NPR - All Things Considered - September 24th 2002
JOHN YDSTIE, host:
Iraq wasted no time today responding to the British report. At a news conference in Baghdad just hours after it was released, Saddam Hussein's chief adviser, Amir Al-Saadi, said the dossier was long on allegations and short on evidence. He called it, quote, "a hodgepodge of half-truths, lies, shortsighted and naive allegations which will not stand up to an investigation." Al-Saadi also insisted United Nations inspectors will have unrestricted access to any site in Iraq.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
Now we're going to talk with Terry Taylor, who's president of the United States office of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Mr. Taylor, in the document Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, the British government's assessment of the threat posed by Iraq, is there really anything new, in your judgment?
Mr. TERRY TAYLOR (President, US Office, The International Institute for Strategic Studies): Yes, I think there are substantial things that are new, firstly about the Iraqi procurement network and evidence that it's clearly still active, particularly on the nuclear side and also on chemical and biological and missile activities. So I think that's a very important element which a government could bring to bear with its intelligence sources. And I think what they say, it seems to me, is credible. They also put in some new information, or at least new to me, about the missile capabilities--work on a thousand-kilometer-range missile. We don't know what stage that's reached, but I think that is also new as well.
SIEGEL: On the procurement side, it says in the report that the Iraqis have been trying to acquire a great deal of uranium, far more than they could conceivably use for their own peaceful needs, and they've been looking in Africa. What do we know about that?
Mr. TAYLOR: Well, I think that's one of these important elements on intelligence. Of course, the Iraqis would have to enrich that uranium, so they would still have to work on it, having got it back to the country. But I think this is a clear indication of their intentions. I think it's all perfectly clear that the objectives, the strategic objectives, of the regime are unchanged.
SIEGEL: The dossier tends to make the argument that, given Iraq's history, if it had such weapons, it would be inclined to use them. But one could also say that it would simply achieve a position of deterrence if it had such weapons. The US and Britain might not be able to act there, but Iraq might not do anything aggressive, either.
Mr. TAYLOR: Well, certainly Saddam Hussein's objective is to attain an effective weapons of mass destruction capability. Of course, he would want to use them in a deterrent way, to deter any coalition forces from threatening him directly. We have a window now if military action is, in the end, found to be the only way of dealing with it, perhaps with less of a threat of weapons of mass destruction. Left alone or not dealt with effectively for a year or more, then we really have a serious problem and possibly a nuclear-armed Iraq.
SIEGEL: Given the size of the problem, as you describe it and as the Blair dossier describes it, is it really accurate to say that the weapons inspections of the 1990s really did achieve a great deal?
Mr. TAYLOR: Yes, it is, because against Iraqi denials--at the outset of the inspections in 1991, Iraq said, `We have no nuclear weapon program, we have no biological weapon program.' They understated the chemical weapon program by a huge degree. And against this concealment strategy, which was very elaborate, the UN Special Commission, particularly in the first half of the '90s, was remarkably successful. This was due, I would say, to two things. One is the UN Security Council was relatively united. And secondly, from Baghdad's perception, if they didn't offer some cooperation, large-scale military force would be used against them that would destabilize the regime, not just bombing. The situation changed from '97 onwards, really, when the Security Council was divided, and, of course, the attention of Europeans and the Americans was on the Balkans. So he was off the hook. It was only just in the past six months that a credible threat of the use of force reappeared on the scene. That's why Iraq's even just beginning talking to the UN secretary-general.
SIEGEL: There was a contrary judgment of the British dossier today from the editor of Jane's World Armies, who said that "It does not"--and I'm quoting--"produce any convincing evidence or any killer fact that says Saddam Hussein has to be taken out straight away; what it does is produce very convincing evidence that the weapons inspectors have to be pushed back into Iraq very quickly." What do you make of that?
Mr. TAYLOR: I think that's a very overoptimistic interpretation. The real message that this dossier delivers is that this problem of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program has to be dealt with promptly, because if it's left unattended in an effective way, we could end up with an Iraq which is nuclear armed, with better and more chemical and biological weapons and the means to deliver them.
SIEGEL: Mr. Taylor, thank you very much for talking with us.
Mr. TAYLOR: My pleasure.
SIEGEL: Terry Taylor runs the United States office of The International Institute for Strategic Studies.
