; Iraqi obstruction of UNSCOM flights, 84; Kamel and, 46; Kamel’s defection, 139, 141–142, 156; King Hussein’s mobilization against, 155–156; missile gyroscopes, 173–174; oil-for-food resolution, 127; plan to occupy UNSCOM headquarters, 193–195; retrospective of UNSCOM and IAEA operations, 22; the search for al-Qaeda links, 267; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 261; Shiite threat to Iraq, 1–2; taped conversations, 120–123; threat of US military action in response to obstructionism, 178–181; threats of noncooperation without embargo relief, 134–135; violent and dangerous nature, 159–160 Hussein, Uday, 107, 139, 156–158, 161 Hussein of Jordan, 155–156, 159–161, 178, 199 IAEA, 8–9; draft proposal for monitoring and verification, 65–66; hindering intelligence data collection, 213–214; inadequacy of inspection methods, 261; inspections of Iraqi nuclear establishments, 8–10; nuclear weapons inspections at undeclared facilities, 41–42; Russian criticism of continued inspections, 228; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 261; UNSCOM financing, 18; UNSCOM mission, 11; UNSCOM team, 24–26. See also inspections; monitoring and verification Inderfurth, Karl, 179, 226–227 industrial base, Iraq’s, 72 Indyk, Martin, 88, 99, 114–115, 253

295

Information and Assessment Unit (IAU), 27–28, 32–33, 110, 149, 212–215, 226, 247, 259, 263–264 inspections: Annan’s envoy to Baghdad, 239–241; baseline inspections under Resolution 715, 99; biological weapons fabrications discovery, 123– 126; “concealment inspections,” 171– 174, 238; disbanding UNSCOM, 255–256; document-seeking strategy, 177–178; dual-use technology, 67– 69; the effect of Kamel’s defection, 141–142; guaranteeing cooperation after the lifting of the oil embargo, 99–102; IAEA inspections of Iraqi nuclear establishments, 8–10; IAEA monitoring draft proposal, 66; increasing intrusiveness through “concealment inspections,” 171–174; intrusive inspections, 66–67, 171– 172, 181–186, 235, 238–241, 255, 273–277; intrusive methods from Resolution 707, 63; Iraq leadership’s disagreement over policy, 109–112; Iraq’s breach of obligations leading to intrusive inspections, 181–186; Iraq’s obstruction of, 40, 42–45; IraqUNSCOM joint agreement for inspections, 189–193; large-scale inspection of missiles, 103–104; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 74–81; obstacles to al-Fallujah inspection, 46–47; overcoming Iraq’s inspection-blocking tactics, 49–50; parking lot confrontation, 52–57, 60– 61, 66, 141, 167–168, 177–178, 212; of presidential areas, 231, 242–245; of sensitive sites, 184–189, 195, 231– 232, 238–239; UNMOVIC, 262–263, 270–271; UNSCOM’s Bahrain field office operations, 35; UNSCOM’s return to Iraq to resume, 245–246. See also document searches and seizures; obstructions to inspections; search inspections intelligence collection, 59–60; data interception operations, 214–215; decrease in inflows from foreign governments, 212–215; deficiencies and political prejudice in intelligence material, 217–219; evaluating

296

Index

UNSCOM’s accomplishments, 259– 260; Russian intelligence on biological weapons, 105–108; security breach, 215–217; sources of weapons and banned products data, 40; UNSCOM assessment, 28; US’s erroneous assessment of Iraq’s weapons capabilities, 269. See also Kamel, Hussein Inter-Allied Control Commission (IACC), 8 Interfax, 193–195 International Atomic Energy Agency. See IAEA intrusive inspections, 66–67, 171–172, 181–186, 235, 238–241, 255, 273– 277. See also inspections Iran: aftermath of the Kuwait War, 5; building terrorist capability, 117–118; Gulf states’ concerns over regional influence, 199–200; Iraq’s use of chemical weapons, 6; as perceived threat to Iraq, 143–144; Saddam’s attack on, 2; Saddam’s domestic policy towards Sunni Muslims, 147–148 Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988): costs of, 4; evolution of Iraq’s weapons strategy, 136–137; international support for Iraq, 1–3; Iran’s accusations of Iraq’s chemical weapons, 49; Iraq’s biological weapons, 131, 133; Iraq’s fear of Iranian retaliation, 286; missile count and verification, 103, 208 Iraq Survey Group (ISG), 205, 282–283, 287 Iraq War (2003-2011), 22, 277–281 Iraqi Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), 4 Iraqi Reception Committee, 35 Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), 84, 107, 141, 193, 246. See also Hussein, Saddam Islamic fundamentalism: Kamel’s prescience, 150; Saddam’s domestic policy, 147–148; Saddam’s stance on, 269; the search for al-Qaeda links with Saddam, 267; shifting US policy on Iraq, 191–192 Islamic Revolution (1979), 1 Islamic State (IS), 280–281; Iraq’s Islamization under Saddam, 150–151; rise of, 11

