Iraq’s Worst Enemy Is Iraq : Habit of lying tortures an already ailing nation

Iraq’s four years of denials that it had ever produced biological warfare weapons are now self-exposed as a lie: Baghdad has admitted that it embarked on such a program in 1985, when it was mired in its costly war with Iran.

But not to worry, Iraqi authorities say. They have tried to reassure the special U.N. commission that is overseeing the Security Council-ordered destruction of Baghdad’s nuclear, chemical and biological warfare capabilities. In October, 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait but before it got into a shooting war with the U.S.-led coalition, it destroyed its considerable stockpiles of botulism and anthrax bacteria, the officials insist. And so, they want the Security Council to believe, Iraq is now squeaky-clean when it comes to hiding any illicit weapons. A world that has already heard 1,001 fraudulent tales from Saddam Hussein’s regime will be forgiven if it chooses not to believe that one.

HURT BY EMBARGO: Baghdad’s candor is motivated not by any sudden interest in honesty but by a realistic sense that it faces increasingly desperate times unless it can get the U.N. embargo against it lifted. The embargo prevents Iraq from selling oil, its main source of income, until the Security Council is satisfied that all of its weapons of mass destruction have been scrapped. It further limits Iraq’s non-humanitarian imports unless certain requirements are met, among them that Baghdad account fully for the prisoners and property it took from Kuwait.

The special U.N. commission seems largely satisfied that most of Iraq’s nuclear and chemical weapons have been destroyed, though Baghdad still refuses to destroy equipment that could produce ballistic missiles. Looming large now is the need to try to verify Iraq’s suspect claim that it no longer is involved with germ warfare. That could take a long time and a lot of effort.

Iraq is known to have imported more than 45 tons of material that could be used to grow the anthrax and botulism cultures, vastly more than its hospitals could legitimately use. At least 17 tons of this culturing agent are unaccounted for. Iraq says it burned all the toxins it produced. But there’s no proof that any were destroyed. It takes very little of either botulin or the anthrax bacillus to kill. Even a fraction of the total that Iraq may have made, hidden away, would leave it with a fearsome arsenal.

FULL INSPECTION: Bagdhad’s woefully late confession that it tried for four years to deceive the Security Council about its biological weaponry shows again that, when it comes to getting the sanctions lifted, Iraq remains its own worst enemy. France, Russia and China, all eager to do business with Iraq, are sympathetic to having the embargo eased or ended. But that can only happen when the last well-founded suspicion about what Iraq may be up to has been eliminated, not by meaningless assurances from Baghdad but by exhaustive on-the-ground international inspections of every suspect facility and hiding place in the country.