More Evasion and Deception : Iraq must stop playing games if it wants sanctions dropped

Iraq goes on blaming foreign foes for its sanctions-weakened economy and the deprivations suffered by the Iraqi people. But given the opportunity to improve conditions, Saddam Hussein’s regime continues to be its own worst enemy.

The U.N. Security Council is again scheduled to consider easing or ending the trade ban it imposed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Sympathy for that effort has been inevitably diminished, however, with the finding by a special commission that Iraq appears to have been concealing a program to produce germ warfare weapons. Security Council resolutions say Iraq must rid itself of all weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, chemical and biological--as a condition for ending the sanctions. Evidence that it is evading that demand deservedly supports keeping the ban in place.

Rolf Ekeus, who heads the U.N. commission to oversee the destruction of Iraq’s unconventional weapons, says that in 1988 alone Iraq imported 39 tons of “complex media growth,” used in laboratories for growing bacteria and viruses and in producing pharmaceuticals. That’s a lot of material for a small country, and Ekeus says his commission can account for only 22 tons of it. What happened to the remaining 17 tons is unexplained, but suspicions--justified, certainly, in light of Iraq’s history--is that it was used for the covert production of biological warfare agents. Outside experts speculate the highly infectious anthrax bacillus may have been one such agent.

The Iraqis, Ekeus told the Security Council, have been less than forthcoming in trying to account for the missing growth media. Thus “the commission assesses that Iraq obtained or sought to obtain the items to produce in Iraq biological warfare agents.” This finding may well embarrass Russia and France, the two permanent Security Council members who want the sanctions lifted so that they can go ahead with the lucrative commercial contracts they have signed with Iraq. But it powerfully supports the conclusion of the United States and Britain that Iraq remains bent on evasion and deception. Only when that conclusively ends should the embargo be eased.