Iraq Mired in Its Own Lies

Iraq has always denied that it was able to produce the nerve gas VX in large quantities or in a stable state that would allow it to be mounted in missile warheads or stored for future use. But as with so many of Baghdad’s denials about what it was up to in its programs for developing weapons of mass destruction, this one too now stands exposed as a lie.

Laboratory analysis of fragments of missile warheads found in the Iraqi desert revealed traces of VX, a colorless and odorless liquid that turns into a gas when it comes into contact with oxygen. A few drops of VX on the skin kills within minutes. Richard Butler, who heads the United Nations special commission that has been trying since 1991 to ferret out the truth about Iraq’s weapons programs, has told the Security Council that the evidence of VX on the missile shards was “utterly unambiguous.”

The immediate result of this finding has been to strengthen U.S. and British determination to keep in place the sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Washington and London successfully argued that point with Iraq’s sympathizers on the council--France, Russia and China--which joined Wednesday in voting to extend the sanctions yet again.

Baghdad’s response to Butler’s report has been to challenge the credibility of the laboratory tests, which were conducted at the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Butler says several European labs will also be sent the warhead fragments for testing.

The seriousness of the VX finding can’t be underestimated. Iraq has shown that it can take a deadly compound out of the laboratory and, as Butler says, “weaponize” it by adding a stabilizer and housing it inside a warhead. That Iraq destroyed some of these warheads after the Persian Gulf War--it was these fragments the U.N. inspectors found--does not mean that it no longer has a cache of VX hidden somewhere. U.N. inspectors estimate that Iraq produced up to four tons of VX, enough, if properly dispersed, to kill millions of people.

What Iraq has done others can do as well. The United States suspects that Iran, Libya and Syria are all developing weapons of mass destruction. A recent ABC report in fact claimed that Syria had successfully test-fired several weapons armed with VX. The fearful likelihood grows that relatively cheap chemical and biological weapons may soon proliferate, especially though not exclusively in the always unsettled Middle East. It was this chilling prospect that sobered Iraq’s sympathizers on the Security Council and led them to maintain sanctions against the rogue nation.