Israel: commitment to the UNSCOM mission, 199–200; concerns over Iraqi procurement of fissile material, 174–176; Iran-Iraq war, 2; Iraqi Scud missiles, 103; Kamel’s defection, 158; Kamel’s hope for peace, 150; political and technological cooperation with UNSCOM, 171– 174; threats against Iraq, 133 Ivanov, Igor, 107–108, 194–195 Jafar, Dhia, 53–54 Jansen, Karen, 141 Japp, 97 Jordan, 145–151 Joseph, Robert, 276 Juppé, Alain, 97, 135, 193 Kamel, Hussein, 123; Aziz and, 45, 143– 144; blaming Iraq’s noncompliance on, 183–184; creation of UNSCOM, 22; criticism of Iraqi policy, 149– 150; defection, 139–141; information on weapons programs suppliers, 107; intelligence information, 145–151; Iraqi recognition of Kuwaiti sovereignty, 109–110; Iraq’s weapons strategy, 136–137; obstructing inspections, 46–49; political and strategic value of the information, 151–155; political marginalization and death, 155–158; political response to the removal of, 159–161; protesting the oil embargo, 96; rise in al-Qaeda activity, 118; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning UNSCOM, 121–122; UNSC response to the intelligence from, 161–165 Kamel, Saddam, 146, 156 Kanter, Arnold “Arnie,” 82 Kay, David, 10, 182–183; al-Fallujah inspection, 41–42; Aziz’s criticism of inspection teams, 62; dismissal from service, 62–63; document center search, 51–52; joint report on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, 58–61; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 52–57, 59–60; reporting inspection activities to Washington, 68; unsubstantiated claims of Iraqi weapons, 282–283 Kelly, David, 105, 124–125, 127, 206

Index Kennedy, John F., 100 Khalid bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, 5 Kharrazi, Kamal, 199 Killip, Hamish, 125 Kinkel, Klaus, 160 Kissinger, Henry, 191–192 Kittani, Ismat, 89–90, 109–110, 128, 140 Knutsson, Rolf, 243, 252 Kolby, Ole Peter, 275 Kozyrev, Andrei, 117 Kraatz-Wadsack, Gabriele, 125, 127, 168–169 Krasno, Jean, 233, 258–259 Kurdish people, Saddam’s military campaign against, 4 Kuwait: concerns over a second Iraqi invasion, 112–117, 119, 147–148; effect of Iraqi biological weapons, 200; funding UNSCOM missions, 200–201; importance of Iraq’s relationship with, 147; Iraq’s recognition of sovereignty, 109–110, 116; Saddam burning the oil fields, 38; Saddam’s invasion of, 2–3; UN cease-fire, 6–8 Kuwait War (1991): bombing of Salman Pak, 149; cease-fire agreement, 6–8; costs of, 4; international condemnation of, 3; missile count and verification, 208; Resolution 687 terms, 4–6 Ladsous, Hervé, 151 Lake, Anthony “Tony”: acceptance of monitoring inspections, 98–99; Albright’s relationship with, 88; Annan’s investigation of UNSCOM, 253; concerns over a second Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, 114–115; concerns over the rise of terrorist activity, 117–118; policy on Islamic fundamentalism, 100; sanctions relief, 97; US hard line on the lifting of sanctions, 191–192, 220–221 Lavrov, Sergei: creation of UNSCOM, 20; false news of US air strikes, 194– 195; implementation of Resolution 687, 163; Iraqi inspection resistance, 196–197; Iraqi interference in helicopter missions, 227, 230; praise for UNSCOM, criticism for IAEA, 227–228; rating UNSCOM’s

