Weapons In A Haystack

By Kathleen Adams

THE TASK OF THE INSPECTORS...

Under the terms of existing Security Council resolutions, two organizations field teams of experts in everything from biological agents to satellite imagery and nuclear weapons systems. But there are fewer than 100 inspectors to scrutinize an area the size of California

U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)

Headed by legal expert and former atomic-agency director Hans Blix, UNMOVIC was authorized under softer terms after the former U.N. inspection team, UNSCOM, was barred from Iraq in December 1998. Since then, Blix has assembled 220 experts from 45 countries: 80 at a time will work from Baghdad using five helicopters. Personnel include military specialists, biochemists and engineers, all seconded to U.N. employ and financed by a tax on Iraq's U.N.-run oil-for-food program

CHEMICAL Although an extensive arsenal, including 690 tons of a chemical weapons agent, was destroyed by UNSCOM, Iraq may still have a stockpile of chemical-weapons munitions and the ingredients to produce weaponized mustard gas, VX and other nerve agents

BIOLOGICAL The biggest, scariest unknown in Saddam's arsenal: inspectors know 17 tons of biological-weapons growth culture for making anthrax was unaccounted for in previous inspections, and suspect much more like it is out there

MISSILE More than 800 Scuds were destroyed, but Iraq is believed to have secreted one or two dozen on mobile launchers somewhere in the desert. Iraq may be importing parts to expand its legal 150-km missiles to 600-km range

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Jacques Baute, a French nuclear-weapons scientist, heads the separate team that searches out nukes. He can field more than 15 IAEA professionals from 11 countries, with possible help from 15 outside experts, who monitor all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle by looking for 40 specific components and analyzing soil and water samples, as well as checking on dual technologies, import-export controls and nuclear smuggling

NUCLEAR By 1998, Iraq's nuclear program had been successfully dismantled. Since then, it has rebuilt facilities and equipment, worked on producing enriched uranium and shopped the black market to try to buy it

... AND A FEW PLACES THEY WILL HAVE TO LOOK

PRESIDENTIAL COMPOUNDS More commonly known as palaces, these huge complexes are believed to hide important research labs. In the past, access to the compounds was severely restricted

MOBILE LABS AND MISSILES Much of Iraq's secret weapons work is now mobile, allowing it to be moved before inspectors see it. Some illegal longerrange missiles are hidden on mobile launchers

FACTORIES AND HOMES Legitimate civilian projects such as a fertilizer plant can quickly and easily be diverted to produce material for chemical and biological weapons. Defectors say these are buried in residential basements

WELLS According to a defector, Iraq built an extensive network of wells in rural areas, virtually undetectable by satellite, which are used to hide radioactive material and other compounds

SMUGGLING ROUTES Sanctions have done little to stem the flow of goods into Iraq, including banned components and dual-use equipment transported across the border with Jordan and through Iraq's port on the Persian Gulf

MOBILE LAUNCHERS Experts believe Iraq is hiding Scud missiles on mobile launchers that cruise its western border to evade detection and lurk in range of Israeli and Saudi targets

NOTE: Most of the information on Iraqi chemical-, biological- and nuclear-weapons production comes from intelligence gleaned from weapons inspections that essentially ended with the expulsion of UNSCOM inspectors in November 1998

Sources: NASA, UNMOVIC, IAEA, Globalsecurity.org Federation of American Scientists, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Iraq Watch