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UN hears Iraq voice of deceit

February 7 2003

A tapped phone call ordering the hiding of evidence helps the US make its case against Baghdad, writes Marian Wilkinson.

The crackling audiotape, the dramatic dialogue appearing on a large screen in front of the world's key foreign leaders in the United Nations Security Council, was riveting indeed.

The world was listening, as US Secretary of State Colin Powell had demanded, to a private conversation between two Iraqi military officers, intercepted weeks ago.

The apparent command was: "Remove... the expression... nerve agents... wherever it comes up... in wireless instructions."

As every police officer knows, never trust a bugged conversation unless you hear all of it. Mr Powell offered just this snatch of the incriminating exchange.

He did not have to offer more. The cumulative evidence of Saddam Hussein's efforts to hide the truth about his biological and chemical weapons from UN inspectors is already convincing.

Mr Powell made a compelling case for what is already known by every member of the Security Council - Iraq is trying to thwart the latest inspection team, just as he has tried to thwart inspectors for the past dozen years.

Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix made a similar case, albeit far less dramatically, only a week ago. Mr Powell's presentation rehashed a lot of what is known and a lot that has never been proved - including the disturbing claims from defectors that Iraq tested chemicals on political prisoners in the 1990s.

The satellite photographs of decontamination trucks at Iraq's former chemical weapon facilities, taken before inspectors returned, and the intercepted conversations, prove little on their own. Indeed, most of the sites shown by Mr Powell have already been visited by inspectors and tested for chemical and biological residue.

But they indicate a pattern of deceit that will undermine not only Iraq but the whole UN weapons inspection process. And that, more than anything, will bolster America's case for war.

Mr Powell's presentation revealed clues to Iraq's deceit. But it also revealed the US strategy to box in the chief weapons inspector and the Security Council.

By revealing the US intelligence in the UN, Mr Powell has acted to force Dr Blix's hand on February 14. By then, Dr Blix must either produce evidence the Iraq is actively co-operating with inspectors, proving Mr Powell wrong, or he must submit a negative report. The latter, Dr Blix and the council know, will be taken by the US as a trigger for war. Mr Powell made this clear in his address, telling the council Iraq was close to the day when it will face "serious consequences for its defiance of this council".

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Vellepin moved swiftly to block the US strategy. He less than subtly suggested that Mr Powell's intelligence claims needed to be tested. He pointed out that none of the sites already inspected had indicated any trace of biological or chemical agents.

Mr de Vellepin was backed by the foreign ministers of China, Russia and Germany, which currently chairs the Security Council. Despite Mr Powell's dramatic presentation, they called for inspectors to be given more time and more resources. They also demanded more Iraqi co-operation.

They were not prepared to accept untested US intelligence as proof of the case against Iraq. But, like the US, they put the onus back on Dr Blix.

France, Russia and China appeared to dismiss the rest of the US case: that Saddam posed an imminent threat because of his links to al-Qaeda and his attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. On both points, Mr Powell's evidence was less solid than many expected.

Claims that al-Qaeda chemical weapons expert Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has close ties to Iraq were undermined by a leaked British intelligence report.

Mr Powell offered some valuable new insights on al-Zarqawi's deadly network in Europe, but French and German intelligence services, which closely monitor him, have also been sceptical about his links to Iraq.

Despite Mr de Villepin's call for more inspections before any military action, he and others understand that war is likely in a matter of weeks.

Only two things will prevent his next report being his last before a war - a turnaround in Iraqi co-operation, or evidence that seriously discredits Mr Powell's intelligence on Iraq's deceit of his inspectors. Otherwise, the US will have its trigger on Valentine's Day.



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