I certainly don’t believe Iraq has rid itself of its various chemical and biological weapon stockpiles, but if the country had done so–what sort of evidence are they supposed to present to the UN? What form does it take? A paper trail? Video footage? Physical examples, such as residue that might be left behind from destroying the weapons?
I’ve been looking through the UNMOVIC website and searching various newspapers through the Newsbank database, and I can’t locate an answer for this. So far I’ve only been able to read the text of Resolution 687, which created the inspections; since that resolution holds that the inspectors would be physically there to oversee the stockpile destruction, it does not help me with my question now.
Iraq’s position is untenuous to say the least. They are in the unenvious position of having to prove a negative - yes, we have no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is a defendant who has to prove, not only that it hasn’t committed a crime, but is not now in the process of committing one.
This is not to say that Iraq does not deserve to be in this position. They have done so much to subvert and evade compliance that we are practically forced to assume that they are hiding something - like weapons of mass destruction.
IMHO, Saddam has not expelled the current crop of weapons inspectors because they haven’t asked to search, or otherwise stumbled across, the area in which the weapons are currently stashed. When they do, look for them to be summarily thrown out of the country.
Countries like S. Africa, Ukraine and Argentina all gave up nuclear weapons and were inspected. They fully cooperated and understood that they needed to prove that they had destroyed the weapons. Saddam just wants to play games and the fact that he has never taken the process seriously speaks volumes. I recognize that he could be like me and not like keeping records, but surely he could find some anal assistant to do the dirty work.
Ok, but my question is, what are the records supposed to be? Let’s say (and of course I do not believe this has happened) that after the inspectors were kicked out the first time, Saddam had a change of heart and went ahead and destroyed all the weapons. Now the inspectors are back and wanting the evidence. What would be required as documentation that Saddam destroyed those weapons in that interim? I mean, would it be ream after ream of pages of inventory about what was destroyed and on what day? That alone doesn’t seem like it would be believable–anyone can jot down made up figures. Would the Iraq government have to present videotape of them actually destroying the weapons? Are they supposed to present the melted hulk of burnt rockets, etc as proof that they’ve done as they’ve said?
For example, you have Rumsfeld saying that the U.S. knows Iraq has a certain amount of anthrax; hypothetically, if Iraq had destroyed it what documentation would be required as proof?
Has the UN–or anyone else–specified what format the evidence of weapons destruction is supposed to be? What documenation did Ukraine, South Africa, etc, use to prove they had destroyed their weapons?
We would not accept “documentation” for obvious reasons. The least we would accept would be oberved destruction of the materials, and the facilities and byproducts from dismantling, as well as all documentation from the past of their stores of the weapons (eg, an official record datable to 1996 saying they have 200 of x and 400 of y, as well as where it was produced and shipped to). Why? The UN teams will look at all of that paperwork and look for holes in it - and mistake where some material slips through the cracks, or is missing, or there is too much of something.
It is a fairly similar situation to the treaties between the US and USSR in dismantling ICBMs. A few inspections and visits that were much trumped up, a sprinkle of faith, and a hella lot of bending the rules. The difference is, we didn’t trust the Soviets, but that was OK, because there was a level of mutual understanding throughout the Cold War. With Iraq, that isn’t there.
The inspectors weren’t kicked out, they left under UN mandate.
There is no possible way to prove that you have destroyed all of a culture. If I have paperwork that shows I have destroyed a bioreactor, that in no way, shape or form means anything about the original culture. I could move that culture to a “slant” (which is agar in a test tube) and carry it around in my pocket.
This means, when given the opportunity to re-grow the culture, all I need is the proper medium, and a laboratory. However, this is not a garage operation. To get enough bacteria to weaponize I would need a pretty big bioreactor to grow enough to be effective. If you know what you’re doing this isn’t hard. For small amounts I could do it in my kitchen.
In other words, there is no way to prove that he doesn’t have bio-weapon capability.
We (that is pharmaceuticals in the US) don’t even have paperwork on our cultures. If we are using a bacterial culture for a standard, we destroy it according to FDA regulation, but we don’t track destruction of cultures, just growth.
I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense so let me explain: If I use a special strain of E.coli for protein production, I have that culture on hand for a control. When I grow the culture I have to track that culture for the FDA. This is done so that if there is a contaminant I can go back and track it. But when I am done with that culture I am not required to put the date destroyed, as we generally don’t destroy entire strain, as we’ll be using them again for controls.
The difference is, we didn’t trust the Soviets, but that was OK, because there was a level of mutual understanding throughout the Cold War. With Iraq, that isn’t there.