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1: The effect on UNMOVIC |
Part One: The effect on UNMOVIC
The role of the Inspectors is to monitor and verify the disarmament of Iraq as demanded by the international community at the end of the Gulf War, 12 years ago. Inspectors are not a detective agency: They can only work effectively if the Iraqi Regime co-operates pro-actively with the Inspectors. We know this can be done successfully: South Africa did it.
But Iraq has singularly failed to do this.
Iraq has deliberately hampered the work of the Weapons Inspectors. There are presently around 108 UN Weapons Inspectors in Iraq - a country the size of France. They are vastly outnumbered by over 20,000 Iraqi Intelligence officers, who are engaged in disrupting their inspections and concealing Weapons of Mass Destruction. This is a ratio of 200: 1. Even with the obstruction, concealment and intimidation, the inspectors have made a number of significant and disturbing findings.
But as Hans Blix reported to the UN Security Council on 27 January,: "It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of "catch as catch can"."
Documents
The Iraqi security organisations work together to conceal documents, equipment, and materials.
The Regime has intensified efforts to hide documents in places where they are unlikely to be found, such as private homes of low-level officials and universities. There are prohibited materials and documents being relocated to agricultural areas and private homes or hidden beneath hospitals and even mosques.
This material is being moved constantly, making it difficult to trace or find without absolutely fresh intelligence.
And those in whose homes this material is concealed have been warned of serious consequences to them and their families if it is discovered.
Surveillance
The Iraqis have installed surveillance equipment all over the hotels and offices that UN personnel are using All their meetings are monitored, their relationships observed, their conversations listened to.
Telephone calls are monitored. Al-Mukhabarat, the main intelligence agency, listen round the clock. Al-Mukhabarat made telephone calls to inspectors at all hours of the night during the days of UNSCOM. Intelligence indicates they have plans to do so again to UNMOVIC.
Inspectors meet to co-ordinate activities - the meeting rooms are arranged for the inspectors by the Iraqis and contain eavesdropping devices. Hidden video cameras monitor the progress of meetings, to check the faces of the inspectors and to identify the key personalities.
Monitoring
From the moment the UNMOVIC personnel enter Iraq, their every movement is monitored.
They are escorted by seemingly helpful security guards and almost all of them are members of the Al-Mukhabarat. If the driver is an Iraqi, he is Al-Mukhabarat too.
Journeys are monitored by security officers stationed on the route if they have prior intelligence. Any changes of destination are notified ahead by telephone or radio so that arrival is anticipated. The welcoming party is a give away.
Escorts are trained, for example, to start long arguments with other Iraqi officials 'on behalf of UNMOVIC' while any incriminating evidence is hastily being hidden behind the scenes.
Al Mukhabarat have teams whose role is to organise car crashes to cause traffic jams if the Inspectors suddenly change course towards a target the Iraqi wish to conceal. Crashing into inspectors' cars was a ploy often used on UNSCOM.
Interviews
Venues for any possible interviews between inspectors and scientists or key workers are arranged by Iraqis. They are then monitored by listening devices and sometimes video. Most of the staff in the building where interviews take place are Al-Mukhabarat officers, there to observe any covert behaviour such as whispered conversations, the passing of notes or conversations away from microphones.
The interviewees will know that they are being overheard by Iraqi intelligence or security.
The inspectors want to interview some key people outside Iraq, without minders. All scientists and key workers have been made to draw up a list of their relatives by Al Mukhabarat. The interviewees know only too well what will happen to them, or their relatives still in Iraq, if it is even suspected that they have said too much or given anything away
None have agreed to be interviewed outside Iraq.
Inspection Technology
The inspectors use sophisticated technology to detect hidden Iraqi programmes. Many of these are safety systems from the nuclear and chemical industries which are also available to the Iraqis.
When a detectable chemical or substance is hidden, the Iraqis do not just hide it and hope the Inspectors will not find it. They check that the technologies which they know the Inspectors have and use will not detect what they have hidden.
For example when an illicit piece of equipment (say a missile warhead) or substance is buried by the Iraqis, they make sure it stays hidden by using Ground Penetrating Radar to determine whether the inspectors will be able to detect the cache.
Psychological Pressure
Before UNMOVIC personnel arrive in Iraq, their names are sought by at least one and probably several of the Iraqi intelligence and security services. They will find out as much as possible. Do they have family, do they have any weaknesses that can be exploited? Are they young, nervous, vulnerable in some way?
The inspectors' personal security and peace of mind is a concern both to the individual inspectors and to UN management. So the Iraqis disrupt their work and daily lives by staging demonstrations wherever they go and having stooges make threatening approaches to Inspectors - such as the Iraqis who recently tried to enter the Inspectors' compound armed with knives or climbed into UN vehicles which were going out on an inspection. The whole effect is one of intimidation and psychological pressure.
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1: The effect on UNMOVIC |
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