Times
Nobody claims that the dossier published yesterday by Britain's most influential think-tank on Saddam Hussein's arsenal of death breaks much new ground. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) did not have access to the intelligence sources and other data collected by Western governments. That in no way detracts from the value of its meticulously compiled report: the precis of known data, coupled with the sober assessment of Saddam's past behaviour, make the findings all the more chilling. It concludes that Saddam probably does not have the fissile material needed to produce nuclear weapons. But he has an interest in doing so. And were he to buy or steal enriched uranium from abroad, "he has the ability to put together nuclear weapons, on short order, in a matter of months."
Saddam's race to make a bomb may be the issue that underpins the urgency of American determination to confront Iraq. Stealing fissile material from any of the loosely guarded stores in crumbling capitals of the former Soviet Union is still unacceptably tempting; and in any case, there are enough impoverished scientists and corrupt middlemen willing to smuggle out what cannot be stolen. But the nuclear threat, serious as it is, is not as significant as Iraq's continuing programme to manufacture chemical and biological weapons on a vast scale.
As the IISS makes clear, the United Nations weapons inspectors were able to destroy vast quantities of precursors, growth media, anthrax and other deadly agents. But they could not destroy the knowledge of those scientists manufacturing these weapons. Nor could they assume that Iraq would be unable to rebuild -and hide -the laboratories and specialist facilities needed to resume production of biological and chemical weapons. Saddam, it must be assumed, must now have a formidable arsenal of weapons that could poison many thousands of people. Delivery may still be difficult, but even crude missiles whose technology is within reach of Iraqi engineers are enough to launch deadly bacteria against Israel, Kuwait or an advancing US force.
Dr John Chipman, the IISS Director, delivered his report from a position of useful, and credible, political impartiality. That gives all the more force to his warning, therefore, that unless Saddam's programme of weapons of mass destruction was stopped, no other country in the region would have any reason to halt similar proliferation. The Government is clearly pleased that strategic analysts have also reached the conclusion that Tony Blair has been voicing ever more forcefully in recent weeks: a spokesman called it significant, painting a powerful picture of a highly unstable regime. Certainly it will help Mr Blair as he begins the extremely difficult task of blunting trade union and left-wing hostility to his policy. It will also prepare Britons for the promised government report on Iraq's weapons, which has drawn the latest intelligence and is likely to provide much more disturbing and detailed evidence of Saddam's malign intent.
The IISS report cannot be adduced as political support for the Bush-Blair view, however. Its intention was to allow officials and the public to assess the extent of the threat, not the balance of risk in attacking Iraq or doing nothing. Either course, it concludes, is unsafe: "Wait and the threat will grow. Strike and the threat may be used." No report is able to disclose the full picture of Saddam's malevolence or skill in concealing his intentions. This is not Cuba, where missiles
sites could be identified from satellite photography. But it is the shadowy nature of the threat that makes it so menacing. Even a partial summary, given by an impartial source, makes clear that the threat must be confronted.
