By IPS Correspondents
LONDON, Jan 28 1998 (IPS)

Investigations into Iraqi weapons programmes have provided valuable lessons for those charged with verifying compliance with international arms control treaties — including the lesson that no verification regime is 100 percent cheat-proof.

Terence Taylor, a former Commissioner of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) set up to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, warns that verification procedures added to disarmament treaties should be approached with great care. “It is clear that a determined cheater can evade these systems,” he says.

Of course, the investigations carried out in Iraq were not a cooperative arrangement but a ceasefire obligation imposed on a defeated state, and the terms were much more rigorous than would be applied by any normal treaty. Even so, it has taken UNSCOM years to discover the real extent of Iraqi weapons programmes.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Iraq had to declare all its missile, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and to destroy all prohibited programmes. It also had to accept long-term compliance and monitoring arrangements.

UNSCOM’s starting point was the declarations — Iraq admitted only to some limited chemical weapons development but denied any nuclear or biological programmes.

“But we had a good idea these were wrong,” says Taylor, now Assistant Director of the London-based Institute of Strategic Studies. “The missiles were the easiest to find and account for and the nuclear programme was discovered quite quickly, although it was not acknowledged by Iraq until later.

“Many elements of the nuclear programme were highly visible, although many of the facilities were underground.

Other material was more difficult to find, such as the electrical firing circuits and special explosives. But UNSCOM was helped by the fact that most of this material was “single use” — it could not be used for any other more legitimate purpose.

“Even so,” warns Taylor, interviewed by IPS in London, “it is a complicated process and… 100 percent verification cannot be guaranteed.” UNSCOM still does not have full information on guidance systems, nuclear fuel and warheads.

The commissioners had a head start with the chemical programme because Iraq had been forced to admit to many elements of it, including major production facilities.

“But Iraq still hid the extent of its technical expertise,” says Taylor, “for instance we did not know about Iraq’s VX (chemical weapons) programme until last year. So with all UNSCOM’s access rights, it has still taken many years to get to this point.”

But by far the most challenging task was discovering Iraq’s biological weapons programme. Iraq admitted nothing, explains Taylor, so UNSCOM began by listing all possible dual use facilities and systematically investigated each one.

These ranged from pharmaceutical factories and veterinary vaccine plants to dairies and factories producing detergents and vegetable oil.

“The problem is that most of the facilities required to produce a biological weapon can also have legitimate peaceful uses.” This includes fermentation, also needed to produce yoghurt, beer, and even bread.

“Even extraction of toxins from live organisms is an ambiguous operation. For example, the toxin ricin, which has long been a standard biological weapon, can also be used for the treatment of cancer.

“Organisms also have to be produced for vaccine use and for use as bio-pesticides in agriculture. Then there is dissemination of the organisms, which could be by spraying. In this case simple agricultural spray equipment may become suspect.

“Many facilities have equipment which can be used at some stage in the production or weaponising of biological agents,” says Taylor. This includes fermentation, filtering, milling (of powder) encapsulation, and production of spray equipment.

“It took UNSCOM four years to flush this out, including imports of suspect equipment which was only admitted in 1995.”

And Iraq only admitted the biological agents had been ‘weaponised’ after the defection of General Kamal Husain who had been in charge of procuring the systems. Meanwhile the true level of Iraq’s technical expertise in this field is still not clear.

“Basically, Iraq has only admitted anything after UNSCOM has found it out. The whole of the biological weapons programme was embedded in duel use facilities.

“For example, the main production facility at al-Hakam was formally for the production of single cell proteins for animal feed and bio-pesticides.” This has now been destroyed. “But Iraq could start it up again anywhere as long as they have the expertise.”

There is a stringent monitoring system. All possible dual use equipment has been tagged and has to be reported if it is moved. “With sanctions still in place, UNSCOM has a pretty good idea that the programme has not been restarted,” says Taylor.

“However, this is only possible because of the wide-ranging free mandate. And we still need to know more about the chemical and biological programmes to be confident that we have in place a proper monitoring programme.”

Taylor believes there are important implications for the development of effective systems of treaty verification resulting from UNSCOM’s Iraq experience.

International treaties are still very important and valuable as the verification and inspection procedures make it difficult to develop a clandestine arms programme — but not impossible.

“Those few cases of determined evasion must be dealt with by other means, and not through the treaties” says Taylor.

The aims of the planned verification process for the Biological Weapons Convention, for instance, focus on “enhancing compliance” rather than just verifying it. Encouraging nations to comply rather than monitoring them in case they do not, is a more effective method in the long term.

“This is realistic,” says Taylor. “You cannot achieve 100 percent compliance with verification. Other measures are also needed.”

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