Iraq: Looking for the wrong places

["Gilles d'Aymery" <aymery@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Drew Hamre: Looking in the wrong places
Drew Hamre

Published Dec. 14, 2002 DHCP14

Memo to: Mr. Hans Blix, United Nations Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) Inspection Team, Iraq.

I know where the weapons are, Mr. Blix, and I know who's
protecting them.

Point your convoy of white Nissan four-wheelers due north, toward
Eastern Europe and the old Soviet empire. Here, the threat is more
immediate and consequential than anything known of Iraq.

Looking for chemical weapons, Mr. Blix? Visit Shchuchye, a Russian
stockpile of 2 million munitions filled with nerve gases like sarin and
VX. Each munition can kill more than 80,000 people, and is easily
transported. The stockpile sits, as USA Today notes, in an
impoverished region near the Kazakhstan border and Asian havens
for Al-Qaida.

Russia is eager to destroy these weapons, and actually wants our
help. (You'll find this a pleasant change, Mr. Blix.)

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., has made deactivation of Shchuchye his
top priority. However, behind closed committee doors, congressional
conservatives have repeatedly hindered U.S. funding. As the Los
Angeles Times reported on Dec. 2, a frustrated Lugar finally broke
protocol and named names: Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Rep.
Curt Weldon, R-Pa. (To the Times, Weldon denied blocking the
proposal; Hunter didn't return phone calls.)

The defense industry, which doesn't benefit from threat reduction, was
the primary contributor to Hunter's campaign ($191,473 in 2000,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics). This isn't the first
time an official favored contributors over common citizens, but rarely
has national security been treated so cavalierly.

Looking for nuclear weapons, Mr. Blix? You can cross Yugoslavia's
Vinca research reactor off your list.

On Aug. 22, a multinational team removed 106 pounds of bomb-
grade uranium from Vinca (enough for two nuclear weapons). Wary
of hijackers, decoy trucks moved in a convoy while 1,200 police and
rooftop snipers guarded the removal route.

Once again, Congress can't take credit. Instead, Cable News
Network founder Ted Turner's $5 million made the raid possible, part
of a larger $250 million donation Turner made when threat-reduction
funding languished. Turner's involvement was necessary because
congressional conservatives restricted spending of such funds outside
Russia.

The State Department's Web site thanks Turner for his "essential"
role, as should we all. The bandy-legged billionaire has done more to
improve national security than all the hawks in Washington.

But let's not be overly optimistic. Russia's tactical weapons remain
vulnerable, its scientists remain impoverished, and it has 50 tons of
excess plutonium. The risks are enormous, as Al-Qaida, Chechen
rebels, even Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult have sought Soviet nuclear
material.

Happy hunting, Mr. Blix.

On the bioweapons front, Russia still refuses to grant access to four
closed military institutes. Further, its impoverished military biologists
remain at risk of employment by parties antagonistic to the United
States.

There's something so repugnant about bioweapons research that most
governments fear its revelation. Bioresearch remains the central
mystery of Iraq's weapons program and, to a lesser degree, our own.
Mr. Blix, you may recall that the "person of interest" in our own
anthrax investigation was a U.S. bioweapons scientist slotted for a
role in UNMOVIC. Iraqis will surely relish the irony.

On a more personal note, Mr. Blix, I may fly south over the holidays.
Frankly, the recent shoulder-launched missile attack on an Israeli
passenger jet has me spooked. I understand there are thousands of
these surface-to-air missiles around the world, many of Russian
manufacture.

While in Russia, if you stumble across one of these devices, please
take it off the market on my behalf.

I've enclosed $20 toward your efforts, Mr. Blix. I sincerely wish it
were more, but the projected costs of the Iraq war and the wobbly
economy have left my finances a bit tight. Meanwhile, appeals to
Washington (and to common sense) have gone unanswered.

-- Drew Hamre, Golden Valley. Software developer.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/3530234.html

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