297

performance, 119–120; US and UK threat of military action against Saddam, 248 Lehrer, Jim, 271–272 Li Daoyu, 163 Lundin, Johan, 24 Martelle, Guy, 215–216 material balance, 40, 70, 73, 167, 182, 199, 206 Mathews, Jessica, 253, 273–277 McNamara, Robert, 100 media: accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 249–252; attempts to discredit UNSCOM, 101; the author’s resignation from UNSCOM, 232–233; fake news from Interfax, 194–195; the imminence of war, 274; nuclear-related documents inspection, 59; Powell report on Iraq’s weapons possession, 271–272; UNSCOM-Iraq conflict, 79; US attacks against Iraq, 93 Mérimée, Jean-Bernard: creation of UNSCOM, 20–21; guaranteeing Iraqi cooperation after lifting the oil embargo, 102; Iraqi obstruction of UNSCOM flights, 83–84; media accusations over UNSCOM, 101; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 74, 77–78; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 52–54, 59 Middle East region: commitment to the UNSCOM mission, 199–203. See also specific countries military action: Bush’s response to Iraq nuclear weapons program, 58–59; Iraqi resistance to the Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 77–78; Iraq’s lack of cooperation with UNSCOM leading to, 247–248; Kuwaiti concerns over a second Iraqi invasion, 112–117, 119; the Mathews Plan, 273–277; the potential military dimension of intrusive inspections, 273–277; Resolution 1441 as grounds for, 271–272; UNSCOM-Iraq conflict, 78–79; US and UK preparations, 242. See also air strikes military technology: air support for UNSCOM, 31–34; Iraq’s armaments buildup, 4; munitions for biological weapons delivery, 131–132;

298

Index

supplying Iraq against the Iranian threat, 2. See also missiles Ministry of Agriculture, 74–81, 141– 142, 148–149, 188 Ministry of Defense (Iraq): Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, 58 Ministry of Military Industrialization (Iraq), 58, 80 missile control systems, 172–174 missile launchers, 70 missile testing, Iraq’s, 90–91 missiles: camera surveillance, 90–96; carrying bioweapons, 126, 142, 161; destruction of, 69–70, 95, 103, 123, 155, 206, 208, 227–228; the effect of Kamel’s defection on Iraq’s credibility, 140–141; first inspection results, 69–70; Iraq’s requirement to report activity, 66; Kamel’s weapons information, 139–140; linking Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, 58; missile count and verification, 206–209; monitoring long-range missile development, 162; nuclear weapons “crash program,” 167–168; obstruction of UNSCOM documentation and destruction, 182; release of documents on, 145; Russian and Iraq-made missiles, 155; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning UNSCOM, 122; state of the year address of 1994, 119; UNMOVIC mission, 256–257; UNMOVIC mission and staff, 257– 258; UNSCOM report on evidence of, 226; UNSCOM’s large-scale inspection, 103–104. See also Scud missiles Mitrokhin, Igor, 140, 165–166 Mitterrand, François: linking the oil embargo with disarmament, 97 Model Additional Protocol, 218 Mohammed al-Khalifa, 202–203 Molander, Johan, 24–26, 37–39, 56–57 monitoring and verification: assuring reporting of monitored facilities, 161–162; Baghdad visit objectives, 203; disbanding UNSCOM, 256; discovery and count of missiles and chemical weapons, 69–70; discovery and proof of biological weapons, 105; establishment of UNSCOM, 8–

10; IAEA draft proposal, 65–69; implementation of chemical weapons monitoring programs, 127–129; Iraqi impatience over sanctions relief, 113– 114; Iraqi protests over camera surveillance, 90–96; Iraq’s acquisition of prohibited weapons, 226; Iraq’s missile testing, 90–91; Iraq’s rejection of Resolution 715, 68–69; regulatory framework agreement, 110–111; UNSC highlevel meeting to address, 70–74; UNSC response to Kamel’s intelligence, 161–165; UNSCOM and IAEA preparations for, 65–66; UNSCOM implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 71–74 Moore, James, 216 murder threats, 209–211 mustard gas, 39–40, 104, 167 neoconservatives, US, 191–192, 220, 265, 272 nerve gas production, 104, 127, 133, 145, 152, 165–167, 225 Netherlands: disbanding UNSCOM, 256–257 Newlin, Michael, 264 Nilsson, Lars-Åke, 93 Noréen, Stefan, 72 Noterdaeme, Paul, 19 nuclear weapons, 102(fig.); Cheney’s assertion of Iraq’s acquisition of, 268; document center inspection, 51–52; dual-use monitoring and inspections, 66–67; IAEA inspection of Iraq’s sites, 9; inspection group composition, 45; international criticism of the IAEA, 217–218; Iraqi nuclear policy and philosophy, 61–62; Iraq’s “crash program” of development and implementation, 167–168; Iraq’s signing of the NPT, 6; Israeli concerns over Iraqi procurement of fissile material, 174– 176; Kamel’s defection, 148–149; links to the Ministry of Agriculture, 75; monitoring potential capabilities, 65–66; parking lot confrontation, 52– 57, 60–61, 66, 141, 167–168, 177– 178, 212; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning UNSCOM,

