Boston Globe
Iraq has the capacity to build a nuclear weapon within months if it can obtain fissile material from abroad and it has already established substantial stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, a highly respected research organization warned yesterday.
A report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies said that Baghdad has made the development of weapons of mass destruction a top priority since Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, barred United Nations weapons inspectors in 1998. Iraq has produced weapons by using mobile production labs that are secretly shuttled around the country's civilian chemical plants, the study said.
The institute also concluded the Hussein regime has hidden about a dozen medium-range missiles that it could use to strike Israel, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia in a limited biological or chemical attack.
The report, a rare independent assessment, emphasized that Iraq's capacity to build weapons of mass destruction has declined since the 1991 Gulf War and that the likelihood was remote that Iraq could obtain the needed radioactive material to produce a deployable nuclear weapon.
"War, sanctions, and inspections have reversed and retarded but not eliminated Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and long-range missile capabilities," said the report. "There is a nuclear wild card. If, somehow, Iraq were able to acquire sufficient nuclear material from foreign sources, it could probably produce nuclear weapons on short order, probably in a matter of months."
Many analysts said the study was important but that it offered no clear support either to those in Washington who have been pushing for a preemptive strike on Iraq or critics of such a policy, especially in Europe, who advocate a return of the weapons inspectors and a continued policy of containment.
The 74-page dossier, released at a packed London news conference, has landed amid a fierce international debate about a possible US-led war to topple the Iraqi president and during an intense diplomatic and public relations offensive by the Bush administration. The administration is attempting to show that the threat posed by Baghdad and its attempts to deceive the world about its pursuit of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons justify a military response.
President Bush, who met over the weekend with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, continued to press his case with other world leaders yesterday with personal phone calls to the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and the European Union, according to White House officials. Bush also met in Detroit with Canada's prime minister, Jean Chretien, who has expressed concern about a possible strike against Iraq without international support.
French President Jacques Chirac yesterday said the United Nations should consider two resolutions - one that imposes a three-week deadline for inspectors' unconditional return, and another on possible military action if Iraq blocks the inspections. Bush is scheduled to lay out the administration's arguments toward Iraq before the United Nations on Thursday.
A spokewoman for the British Foreign Office, Trisha O'Donnell, yesterday described the institute dossier as "an impressive chronicle" of Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs.
"It demonstrates that these programs continue to this day, and that Iraq already has biological and chemical capabilities, and if left unchecked it could develop a nuclear capability in short notice," O'Donnell said. "It portrays very clearly and succinctly how Saddam Hussein has played games with UN weapons inspectors and the international community during the time they have been inside Iraq."
The report, "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment," relied on technical reports and private assessments by UN investigators who worked in the field and on interviews with military intelligence sources and Iraqi defectors. It was viewed by many experts as a timely and important assessment of the hidden workings of Iraq's weapons programs.
But some analysts in London and Washington said the report's main finding that Iraq could develop a nuclear weapon in a matter of months was "overstated," as one British official put it. Experts stressed that obtaining the fissile material - the radioactive core needed for a nuclear weapon - would be extremely difficult and that the material would have to be stolen or purchased on the black market from a rogue state.
"This report will not be sufficient to convince the British public or the American public that it is necessary to invade Iraq now," said Major Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies, a monthly publication that assesses global military strategy. "The report to be released by Blair in the coming weeks will have to be more substantive than this if he wants to make a convincing case to the world. So far the decisive facts are just not there."
Paul Beaver, a British defense analyst, praised the report as thorough and informative but said, "Still, there are no killer facts there. There is just nothing in the report that makes me want to go to war. The British and American governments are going to have to come up with something a lot better than this."
The goal of the institute report was to provide an impartial evaluation of Iraq's weapons capability without arguing for or against a military assault. It said attacking Iraq risks incurring Iraqi retaliation with weapons of mass destruction, but doing nothing risks allowing Baghdad to develop more weapons.
Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector who has been visiting Baghdad and addressed Iraq's National Assembly over the weekend, was sharply critical of the independent think tank's report as "all speculative."
In an interview with CNN yesterday, Ritter, who also has encouraged Iraq to allow the inspectors' return, added: "It is meaningless, with the sad exception that hawks in the Bush administration are going to point to this as a justification for war."
As a condition of the cease-fire agreement at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the United Nations ordered Iraq to destroy its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and its medium- and long-range missile programs, but most specialists believe Saddam has repeatedly defied the resolutions.
"Given Baghdad's behavior over the last 25 years, there is every reason to believe that it remains committed to retaining and developing its WMD and missile capabilities as a core objective," the report said.
Iraqi officials yesterday dismissed the report and have repeatedly rebutted claims that the government is rebuilding old nuclear facilities for new weapons. To emphasize its point, the Iraqi government has been escorting foreign reporters to various sites and yesterday allowed reporters to visit a former nuclear facility roughly 25 miles south of Baghdad.
