The Hindu : Insufficient evidence

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Saturday, Feb 08, 2003

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Insufficient evidence

THE U.S. SECRETARY of State, Colin Powell's assertion — that there is irrefutable and undeniable proof that Iraq still possesses a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capability — has been contradicted by the chief of the United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), Hans Blix, who has stated that such evidence has not been unearthed so far. Although Mr. Blix, whose team of weapons inspectors has been given the mandate to trace and erase Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programme, has left open the possibility that such evidence could be discovered, his initial conclusion would buttress the view of a largely sceptical global community that Washington has yet to make its case. In fact, the evidence that the U.S. administration did agree to share with the U.N. Security Council could not, of itself, be considered to have the irrefutable and undeniable quality that Gen. Powell claimed it had. Part of the evidence that Gen. Powell presented consisted of audiotapes of conversations between Iraqi officials that were clandestinely recorded on two occasions, in late 2002 and early this year. In these tapes, the Iraqi officials were purportedly discussing the removal of WMD-related material and documents from sites that the U.N. teams were preparing to inspect. As Baghdad has pointed out, such recordings are not tamper-proof and could not therefore be regarded as conclusive evidence. The U.S. administration has also chosen to share information, received from sources unknown, that Iraq had dispersed biological weapons in its western territories and that it possessed at least 18 mobile biological weapons laboratories. Although the sources of these bits of information have not been identified, it is highly probable that they emanated from human intelligence and are therefore suspect. Since the persons desirous of passing on information to Washington are very likely to be inimical to the regime in Baghdad, it is difficult to go by their word without further corroboration. Gen. Powell also presented the Security Council with satellite images of munition bunkers, alleging that some of them contained chemical weapons. This presentation poses two different sets of problems. First, satellite technology is apparently not so advanced that it is able to see through concrete bunkers and, second, if satellites could spot bunkers then they should surely have been able to get some trace of the mobile laboratories thus turning up corroboration of the information from human intelligence sources.

While Washington insists that it has further information in its possession, and cites the need for maintaining confidentiality of the sources as the reason for not making a fuller disclosure, the evidence produced thus far would appear to have actually undermined Washington's attempt to win the support of the global community. Even before Mr. Blix issued his statement, those permanent members of the Security Council who have been opposed to the initiation of military action against Iraq had reiterated their position, that the weapons inspection programme should be persisted with so that the elimination of Iraq's WMD potential could be achieved through peaceful means. In a direct comment on the material presented by Gen. Powell, Russia's Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, has stressed that it needed to be further studied and analysed — a not so subtle rejoinder that he did not consider the evidence to be as clinching as his U.S. counterpart thought it was. Any hopes that the U.S. might have entertained, that the rest of the global community would meekly agree that the evidence presented proved Iraq to be in material breach of its disarmament obligations, are likely to be belied.

If the U.S. efforts to prove that Iraq has a WMD capability have been less than successful, so too has its attempt to establish that Baghdad has the intent to use them. In these circumstances, no other conclusion is possible than that Iraq does not pose an imminent threat of the sort that would justify the launch of a military strike against it. That being the situation, there is no need as yet to discontinue the process that is aimed at ridding Iraq of its WMD potential through peaceful means.

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