The Globe and Mail
Brussels — Iraq could build a nuclear bomb within months if it got fissile material from abroad, but its weapons of mass destruction capacity has declined since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, a leading independent think-tank said Monday.
In a study released ahead of U.S. President George W. Bush's policy speech on Iraq on Thursday, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said Baghdad does not have nuclear arms and probably lacks the means to deliver its residual chemical and biological weapons effectively enough to cause massive loss of life.
Despite official denials, Iraq probably retains substantial stocks of toxins and biological growth media, as well as a few hundred tonnes of blistering mustard and nerve agents, and could resume producing both within weeks or months, the IISS said.
The report, based on publicly available information, was released amid fierce international debate about a possible U.S.-led war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
It offered no clear support either to U.S. hawks who argue that a preventive strike is an urgent necessity or to those, mainly in Europe, who advocate continued containment of Iraq and the return of UN weapons inspectors.
"Either course of action carries risks. Wait, and the threat will grow. Strike, and the threat may be used," said the London-based institute, which produces the respected annual handbook, The Military Balance.
No fissile material
The United Nations ordered the total elimination of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and long-range missile programs after the war, but Mr. Hussein defied the resolutions.
If weapons inspections were resumed, Iraq's freedom of action to pursue weapons of mass destruction would be restricted but not eliminated, given Iraq's record of deception and obstruction in the 1990s, the IISS said.
Faced with an invasion, he would have nothing to lose and might use chemical and biological weapons in missile attacks to draw Israel into the war or even through special forces or terrorist groups in the United States and its allies.
The IISS said there was no sign that Baghdad has the ability to produce fissile material or has acquired any from abroad.
IISS director John Chipman said, however, that if Iraq did obtain enriched uranium with foreign assistance, it could be able to put a nuclear warhead on a missile capable of hitting Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, Turkey, Jordan or Iran within about a year.
"Were he able to obtain fissile material from abroad, steal it or buy it in some way, we certainly believe he has the ability to put together a nuclear weapon very quickly in a matter of months," Mr. Chipman said.
Mr. Bush highlighted Mr. Hussein's potential to develop nuclear weapons before weekend talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on tackling Iraq.
The IISS said Mr. Hussein has subordinated all other foreign policy goals and his country's economic development to his relentless drive for weapons of mass destruction, enduring more than a decade of sanctions rather than obey UN resolutions.
"Given Baghdad's behaviour over the last 25 years, there is every reason to believe that it remains committed to retaining and developing its WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and missile capabilities as a core objective," the report said.
"Nonetheless, Iraq's overall current ability to produce and deliver WMD are severely diminished from its zenith on the eve of the Gulf war."
Limited ability to kill
The findings broadly mirror assessments by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, except that while the latter estimates Iraq still has up to 80 missiles capable of hitting Israel, the IISS estimates it has at most a dozen.
UN inspectors left Iraq in December, 1998, before a four-day U.S.-British bombing campaign intended to punish Mr. Hussein for obstructing the inspectors' work.
Since then, little is known about how Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs have developed.
"What is new now is that time is running out. The longer there are no inspectors in Iraq, the less we can know, the more likely it becomes that Iraq is reconstituting a capacity to have weapons of mass destruction at least on the same scale as it had in 1990," IISS senior fellow Klaus Becher said.
Mr. Chipman told BBC radion that Iraq's ability to use chemical and biological weapons in battle or missile attacks was limited.
"(Iraq's) ballistic missiles have what are called impact fuses, which means that much of the agent would be destroyed on impact," he said. "So they would be important as a terror weapon, but they would not be militarily all that significant in battle."
