Analysis: Inspectors Rebuked By US And Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 4 — A week after arriving to assess whether Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, the small team of U.N. inspectors came under harsh criticism today from both Baghdad and Washington, with officials in each capital questioning the mission's motives, impartiality and determination.

Caught in the middle, a senior field inspector broke with protocol and launched into an impassioned defense of his team's progress, insisting that U.N. experts have been "getting results" in their first week on the job. "The Iraq side would have liked us to be very light and the U.S. side ... would like us to be extremely severe," said Demetrius Perricos, who is responsible for uncovering chemical and biological weapons. "I think what we're doing is proper, proper work. We're still doing a good job."

The impatience in Washington and Baghdad over the pace and character of the inspections did not appear serious enough for the Bush administration or the government of President Saddam Hussein to walk away from the process. But it dramatized the intense political pressure facing the U.N. inspectors, whose work has become what amounts to a tripwire for possible U.S. military action to destroy Hussein's three-decade rule.

President Bush dismissed assessments that the inspections have started off well, including one from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday. Bush told reporters at the White House that Hussein "is not somebody who looks like he's interested in complying" with the Nov. 8 Security Council resolution that calls for Iraq to relinquish any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and authorizes unannounced searches of any site in the country.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer urged the United Nations to conduct even more inspections. "Not just the United States, but the international community wants to make sure that they have a sufficient number [of inspectors], that they are able to do multiple inspections at the same time, that they can have a vigorous inspection regime," he said.

Fleischer said U.S. officials also are concerned whether the inspectors will be "aggressive enough to be able to ascertain the facts in the face of an adversary who in the past did everything in his power to hide the facts."

At the same time, Iraq's Foreign Ministry and a top presidential aide lashed out against an inspection Tuesday in one of Hussein's presidential palaces, saying it was carried out under U.S. and Israeli pressure to goad Iraq into a confrontation. He said that if the inspectors, who were dressed in ordinary clothes, were expecting to find banned weapons, they would have worn protective gear.

Gen. Hussam Mohammed Amin, Iraq's chief liaison with the inspectors, called the visit "unjustified and unnecessary." He added: "Their objective was only to do harm to Iraq's sovereignty and dignity. Their objective was political."

Amin's statements marked the first time Iraq has directly criticized the inspectors since they began their work last week. The government has, however, heaped contempt on previous inspection teams, calling them spies, political hacks and ill-trained opportunists.

Despite the display of official displeasure, Amin said Iraq plans to cooperate with the inspectors. "We are satisfied with the inspections and we hope that they will continue their professional work regardless of the pressures placed on them," he said.

Seventeen inspectors — including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons specialists as well as missile experts — began the U.N.-mandated inspections on Nov. 27 after a nearly four-year hiatus, and they have visited 16 sites, often searching two locations simultaneously.

The inspectors today visited two sprawling facilities near Baghdad that have long been associated with Iraq's efforts to build weapons of mass destruction. One group examined what used to be Iraq's primary nuclear complex while another scoured a government factory that played a key role in producing biological and chemical weapons, including mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin and VX.

A senior U.N. official said inspectors accounted for several artillery shells containing mustard gas that previous inspectors had uncovered but never destroyed.

Speaking to reporters, Perricos bristled at suggestions that the inspectors have not been sufficiently forceful. He said he would not alter the searches because of political pressure. "We're not serving the U.S. We're not serving the U.K. We're not serving any individual nation," he said. "We're here for the implementation of the resolution."

He suggested that if the U.S. government wants him to focus on other sites, it should provide him more detailed intelligence reports. "What we're getting and what President Bush may be getting is very different, to put it mildly," he said.

Although the inspectors have not provided the Iraqi government with advance warning, they have started by visiting places already searched by U.N. experts in the 1990s to determine whether any new weapons-related activities have occurred there since the previous inspectors left in 1998. U.N. officials said they will not be able to conduct more than two or three simultaneous inspections until next week, when 35 additional inspectors are scheduled to arrive in Iraq.

The special U.N. commission that is coordinating the inspections with the International Atomic Energy Agency plans to have about 100 experts in Iraq by the end of the year. The inspectors, drawn from governments and industry around the world, cannot arrive sooner, U.N. officials said, because they received word they would be dispatched to Iraq only after the Security Council resolution was passed, and they needed several weeks to prepare.

Under the U.N. resolution, Iraq must submit to the Security Council by Sunday a declaration detailing all its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, programs to develop them and civilian facilities with the capacity to build them. Amin said Iraq will submit its report Saturday, but he did not explain how or where the report would be delivered.

U.N. officials said one copy may be given to inspectors here on Saturday and one copy flown to U.N. headquarters in New York for delivery Sunday afternoon.

"It will be a huge declaration," Amin said. He said it would include "new elements with regards to new sites and new activities which have been conducted during the absence of the inspectors."

In today's inspections, a team from the IAEA went to the vast Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. The site, regarded for years as Iraq's preeminent nuclear facility, has long been a subject of international concern.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor on the site in 1981. Airstrikes during the 1991 Persian Gulf War destroyed much of the rest of the complex. But in recent months, U.S. and British officials have voiced concern about construction of new buildings there.

U.N. chemical and biological weapons specialists went to the Muthanna State Establishment, a research plant about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad. In the late 1990s, inspectors demolished much of the facility after concluding that it played a central role in Iraq's biological and chemical arms programs.

Perricos called Muthanna "a very important place for the chemical warfare program they were building in the past." He said inspectors wanted to ensure damaged equipment had not been repaired and that the mustard gas artillery shells that had not been destroyed before the inspectors left in 1998 still were there.

They were, he said, "well stored." He said the inspectors hoped to "proceed with the destruction" of the shells soon.