Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Tim Trevan Tim Trevan
Former weapons inspector
Tuesday February 4, 2003
The history of Unscom [the 1991-98 weapons inspectors] proves the limits of inspections. Unscom was very very successful, more successful than in any politician's wildest dreams. Iraq declared it had no nuclear programmes and the inspectors discovered three for enriching uranium and a major bomb design effort going on.
They said they had no biological weapons and it was found they had multiple agent programmes for humans, animals and crops. But even with that success, Unscom did not go all the way because we could not say we had found everything that was to be found.
The reason that most of us who worked with Unscom are convinced that Iraq wants to rebuild its weapons of mass destruction is the degree to which it went to protect its assets the first time round. It's worth remembering that each day Iraq did not comply with the UN resolutions it could not export its oil - effectively it was losing $20m a day in lost oil revenue, which builds up to something like $7bn or $8bn a year.
Over a 10-year period that's almost $80bn. If you then add in a multiplication of three or four times in terms of what it does to the economy you're talking of hundreds of billions of dollars that's gone just to obstruct the inspectors. You have to ask yourself when you look at those figures what on earth is worth that sort of economic loss to a country, or particularly to a man who is the absolute ruler of that country.
The obstruction began in June 1991 - before any of us had actually started. There was a propaganda campaign to besmirch the names of individual inspectors and the inspection regime as a whole. Inside Iraq, minders were used to beat the team to where they were going and hide the weapons before they got there, that kind of thing.
The thing to consider for those who think the inspections can work is what they envisage for the future. The only reason that the inspectors are in the country at the moment is a combination of the economic sanctions against Iraq and the imminent threat of military action. Without that threat there would have been no new inspection regime.
Does the world really want inspections to last indefinitely because Iraq is not cooperating in the hope - and in my view, the vain hope - the inspectors will get lucky and discover the smoking gun evidence? Or is the suffering of the Iraqi people and the cost to western military sufficient to justify a false sense of security?
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that an absolute dictatorship should have greater stamina for such an endeavour than an international body. For Iraq this is the issue, whereas for the rest of the world it is one issue in relatively waxing and waning priorities. Any inspection regime will fail in a country that is determined and puts all its national resources into weapons programmes.
When you have an advanced state of cancer, surgery becomes a better option than slow lingering death. For me, horrible though war is, it is the equivalent of surgery.
Simon Jeffery
� Tim Trevan is a former member of Unscom and author of Saddam's Secrets (HarperCollins)
Former weapons inspector
Tuesday February 4, 2003
The history of Unscom [the 1991-98 weapons inspectors] proves the limits of inspections. Unscom was very very successful, more successful than in any politician's wildest dreams. Iraq declared it had no nuclear programmes and the inspectors discovered three for enriching uranium and a major bomb design effort going on.
They said they had no biological weapons and it was found they had multiple agent programmes for humans, animals and crops. But even with that success, Unscom did not go all the way because we could not say we had found everything that was to be found.
The reason that most of us who worked with Unscom are convinced that Iraq wants to rebuild its weapons of mass destruction is the degree to which it went to protect its assets the first time round. It's worth remembering that each day Iraq did not comply with the UN resolutions it could not export its oil - effectively it was losing $20m a day in lost oil revenue, which builds up to something like $7bn or $8bn a year.
Over a 10-year period that's almost $80bn. If you then add in a multiplication of three or four times in terms of what it does to the economy you're talking of hundreds of billions of dollars that's gone just to obstruct the inspectors. You have to ask yourself when you look at those figures what on earth is worth that sort of economic loss to a country, or particularly to a man who is the absolute ruler of that country.
The obstruction began in June 1991 - before any of us had actually started. There was a propaganda campaign to besmirch the names of individual inspectors and the inspection regime as a whole. Inside Iraq, minders were used to beat the team to where they were going and hide the weapons before they got there, that kind of thing.
The thing to consider for those who think the inspections can work is what they envisage for the future. The only reason that the inspectors are in the country at the moment is a combination of the economic sanctions against Iraq and the imminent threat of military action. Without that threat there would have been no new inspection regime.
Does the world really want inspections to last indefinitely because Iraq is not cooperating in the hope - and in my view, the vain hope - the inspectors will get lucky and discover the smoking gun evidence? Or is the suffering of the Iraqi people and the cost to western military sufficient to justify a false sense of security?
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that an absolute dictatorship should have greater stamina for such an endeavour than an international body. For Iraq this is the issue, whereas for the rest of the world it is one issue in relatively waxing and waning priorities. Any inspection regime will fail in a country that is determined and puts all its national resources into weapons programmes.
When you have an advanced state of cancer, surgery becomes a better option than slow lingering death. For me, horrible though war is, it is the equivalent of surgery.
Simon Jeffery
� Tim Trevan is a former member of Unscom and author of Saddam's Secrets (HarperCollins)
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