Index 121; staffing UNMOVIC, 263; summary of Iraq’s weapons program, 58–63; UNMOVIC mission excluding, 256–257; UNSCOM/IAEA concerns about Iraq’s uranium enrichment capabilities, 48; UNSCOM’s requirement of relinquishment and destruction, 48– 49; uranium enrichment, 14, 45, 48, 139, 141, 145, 148–149, 168, 174– 176. See also inspections; monitoring and verification obstructions to inspections: al-Fallujah facility, 41–42; Aziz’s acknowledgment of, 154–155; concealment and destruction of weapons documentation, 230–231; inspection of “sensitive sites,” 184– 186; Iraq’s prohibition against UNSCOM transport planes, 81–85; Iraq’s refusal to acknowledge Resolution 715, 73–74; Iraq’s right to, 68; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 74–81; parking lot confrontation, 51–57, 60–61, 66, 141, 167–168, 177–178, 212; prevention of inspection 155 for documents and components, 195–196; Rashid’s complaints about inspection team behavior, 222–223; threat of US military action in response, 178–181 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 265 oil and natural gas: Iraq’s importance in the Middle East, 3–4; Saddam burning Kuwait’s oil fields, 38 oil embargo: biological weapons declaration and, 133–134; BoutrosGhali’s stance on, 90; creation of UNSCOM, 14; debate over the “Saddam clause,” 97–98; effect on the Iraqi people, 109; financing UNSCOM and IAEA Action Team operations, 19; guaranteeing cooperation after the lifting, 99–102; implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 72; Iraqi acceptance of dual-use inspections, 98; Iraq’s demands for the lifting of, 95–96, 144; Jordan’s interest in the lifting of, 145–146; linking disarmament, 97– 98; major powers’ dispute over, 220–

299

222; monitoring and verification proposal as move towards lifting, 67; oil-for-food resolution, 127–129; Resolution 687, 7–8; Saddam’s criticism of UNSCOM’s inspections, 126; Saddam’s threats of noncooperation, 134–135; US refusal to lift, 93. See also Resolution 687; sanctions, economic; sanctions relief oil-for-food resolution, 127–129, 219 Oman, 202 Palanque, Patrice, 28 paragraph 22 (Resolution 687): Aziz’s pressure for sanctions relief, 144; cease-fire requirements, 7–8; difficulty of monitoring and verification of chemical and biological weapons, 95; import-export information threatening implementation, 229; interpretation of, 220–221; Resolution 715 delaying sanctions relief, 67–68; Saddam’s threat of reprisals over, 134–135; UNSC controversy over sanctions relief, 128–130; UNSCOM’s responsibility for implementation, 182–185; US opposition to sanctions relief, 93–94, 99–101, 108, 110, 127, 254 Paris Charter (1990), 13–14 parking lot confrontation, 52–57, 60–61, 66, 141, 167–168, 177–178, 212 Parris, Mark, 88, 139 Patokallio, Pasi, 261 Paul-Henriot, Annick, 124–125 Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier, 4–5, 15, 19, 48, 59 Perkins, Edward: Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 74–75, 77–78 Perricos, Dimitri, 10 Pickering, Thomas R.: accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 251; Albright’s relationship with, 86; Annan’s mission to Baghdad, 243– 244; creation of UNSCOM, 14, 20; disbanding UNSCOM, 257; eliminating search inspections, 252– 254; joint report on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, 58–59; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 52, 54, 57; Resolution 687, 7; US hostility towards Brahimi’s envoy, 241

300

Index

Piro, George, 283 Platon, Olivia, 15–16, 26, 30, 71(fig.), 72, 78, 129–130, 201–202 Powell, Colin, 214, 268, 271–272, 277– 281 presidential areas, searches in: Annan’s mission to Baghdad to examine, 242– 245; Aziz’s list of exempt sites, 242; excluding palaces, 195–196, 198, 221, 231; respecting Iraq’s sovereignty, 186 Primakov, Yevgeny, 106–108, 201, 209, 221–222, 241 procurement information: calculating Iraq’s weapons capacity, 40; completing the mapping and destruction of chemical weapons, 205–206; foreign governments providing intelligence on, 212–213; Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, 58; monitoring future production capabilities, 177–178; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 53–54; production of chemical weapons, 152; Russian gyroscopes, 172–174 Profile of a Leader (UN handbook), 234–235 provisional government, Iraq’s, 279–280 Qin Huasun, 21, 128 Ramadan, Taha Yassin, 128–129 Ramaker, Jaap, 260 Rasheed Hotel, 84–85, 85(fig.), 211–212 Rashid, Amer: Aziz and, 146–147; complaints about inspection frequency and timing, 222–223; creation of UNSCOM, 22; the existence of biological weapons, 123, 129–131, 135, 137–138; Hamel’s defection, 152–154; Iraqis protesting cameras at missile tests, 91–92; Iraq’s weapons strategy, 136–137; Kamel’s defection, 139–140, 151; lack of cooperation over monitoring and inspections, 117, 197–198; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 75, 80; missile count and verification, 206–208; missile gyroscopes, 173–174; murder of Kamel and his mother, 157–158; oilfor-food resolution, 128; protesting cameras at missile tests, 91–92;

