Nuclear Deception by Iraq Charged : Weapons: The U.S. tells the Security Council it has confirmed an extensive nuclear infrastructure. U.N. inspectors charge Baghdad with violation of accord.

The United States told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that it has confirmed the existence of an extensive nuclear infrastructure in Iraq that Saddam Hussein has sought to conceal.

U.S. diplomats said the sites include facilities intended for the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials and bombs. They charged that since the end of the Persian Gulf War, Baghdad’s government has tried to hide as much of its nuclear arms program as possible by moving key items into temporary storage.

“It is patently clear that Iraq is engaged in nuclear deception,” Alexander F. Watson, the United States’ second-ranking official at the United Nations, told an urgent session of the Security Council.

” . . . Iraq has been doing everything it can to conceal the full extent of its un-safeguarded nuclear enrichment program, which we believe is directed toward development of nuclear weapons.”

In addition to the nuclear allegations, Watson said the Bush Administration also has “strong evidence” that Iraq has attempted to hide substantial portions of its chemical weapons infrastructure from U.N. inspectors and that it possesses a biological weapons program, which Baghdad has denied.

The council meeting was called after top U.N. nuclear inspectors charged Iraq with violating the agreement ending the war.

In several letters to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, which were presented to the Security Council on Wednesday, the inspectors said Iraqi soldiers twice barred them from visiting a suspected nuclear facility in Baghdad but that, from a distance, they observed cranes, trucks and forklifts hurriedly moving materials from the site.

U.S. officials said the inspectors’ report characterized the operation as “frenzied activity” involving trucks transporting large draped objects. The objects were believed to be equipment designed to enrich uranium for use in bombs, the officials said.

As the letters were given to the Security Council, U.S. officials conducted a secret 25-minute intelligence briefing for council members about Iraq’s nuclear program, displaying reconnaissance photos and other data. The diplomats were told that some of the human shields seized before the start of the Gulf War returned with traces of radioactivity on their clothing.

In Washington, the U.S. government echoed the U.N. inspectors’ charge of a violation of the Gulf War cease-fire terms, under which Iraq is required to disclose to the United Nations the location of all its weapons of mass destruction.

“There is ample evidence from multiple sources that Iraq has been conducting a covert nuclear weapons program that has included activities to produce nuclear weapons material,” said State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler.

“It has deceived . . . the International Atomic Energy Agency on its nuclear program,” she said. “It has also under-reported or not revealed details in ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.”

During the council meeting, Iraq’s U.N. ambassador, Abdul Amir Anbari, repeatedly denied that his government is seeking to hide nuclear materials from U.N. inspectors.

“We have cooperated with all United Nations agencies, commissions and missions, and we have done so particularly with the commission entrusted with the task of destroying mass destruction weapons,” the Iraqi envoy said.

Anbari said inspection of the site in question was delayed because of communications difficulties and the observance of Muslim holy days.

“Iraq will continue to cooperate. We have made our commitment,” he added, charging that the dispute over the facility in Baghdad could have been raised in order to justify perpetuating sanctions against his country or continuing the occupation of northern Iraq or to prepare public opinion for another military attack on Iraq.

Wednesday’s session was prompted by letters to Perez de Cuellar from Rolf Ekeus, executive chairman of the special U.N. commission set up to identify and eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and from Hans Blix, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The letters described the lack of cooperation Iraq had shown a joint nuclear inspection team from the IAEA and the special commission over the last five days.

U.N. officials complained that on June 23 and 25, Iraqi military authorities denied the team access to facilities at the Abu Gharaib army barracks in Baghdad.

The inspectors arrived in Baghdad last Saturday and met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ahmed Hussein Khudayer, telling him that at 7 a.m. on Sunday the team would designate a site that it wanted to visit before noon that day.

The team, accompanied by an Iraqi liaison officer, arrived at the site at noon, the letters said, but was denied access on the grounds that the inspectors had no written authorization.

In his letter to the secretary general, Ekeus complained that, among other things, “the right to take photographs was in some instances prohibited and in others limited.”

“The team was, nevertheless, able to observe that in areas to which access was denied, considerable activity was under way, involving cranes, trucks, forklifts, other equipment and work crews.”

After leaving the site, the team sent a letter of protest to the foreign minister, and the next day, U.N. officials were invited to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where they were assured that problems had been resolved.

But when the inspection team returned to the facility on Tuesday, soldiers again barred entry to inspection areas.

Finally, on Wednesday, the inspectors gained access to the areas they desired, but they noticed differences there.

“On this occasion, activities which had been observed from a distance during the first visit had ceased, and objects that had been seen had been removed,” Ekeus told Perez de Cuellar.

IAEA officials expressed “grave concern” to Iraq’s representatives in New York and in Vienna, where the international nuclear agency is headquartered.

Watson told the Security Council that at one point the inspection team had to move aside to allow heavy moving equipment to proceed to the site. He charged that the facility was being used as temporary storage for equipment from Iraq’s undeclared nuclear enrichment program.

In its letter to Iraq’s foreign minister, the nuclear inspectors charged that not only were they denied access but that “in one particularly disturbing case” they were denied prompt medical treatment for an injured team member.

“We regret to say that the only conclusions that can be drawn from today is that the information that led to this special inspection is given considerable extra credence and that Iraq in this case is not in compliance with the obligations it accepted under Security Council Resolution 687,” the letter added.

The team’s trip to Baghdad was prompted in large part by an Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected to U.S. troops in northern Iraq and told the Americans that Hussein continued to operate secret sites for nuclear research that had not been destroyed by bombing during the war.

U.S. officials said the defector told debriefers that Iraq was trying to produce weapons-grade uranium through an old-fashioned process called magnetic isotope separation.

U.S. scientists experimented with the technique during development of the atomic bomb during World War II but abandoned the technology. U.S. intelligence analysts believe that machinery that might have been removed from the Baghdad facility was designed to be used for magnetic isotope separation.

Representatives of Belgium, Austria, France and Britain joined the United States in condemning Iraq at the Security Council session, and it was understood that Ambassador Anbari would be given fresh notice today that council members expect his nation to offer full cooperation with all weapons inspection teams.

Among those backing up Watson at the secret Security Council briefing were six U.S. intelligence experts who brought with them what U.S. officials said were pictures of three Iraqi nuclear facilities.

After that session, Watson explained that the Bush Administration was pressing the council to act immediately because “if we can’t get this one right . . . the problems of the future will be really manifold.”

Goldman reported from the United Nations and Kempster from Washington.

BACKGROUND

Under the terms of Security Council Resolution 687, Iraq is required to provide inventories of all material that could be used for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles. The United Nations’ special commission is empowered to remove or destroy these items. Iraq has also signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, pledging not to acquire nuclear arms and opening its declared nuclear sites to inspection by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.