Flash: UNSCOM Concludes Iraq Is Still Cheating — Proof That Toppling Saddam’s Regime Is the Only Solution
Affirms Need for Bilateral Kyl-Landau Missile Defense Panel

(Washington, D.C.): If it were not so deadly serious, the latest news from Iraq would be
hilarious: According to today’s Washington Post, the UN Special Commission on
Iraq
(UNSCOM) inspectors charged with ferreting out Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons can
prove that the Butcher of Baghdad continues to conceal his prohibited arms. This conclusion is
so self-evident that it is absurd to treat it as a revelation.

And yet, the discovery that Scud warhead fragments recovered from a hidden Iraqi dumping
ground is of singular importance because it comes at a critical moment. Proof that Iraq had the
capability before the Gulf War to arm its ballistic missiles with a stabilized (i.e.,
storable) form of
the deadly VX nerve gas has been secured just days after Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz
asserted in a letter to the United Nations Security Council that “Iraq had submitted documents
proving without any doubt that the chemical agent VX had not been produced in 1990 or 1991 in
a sufficiently stable manner to be utilized within the framework of the [Iraqi] armament program.”

‘Shocked, Shocked!’

This disclosure is all the more timely — and disturbing — for another reason. It comes on the
heels
of recent indications by UNSCOM’s chairman, Richard Butler, that Iraqi cooperation with his
inspection operations has become sufficiently satisfactory to anticipate an end to those operations
and the international sanctions regime against Iraq within a few months. Indeed,
during his trip to
Iraq a few weeks ago, Amb. Butler actually unveiled a “road-map” for the lifting of the UN
sanctions currently in place, declaring the light at the end of the tunnel is now brighter than at any
time in memory.

The fact is that UNSCOM knows better. The proof now in hand comes
after years of hard
experience with Saddam’s deceit. Successive defectors, leaks, lucky breaks and intelligence
successes have repeatedly shown that the Iraqi despot has tried from the beginning to foil the
inspections regime — and, in important respects, has succeeded in doing so.

The saga of Iraq’s deceptions about VX is a case in point. Following the Gulf War, Saddam’s
government denied ever having even worked on this highly toxic chemical agent. When it was
proven that the Iraqis had, in fact, done substantial research on that gas, they admitted doing only
a little bit. Finally, as information accumulated indicating that Iraq actually had an
enormous
chemical weapons program, the Iraqi regime admitted to having made 3.9 tons of VX gas — but
refused to admit that any of it had been stabilized/weaponized.

Even before the latest revelations that Iraq had deployed VX gas years ago, UNSCOM had
reason to believe there was no truth to these denials. Iraqi defectors, including the former chief of
military intelligence, informed the West that Saddam had at least 10 warheads filled with VX at
his disposal during the Gulf War.⁽¹⁾ As Ahmed Chalabi, the
highly regarded leader of the Iraqi
National Congress — the broadly based opposition to anti-Saddam opposition forces href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾ — told the
Washington Post today, “[Saddam] has stabilized VX, which means he can store it for
a long time
and bring it out for use when he wants.”

It follows that no matter what happens, as long as Saddam Hussein and his ruling clique
remain in
power, there will be no end to his weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs —
only an end to the ability of the so-called “international community” to monitor and interfere
with them.⁽³⁾

Congress Warns Against Eroding UNSCOM

This prospect has become ever more palpable in the wake of last fall’s appalling White
House-blessed deal between UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Saddam Hussein. href=”#N_4_”>⁽⁴⁾ Although
President Clinton claimed at the time that UNSCOM will continue to inspect at the same level it
had since the Gulf War, he has allowed Iraq’s supporters at the UN and on the Security Council
to diminish its capabilities. A letter sent to President Clinton yesterday by Senate
Majority
Leader Trent Lott (R-MS), House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA),
Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC) and International
Relations Committee
Chairman Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) expresses strong concerns about the erosion that is
being
allowed to occur with respect to UNSCOM’s operations and capabilities. Particularly noteworthy
were the following points:

“We are deeply troubled by the apparent failure of the United States to fully support
the work of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq at a time when its efforts
to verify Iraqi compliance with relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions
are under assault. We are no longer surprised by the efforts of some Security Council
members to sweep evidence of Iraqi violations under the rug. However, we are now
receiving reports alleging that the United States has allowed itself to be complicit
in such efforts.⁽⁵⁾

“We have been informed, for example, that the United States has not responded
to attacks on the integrity of U.S.-provided intelligence information when that
information had been presented to UNSCOM to the Security Council. href=”#N_6_”>⁽⁶⁾ Even
more troubling, we have heard that the United States has acquiesced in the
suspension of challenge inspection by UNSCOM designed to uncover
evidence of Iraqi concealment, and that the United States no longer is urging
UNSCOM to present strong evidence of Iraqi violations to the Security
Council.” (Emphasis added throughout.)

Enter Jon Kyl and Uzi Landau

The latest evidence of the devastating potential of Saddam Hussein’s ballistic missile forces
adds
urgency to one promising new initiative — a U.S.-Israeli Parliamentary Commission focusing on
missile defense. This panel’s co-chairmen are Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a member
of the Senate
Select Intelligence Committee and one of the Congress’ foremost experts on military matters, and
Uzi Landau MK, Chairman of the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign
Affairs and Defense Committee.

According to Douglas J. Feith, a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense who has
been a driving force behind the creation of this bilateral commission:

“Thoughtful people in both Israel and the United States are becoming increasingly
concerned about missile threats in Iraq and elsewhere — and increasingly aware of the
need to provide effective defenses against them. Israel is about to deploy the West’s
first national anti-missile system and the U.S. clearly needs to intensify its efforts both
to help protect Israel from Saddam’s VX-laden missiles and the like — and to protect
its own people, as well. The Kyl-Landau commission represents a vehicle to facilitate a
dialogue on this issue between interested legislators to accompany that which has been
usefully going on for some time on a government-to-government basis.”

The Bottom Line

Tomorrow, Amb. Butler is scheduled to brief the Security Council on his latest findings. It is
to
be hoped — but not assumed — that the latest evidence of Iraq’s lies about its weapons
of mass
destruction programs will shame Baghdad’s flaks on the Security Council into at least temporary
silence. Even if that proves to be the case, however, it is clearly not enough. The
threat posed
by Iraq’s chemical, biological or, for that matter, nuclear weapons will never be eliminated by
inspections and sanctions — to say nothing of half-hearted inspections and unraveling sanctions.
It will only be realized by the removal of Saddam and his brutal regime from power and
their replacement by pro-Western, democratic forces led by the Iraqi National Congress.

The steps to bring about such a transformation have been spelled out by Senator Lott and
others⁽⁷⁾
and should be undertaken at once, before the inspection and sanctions regime are
weakened any
further. At the same time, the United States should be pursuing as aggressively as possible
anti-missile defenses capable of providing protection for both the people most immediately at risk
of
Iraqi attack — including U.S. troops in the Middle East — as well as Americans here at home. href=”#N_8_”>⁽⁸⁾

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name=”N_1_”>1. The latter also indicated that Iraq also had 10 warheads with the deadly
biological agent,
anthrax, deployed in 1991.