release of weapons documentation, 144–145; sanctions relief, 100–101, 113–114; UNSCOM implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, 715, 72–73; US threat of air strikes, 181–182 Reeps, Horst, 165–166 regime change: after the Kuwait War, 5– 6; Aziz’s concerns over US desire for, 67; Bush’s (George W.) priorities for Iraq, 265–266, 268; Gore’s call for, 55; inspection of sensitive sites, 242; as requirement for sanctions relief, 273; “Saddam clause,” 97–98, 159– 160, 191–192, 254 Reinecke, Norbert, 79 religious politics, 1; changes in Saudi Arabia, 201–202; Iraq’s Islamization, 150–151; polarization of Iraqi Muslims, 280; Saddam’s perceived threat to Iraq, 1–2 Republican Guard (SRG; Iraq), 195–196, 198 Resolution 687 (UNSC), 127, 132, 134; accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 249–251; Aziz’s insistence on Iraqi compliance, 143–144; consequences of violating, 75; guaranteeing Iraqi cooperation after the lifting of the oil embargo, 99–102; Iraqi bitterness over, 22; Iraqi declarations of weapons possession, 37–38; Iraq’s dilemma, 285–287; Iraq’s failure to satisfy the conditions, 161–162; overcoming Iraq’s inspection-blocking tactics, 49–50; pressure on Iraq to accept, 72–74; search inspections, 238; sovereignty and territorial integrity clauses, 183; UNSC response to Iraq’s implementation, 161–165; UNSCOM/IAEA mission success, 205 Resolution 707 (UNSC), 49–50, 72–73, 83, 184–186, 239 Resolution 715 (UNSC), 127, 250–251; baseline inspections, 99; implementation of, 110–111; Iraqis protesting cameras at missile tests, 91–92; Iraq’s dilemma, 285–287; Iraq’s response to, 68–74, 98; monitoring and verification proposal, 66–68, 129–134; pressure on Iraq to accept, 72–73

Index Resolution 949 (UNSC), 116–117, 119 Resolution 986 (UNSC), 19, 127–129, 203 Resolution 1051 (UNSC), 226 Resolution 1060 (UNSC), 180–182, 184, 186–187 Resolution 1284 (UNSC), 256–257, 269–270 Resolution 1441 (UNSC), 269, 271–272 Rice, Condoleezza, 274, 276 Richardson, Bill, 231, 245 Riedel, Bruce, 88, 216 Rifkind, Malcolm, 160 Ritter, Scott, 171, 178, 195, 199, 217, 250 Riza, Iqbal, 274–275 Rockwood, Laura, 109 Rubin, James, 88, 179 Ruggie, John, 250–251, 253–254 Rühe, Volker, 193 Rumsfeld, Donald, 268, 275, 278 Russia: biological weapons monitoring, 129; disbanding UNSCOM, 255–256; fake news from Interfax, 194–195; Iraqi inspection resistance, 197; Iraq’s implementation of Resolution 687, 163; Israeli concerns over Iraqi procurement of fissile material, 174– 176; Jordan’s interdiction of weapons from, 159; missile control systems, 172–174; objectives on verification, 203; oil embargo concerns, 115; praise for UNSCOM, criticism for IAEA, 227–228; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning, 120–121; stance on the oil embargo, 221–222; support for UNSCOM efforts, 227. See also Soviet Union Saad Abdullah Sabah, 200–201 “Saddam clause,” 97–98, 159–160, 191– 192, 254. See also oil embargo; sanctions relief St. John, Geoff, 28 Salman Pak Research Center, 105, 131, 149 sanctions, economic: Aziz’s pushback against, 44–45; Boutros-Ghali’s stance on, 90; Bush (George W.) advocating, 266–267; on companies cooperating with Iraq, 213; implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 72; oil-for-food

