Iraq wanted know-how, but did not store WMD: ex-UN inspector Ekeus

WASHINGTON (AFP) Sep 23, 2003
Former UN weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus said late Monday Iraq sought the ability to produce weapons of mass destruction, but had none in storage after it destroyed them following the 1991 Gulf War.

Ekeus, who was head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) from 1991 to 1997, told PBS television the US-led coalition in Iraq has been unable to find any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons since the war in April because there aren't any to find.

"My felling is very clearly that the Iraqi policy long before the war was to build capabilities to produce weapons ... for the conflict situation, not to produce for storage and create a problem or storage management," he told interviewer Jim Lehrer.

He said the presence of UN weapons inspectors after Iraq was expelled from Kuawit in 1991, and the high rate of deterioration of chemical and biological weapons - as experienced during Iraq's 1980-1988 war against Iran -- dissuaded the Iraqis from storing them.

Ekeus agreed with his UNMOVIC successor Hans Blix, who last week told Australian national radio that now deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein probably got rid of most of its weapons of mass destruction after the 1991 Gulf War, but pretended otherwise to deter any attack.

Ekeus said "my sense is that they did not produce anything since 1991, for several reasons," including the presence UNMOVIC inspectors.

The Swedish diplomat said that to find out more about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program the US-led coalitio in Iraq should interview "process engineers, specialists, researchers, and go into the civilian production facilities..."

"Yes, there's a lot to spill," he said, but cautioned that "there is still fear for Saddam, they still don't trust that the US will stay there ..."

Five months after the Iraq war, the United States has come under strong international criticism for not finding, so far, any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after it premised its reason to remove Hussein by force on the threat such weapons posed to the world.

Bush in an interview Monday expressed confidence that US weapons experts led by chief CIA analyst David Kay will be able to uncover the truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but he said it would take "a while."

"I think he hid them. I think he dispersed them," Bush said of the toppled Iraqi leader.

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