DISARMAMENT-IRAQ: Experts See Evidence of Chemical Weapon

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26 1998 (IPS) - U.S. and French weapons experts have confirmed finding traces of chemical agents that point to the possibility that Iraq armed missile warheads with the lethal chemical agent ‘VX’, according to a new U.N. report.

The report, by Richard Butler, chairman of the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) which monitors the destruction of Iraqi weaponry, noted that both French and U.S. laboratories found the presence of a product resulting from the degradation of a nerve agent in samples taken from Iraqi missile warheads.

Another laboratory, based in Switzerland, also examined the missile parts and did not find any nerve agent – but both the Swiss and French tests found traces of a “decontamination compound”, suggesting that Iraq tried to clean the warheads. As one source said on condition of anonymity, there would be no need for Iraq to have used any decontamination agents if there had been no chemical compund like VX in the warheads.

The report, a copy of which was acquired by IPS, resulted from the meeting of the three nations’ technical experts last Friday, and poses the latest challenge to Iraq’s efforts to lift U.N. sanctions.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and several key U.N. Security Council states – notably France and Russia – have argued for a “comprehensive review” of the sanctions which might include their phasing out, any such progress depends on Iraq’s credibility in destroying its deadliest weapons.

If, on the other hand, Baghdad is believed to have armed any missiles with VX, a toxic chemical agent, then Iraq’s recent work in clearing up questions of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missile programmes may still not be enough to help win a partial lifting of the eight-year-old sanctions regime.

Iraqi officials have loudly protested their innocence, with one senior official, Gen. Amer al-Saadi, contending that, except for what he deemed a “suspicious” test for VX at a U.S. military base, “no VX was found” in subsequent U.S., French and Swiss tests.

Instead, al-Saadi recently blamed the continuing rumours of an Iraqi VX weapons programme on “carefully timed, spoon-fed allegations and innuendoes … designed to create suspicion and confusion.” Baghdad has portrayed the VX tests as a ruse by the United States and Butler, whom it has never trusted, to ensure that UNSCOM will never declare Iraq in compliance with U.N. weapons demands, maintaining sanctions indefinitely.

Butler’s report, however, following the results of the French, Swiss and U.S. tests points the blame back towards Iraq, with the results showing either that the missile remnants had traces of a degradation product linked to VX or otherwise had evidence of being decontaminated by the Iraqis.

The initial test that found VX traces, held during April and May, were performed at a U.S. military base in Aberdeen, Maryland – a sign to the Iraqis of what they deemed bias. Those tests found evidence of VX degradation products in 11 metal fragments taken from Iraqi warheads.

When Iraq cried foul and claimed that Washington was manufacturing data, Butler allowed other U.S., French and Swiss experts to perform further tests on other remnants taken from the same warheads. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz quickly asserted that the subsequent tests backed up Baghdad’s claims that no VX traces were found.

The latest report contradicts Baghdad’s claims. It said the second U.S. tests, performed in July, found no chemical weapons- related chemicals, but did find traces of “chemicals known as degradation products of a decontamination compound” – possible evidence that the warhead remnants had been cleaned of any toxic residue.

“The French laboratory reported the presence of a degradation product of nerve agent (G- or V-agent) in one sample,” the report adds, although it includes the French experts’ explanation that “this product could also originate from other compounds, such as detergents”.

The Swiss tests found no weapons-related chemicals but, like the U.S. and French tests, found some evidence of the presence of materials used for decontamination. Butler’s report concludes that “the existence of VX degradation products conflicted with Iraq’s declarations that the unilaterally destroyed special warheads had never been filled with any chemical weapons agents” and asks Baghdad for explanations.

The VX report comes at a bad time for Iraq, following several weeks of a relatively improved political climate at the United Nations. Even though Iraq has suspended cooperation with UNSCOM since Aug. 5, diplomats believe Baghdad and the United Nations are close to cooperating on a comprehensive review of both sanctions and disarmament concerns.

Aziz, after meeting Annan several times this month, voiced confidence that most Security Council member states “feel the pain (of the sanctions) and they want to alleviate the pain of the Iraqi people, but within the context of the resolutions” calling for Iraqi disarmament.

Three of the Council’s five permanent members – France, China and Russia – have all called for an easing of sanctions, while a fourth, Britain, also acknowledged recently that Iraq’s work on verifying the destruction of its nuclear and chemical programmes is nearly complete. That has left the United States, the last hardline defender of unchanged sanctions, looking isolated.

The recent resignation of Denis Halliday, until this month the U.N. humanitarian relief coordinator in Iraq, also offered a pointed message for the Council. Halliday quit after declaring that at least 5,000 Iraqi children are “dying unnecessarily every month due to the impact of the sanctions.”

He warned that the sanctions “could breed fanaticism and deep- seated resentment in future generations”.

With the political climate now shifting in favour of lifting at least some of the sanctions, Butler and the United States have been relatively quiet in recent weeks. But if Iraq believed that its weapons woes are over, the VX results show that, even with tests conducted by “friendly” countries like France, it may yet have to account for an arsenal that, up through the 1991 Gulf War, seems far more deadly than Baghdad has officially acknowledged.