301

resolution, 127–129. See also oil embargo; sanctions relief sanctions relief: accomplishment of UNSCOM’s mission, 235; Annan’s envoy to Baghdad advocating, 241; biological weapons as obstacle to, 120–124, 129–130; British opposition to, 160; deteriorating conditions between UNSCOM and Iraq, 245– 246; disbanding UNSCOM, 255–256; the effects of UNSCOM’s mission success, 285–287; import-export monitoring as requirement, 110; Iraqi pressure over, 40, 101, 113–114, 130, 153; Resolution 715 as obstacle to, 67, 73–74, 114; Russian stance on, 221; the “Saddam clause,” 173–174, 193, 273; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning UNSCOM, 122; UNSC political divide over, 11; US opposition to, 86–88, 97, 115– 118, 164–165, 191–192. See also paragraph 22; Resolution 687 Santesson, Johan, 24, 37–39, 79–80, 257 Saud al-Faisal, 201–202 Saudi Arabia: advent of the Islamic Republic, 1; building terrorist capacity, 117–118; importance of Iraq’s relationship with, 147; Kuwait War, 5; political support for UNSCOM, 201; US air support for UNSCOM, 31–32 Schori, Pierre, 13–14 Schwarzkopf, Norman, 5, 70 Scott, John, 71(fig.); Butler’s withdrawal of UNSCOM personnel, 247–248; creation of UNSCOM, 17; implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 72; Iraqi detainment of the inspection team, 57; Iraq’s prohibition against UNSCOM transport planes, 82; Kamel’s murder, 158; recognition of the existence of biological weapons, 129–130; Russian intelligence on biological weapons, 106; status agreement, 22; UNSCOM organization, 24–26; UNSCOM’s first chemical weapons inspection, 37–39 Scowcroft, Brent, 62, 82–84, 191–192, 265–266, 268 Scud missiles: accounting for, 69–70, 95, 103–104, 123, 145, 206–208, 226;

302

Index

arming with chemical and biological weapons, 152, 161; arming with nuclear weapons, 168; extending the range of, 137, 163; Soviet provision, 2 sealing and tagging inspected equipment, 91–92 search inspections: alleged existence of WMD, 282; declining value of, 198– 199; discovery of missile destruction, 208–209; eliminating the possibility of future weapons production, 238; negotiating the cessation of, 252– 254; no-fly zone, 194; presidential palaces, 221; at presidential sites, 245. See also document searches and seizures; inspections security and safety, 181; anti-UNSCOM demonstrations, 76–77; Butler’s withdrawal of inspectors from Baghdad, 246–247; clearing and destroying chemical weapons, 166; fake news from Interfax, 194–195; Iraqis endangering helicopter flights, 227; Iraq’s obligations to the UNSCOM and IAEA staff, 49–50, 211–212; protecting inspection surveillance data, 35; threat of thallium poisoning, 209–210 Sellström, Åke, 24, 257 sensitive sites, inspection of, 184–189, 195, 231–232, 238–239 September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 266–270 Shukri, Ali, 146, 148, 155, 159 Sidorov, Vasilij, 129 Silver, Mark, 74, 77, 92 Smidovich, Nikita: al-Samarrai questioning, 123; biological warfare missiles, 126; document-seeking strategy, 178; the existence of biological weapons, 132; false news of US air strikes, 196; intrusive inspections, 171; Iraqis protesting cameras at missile tests, 91; Kamel’s defection, 142, 164; meeting with Kamel, 146, 148; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 77–78; missile count and verification, 207– 208; monitoring and verification plan, 65; recognition of the existence of biological weapons, 129–130; Russian intelligence on biological

weapons, 106; UNSCOM organization, 24–25, 27, 30 Soames, Nicholas, 160–161 Soviet Union: accounting for Iraqi Scud missiles, 226; Iraq Special Commission, 13–14; military support, 2; missile count and verification, 208; UNSC-UNSCOM relations, 20. See also Russia Spertzel, Richard: biological weapons discovery and destruction, 105, 124– 125, 127, 129–130, 132, 135, 206 START I Agreement, 172 State Department, US: detainment of US inspectors, 55–56; inspectors’ reports, 59; June 26 air strikes on Baghdad, 92. See also Albright, Madeleine status agreement (UNSC), 22–23 surveillance systems: accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 249– 252; camera crisis, 91–96; stipulations of the cease-fire, 68–69; UNMOVIC dependence on US intelligence, 264; US security breach, 215–216 Sutterlin, James, 233, 258–259 Taha, Rihab, 105, 125–126, 129–133, 135, 140–142, 149, 152 Talbott, Strobe, 179, 241 Taylor, Terrence, 25, 168–169 Tenet, George, 191, 217, 269 terrorist activity: de Mello’s murder, 281; Iraq’s intelligence on Iran and Saudi Arabia, 117–118; September 11, 2001 attacks, 266–270 thallium poisoning, threat of, 209–210 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), 6, 9, 41, 217 Trevan, Tim, 71(fig.); al-Samarrai questioning, 123; implementation of Resolutions 687, 707, and 715, 72; inspection of “sensitive sites,” 189; Iraqi obstruction of UNSCOM flights, 82–83; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 75, 79–80; recognition of the existence of biological weapons, 129–130; Russian intelligence on biological weapons, 106; UNSCOM organization, 26, 30

