[PEN-L:32832] Encouraginge defections or kidnappings?

["ken hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The relevance of the UN seems to be in spying and aiding and abetting US war
plans for Iraq.
The Iraqi scientists could safely carry on their careers in the US. No
inspection worries re biological and chemical warfare research. The US has
explicitly rejected international agreements requiring inspections.


Cheers< Ken Hanly

P.S. Why doesnt the US just press Inpectors. Guess it is better than
"pressurizing"  though.



December 6, 2002
U.S. Is Pressuring Inspectors in Iraq to Aid Defections
By PATRICK E. TYLER


ASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - The Bush administration has stepped up pressure on Hans
Blix and the United Nations weapons inspection team to identify key Iraqi
weapons scientists and spirit them out of Iraq so they can be offered asylum
in exchange for disclosing where Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass
destruction, according to administration and United Nations officials.
High-level negotiations on the issue became visible when Condoleezza Rice,
President Bush's national security adviser, met with Mr. Blix in New York on
Monday and pressed the issue of interviewing Iraqi scientists. The
administration is offering to set up a witness protection program for
defecting Iraqi scientists, thus enabling a more aggressive approach.
A United States official at the United Nations said that the talks on how to
handle Iraqi scientists were continuing and that the initial message to Mr.
Blix, a chief arms inspector, was that Washington wanted him to "make it a
priority" to use the full powers conveyed by the Security Council resolution
passed on Nov. 8.
The resolution demands that Iraq provide "unimpeded" and "unrestricted"
access "to all officials and other persons" that inspectors decide they want
to interview "inside or outside Iraq."
The purpose of this inspection tool, perhaps the most aggressive tactic in a
decade of Iraq inspections, is to achieve a breakthrough in gathering fresh
evidence about Iraq's weapons program at a time when Baghdad is under
mounting criticism from senior American officials for previously concealing
its weapons programs and lying about them.
Private tips and defectors have contributed to most of the American
intelligence gathered on Iraq's secret nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons programs, United States officials said.
It is not clear what intelligence the administration is using as a basis for
its deductions or how much of this information has been shared with the
United Nations.
The push by Washington for defectors has further pressurized the atmosphere
surrounding the first week of inspections as Iraq prepares to make what the
Security Council has said must be a full disclosure of its secret arms
programs.
A senior administration official tonight said that "the United States is
concerned with the safety, welfare and nonintimidation of people who may
wish to cooperate" with inspectors. "We take this issue seriously," the
official continued, "and we hope the international community would also
attach the same importance to the issue."
The reliance on the United States to take over from the United Nations the
handling of Iraqi defectors is a very delicate issue, senior administration
officials said.
The United Nations is keen to protect its mission from activities that might
compromise it, and the handling, debriefing and resettlement of defectors is
traditionally a function of intelligence agencies.
Senior Iraqi officials have begun to assail the inspection mission as a tool
of American intelligence and war preparation. On Wednesday, Iraq's vice
president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, referring to the inspectors, said that
"their work is to spy to serve the C.I.A. and Mossad," the Israeli
intelligence agency.
According to the arrangements under discussion in Washington and New York,
United Nations inspectors could identify Iraqi scientists who are believed
to have crucial knowledge of weapons programs. They would be flown out of
the country, perhaps with their families.
American officials would then debrief the Iraqis, feed any useful
information back to the United Nations teams and then help resettle the
Iraqi scientists in a country willing to take them. Those who wanted to
return to Iraq could, but American and United Nations officials said the
risks of return would be high for any Iraqi taken outside the country.
American official say Iraqi intelligence agencies routinely kill any Iraqi
suspected of cooperating with foreign countries.
An intense argument is under way, however, on almost all of the details of a
protection program. Some American officials want the United Nations team to
be aggressive in identifying scientists and demanding that they leave the
country, perhaps without the scientists' permission. Mr. Blix is said to be
arguing that the United Nations cannot, in effect, abduct people against
their will. His view is being backed by most of the United Nations hierarchy
and the State Department in Washington, officials said.
But there were strong contrary views in the Pentagon and White House,
officials said.
"I don't see how they can do their mission," Richard Perle said of the
inspectors, "if they cannot interview" scientists and other officials
associated with secret programs. Mr. Perle is chairman of the Defense Policy
Board, an advisory body to the Pentagon. He said the Security Council
provision demanding access to Iraqi weapons scientists and their families
"was the only innovation in the entire resolution, and if they don't use it,
they will fail."
Similar strong views have been expressed by Vice President Dick Cheney and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"If you go back and look at the history of inspections in Iraq," Mr.
Rumsfeld said on Tuesday, "the reality is that things have been found - not
by discovery, but through defectors."
United Nations officials, uneasy with soliciting or demanding defections,
have been searching for a means to conduct private interviews with Iraqi
scientists inside the country. American officials have asserted that this is
out of the question since the inspection teams are under intense
surveillance by Iraqi intelligence. The officials said they were aware of a
large number of scientists who have knowledge of Iraqi weapons programs.
Some would like to see Mr. Blix submit a list of names to the Iraqi
government and demand to interview those individuals.
Still, Mr. Blix is said to be resisting any idea that the United Nations can
force Iraqi scientists to take the life-threatening step of leaving Iraq for
interrogation.
"That's where the problem is," said an administration official sympathetic
to the concerns Mr. Blix and other United Nations officials have expressed.
"Taking someone against their will is contrary to the whole United Nations
concept. You'd fracture the U.N. consensus."
The Security Council resolution authorizes the inspectors "to facilitate the
travel of those interviewed" and their family members outside of Iraq. This
provision was intended to protect the inspectors from retribution, but even
this protection has raised questions.
"Let's say for argument's sake that you are a senior government official," a
United Nations expert said. "It is one thing for you to say that it is part
of your job to agree to go out of the country to be interviewed, but why
would you pull your wife out of her job and the kids out of school? If you
wanted to assure Saddam that you had no plans to defect, you would leave
them there to reassure him."
Advocates of an aggressive approach argue that the inspectors could order
scientists to report with their families, giving them no choice so Mr.
Hussein could not blame them. Once out of the country, the scientists could
make their own choices. But United Nations officials ask how many family
members count in a country built on clans where extended families can run to
the dozens or hundreds?
"We are conscious that this is potentially a key issue," a United Nations
official said. "But many of us think that defections are best done by a
welcoming government. There is no U.N. mechanism for this. The U.N. has no
capacity to grant asylum. Any government, and the United States in
particular, has all of that capacity."
Mr. Bush's national security advisers were scheduled to meet today to
further discuss the questions of how to handle Iraqi scientists.