Index U-2 air operations, 31–35, 62, 83, 195– 196, 219 UN Security Council (UNSC): Albright’s position, 86–88; balancing sanctions and inspections access, 101–103, 108; Blix’s report on Iraq’s failure to disarm, 271–272; Butler’s leadership crises, 239; cease-fire in Kuwait, 6–8; cessation of inspections, 111–112; final report to, 230–232; guaranteeing Iraqi cooperation after lifting the oil embargo, 101–103; IAEA monitoring draft proposal, 66; inspection of “sensitive sites,” 187–189; Iraqi consent to camera surveillance, 94– 95; Iraqi violence at al-Fallujah facility, 42; Iraq’s blocking of inspections, 42–43, 197; Iraq’s breach of obligations, 269–270; Iraq’s prohibition against UNSCOM transport planes, 82, 85; linking disarmament and the oil embargo, 97–98; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 74–81; mission to monitor under Resolution 715, 70–74; oil-forfood resolution, 127–129; Operation Desert Fox, 248; parking lot detainment of inspectors, 54–55; political response to Kamel’s defection, 161–165; pressure for Iraqi compliance with UNSCOM, 10–11; Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, 3–5; state of the year address of 1994, 119–120; state of UNSCOM’s relationship with, 15–16, 19–22, 219–222; UNSCOM establishment, 8–10; US invasion of Iraq, 278 undeclared facilities, inspections at, 41– 42 United Kingdom: disbanding UNSCOM, 256–257; erroneous assessment of Iraq’s weapons capabilities, 269; Iraqi inspection resistance, 197; Kamel’s defection, 160–162; preparing military action against Iraq, 242; the second Iraq War, 277–281; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 261; threat of military action against Saddam, 248 The United Nations and Iraq: Defanging the Viper (Krasno and Sutterlin), 233, 258–259

303

United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), 11, 205; Blix’s view of Iraq’s cooperation, 271–272; establishment of, 256–257; Iraq’s breach of obligations, 269–270; lack of competence and experience, 214; military action replacing inspections, 276–277; onset of inspections, 270– 271; realization of, 262–264; selecting a chairman, 260–261; staff requirements, 257; staffing, 262–264 United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM): IAEA inspection of Iraqi nuclear sites, 8–10 United States: accusations of espionage against UNSCOM, 250–251, 254; Annan’s envoy undermining UNSCOM, 241; Annan’s mission to Baghdad, 243–244; Blix’s criticism of UNSCOM relations, 263–264; Bush’s (George W.) priorities for Iraq, 265– 266; continued threat of use of force, 231–232; disbanding UNSCOM, 255–256; the effects of UNSCOM’s success, 285–286; espionage and security breach, 215–217; inspection of “sensitive sites,” 184–189; intractability on the oil embargo, 220– 221; Iraqi inspection resistance, 196; Iraq’s skepticism over lifting the oil embargo, 110; Iraq-UNSCOM joint agreement for inspections, 189–193; Kamel’s defection, 141; the Mathews Plan, 272–277; negotiating the cessation of search inspections, 252– 254; negotiations over lifting the oil embargo, 100; Powell report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, 271; praise for UNSCOM, 197–198; preparing military action against Iraq, 242; Saddam’s antagonism toward US inspectors, 122–123; Saddam’s demand for sanctions relief, 115; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning, 120–121; the second Iraq War, 277–281; selecting the UNMOVIC chairman, 261; September 11, 2001 attacks, 266–270 UNMOVIC. See United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission

304

Index

UNSC. See UN Security Council UNSCOM, creation and operation of, 43– 45; accusations of espionage, 249– 252; air support, 31–34; Annan’s criticism of, 245; Annan’s envoy undermining, 239–241; Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Center, 36; Bahrain field office, 34–35; building the commission, 13–17; the causes and effects of mission success, 285–287; cooperation with the Security Council, 19–22; crises under Butler’s leadership, 237–239; detailing the accomplishments, 225–229; the director’s resignation, 232–233; disbanding, 255–260; financing structure, 17–19; first chemical weapons inspection, 37–40; IAEA relationship and cooperation, 217– 219; Iraq’s ban on inspections, 11; Iraq’s misinterpretation of the role of, 153; murder threats against the director, 209–211; obstruction to inspection 150, 181–184; planning and operations, 23–31; Profile of a Leader handbook, 234–235; return to Iraq to resume monitoring inspections, 245– 246; Saddam’s intent to terminate cooperation with, 114–115; Saddam’s taped conversations concerning, 121– 123; staff selection, 257–258; status agreement and organizational structure and roles, 22–23; UNSC declaration of Iraq’s breach of obligations, 269– 270. See also inspections UNSCOM 150 inspection, 138, 179– 180, 183, 194–196, 238 UNSCOM 155 inspection, 195–196, 238 UNSCOM Plus, 243 Unvanquished (Boutros-Ghali), 90 uranium enrichment: electromagnetic isotope separation, 45, 145, 148–149, 168; Israeli concerns over Iraqi procurement of fissile material, 174– 176; uranium centrifuge enrichment materials, 14, 48, 139, 141, 145, 148– 149, 168 Van Schaik, Robert, 21 Vedrine, Hubert, 241

violence: anti-UNSCOM demonstrations, 76–77; Iraqis permitting threats against the director, 211–212; Iraq’s increased disruption of helicopter operations, 229–230; Iraq’s prohibition against UNSCOM transport planes, 81–82; Ministry of Agriculture inspection, 74–75; threat of thallium poisoning, 209–210. See also obstructions to inspections Vorontsov, Julij, 14, 20, 24, 52, 59, 74, 77–78 VX nerve gas, 106, 123, 127, 133, 145– 146, 152–154, 166–168, 225 Wallén, Göran, 36, 99, 119, 151, 202, 215–216, 222–223, 227 war and conflict: Bush’s (George W.) priorities for Iraq, 265–266; Iran-Iraq War, 1–4, 49, 103, 131, 133, 136– 137, 208, 286; Iraq War, 22, 277– 281; Kuwait War, 4–6 Warner, John, 253–254 weapons of mass destruction (WMD): effect of Kamel’s defection on information, 141; Saddam’s fear of Iranian military action, 286–287; UN cease-fire agreement in Kuwait, 7–8. See also biological weapons; chemical weapons; nuclear weapons weapons strategy, Iraq’s, 136–137 Weston, John, 86, 162, 180, 187–188, 228, 244 Wolfowitz, Paul, 275 Wolterbeek, Cees, 165–166 Woolsey, Jim, 20 Younes, Nadia, 281 Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, 202 Zifferero, Maurizio, 10; Abu Ghraib army barracks inspection, 41; the effect of Kamel’s defection on Iraq’s credibility, 140–141; IAEA monitoring draft proposal, 66; Iraq’s impatience over sanctions relief, 113– 114; Kamel’s defection, 146, 148, 164; Kay’s dismissal from service, 63 Zlauvinen, Gustavo, 26, 151, 199, 240, 247

About the Book

“THE QUEST TO DISARM IRAQ TOOK PLACE BETWEEN TWO WARS— one justified and right, the other a dreadful mistake, a violation of international law that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.” With these unvarnished words, Rolf Ekéus begins his political-thrilleresque story of the disarmament of Iraq—and the machinations that ultimately led to the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of ISIS. After Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and the war that followed, the UN Security Council ruled that Iraq must rid itself of all weapons of mass destruction. The difficult, politically sensitive, and dangerous task of accomplishing this rested with the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), led by Ekéus, one of Sweden’s most seasoned diplomats. This was a radical experiment in UN governance—essentially conveying to one individual the power to conduct a disarmament program, with oversight only by the Security Council. What followed were a succession of tense conversations with the Iraqi leadership, often-dangerous inspections, complex destruction processes, negotiations with Security Council representatives, and diplomatic maneuvering by world leaders. The recounting of these events lies at the heart of Ekéus’s personal narrative of disarmament history in the making, a narrative that adds substantially to the evidence that UNSCOM’s mission was successful and the 2003 war clearly illegal. Crafted not in the interests of a political agenda, but rather for the sake of historical accuracy, Iraq Disarmed serves today as a sobering cautionary tale. 305

306

About the Book

Rolf Ekéus served as executive chair of the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) in 1991–1997. Among numerous other diplomatic posts, he was Sweden’s permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament (1983–1989) and ambassador to the US (1997–2000). In 2002–2010, he was chair of the Governing Board of SIPRI, where he is now a Distinguished Associate Fellow.