U.S. Prepared to Claim Iraq Is Lying About Arms

Even before Iraq hands over the long-awaited declaration of its weapons and missile programs in Baghdad today, the Bush administration is preparing to declare the nation in “material breach” of a tough U.N. resolution for expected omissions in the report, U.S. officials said Friday.

The White House claims to have evidence -- which it hasn’t released to inspectors or other countries -- that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, despite Baghdad’s repeated denials.

But instead of pushing immediately for military action, the administration will use the anticipated gaps to argue for more aggressive inspections and the spiriting away of Iraqi scientists who could lead inspectors to “a smoking gun.” It would be the first step in providing the evidence needed to convince the international community that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein must go, the officials said.

“This is not a moment to declare war but to determine the task ahead,” a senior State Department official said. “We see this as part of an overall process of determining whether Iraq will cooperate and disarm.”

Iraq’s weapons inventory -- expected to be more than 10,000 pages long and written partly in Arabic -- will be given to U.N. officials in Baghdad at 8 p.m. local time today and delivered to the offices of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and U.N. headquarters in New York on Sunday night. U.N. experts will screen the document before any member of the Security Council -- including the United States -- sees it, a process that could take several days.

Resolution 1441 not only requires Baghdad to list information on past and present weapons programs but also to detail any materials in its civilian industries that could be used for military purposes. Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has said that the burden of proof is on Iraq and that if Baghdad claims it has destroyed weapons materials, it must offer “convincing evidence.”

If Iraq is found to have violated the resolution -- a “material breach” -- the response could include military action.

Before turning the declaration over to the Security Council’s 15 members, U.N. experts will study it for sensitive information, such as instructions for making weapons, in order to abide by nonproliferation conventions.

It may take experts weeks to translate and analyze the report and, at least initially, it may raise more questions than it will answer, U.S. and U.N. officials said.

And so, U.S. officials are pressing inspectors to concentrate on what has been their most valuable source of information in the past: Iraqi scientists. The U.S. wants to create the equivalent of a witness protection program for specialists and their families who can help inspectors unearth the kind of evidence that would convince the international community of the need to topple the Iraqi regime.

“The Iraqis themselves are the key to finding the holes and giving us the smoking gun,” said a well-placed U.S. official who requested anonymity.

Washington will push for the weapons inspectors to press some of the 500 Iraqi scientists, engineers and technicians identified by previous U.N. teams as having a role in the production of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the inspectors should take advantage of all methods as they look for clues on whether Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction.

“Given Iraq’s history of brutal witness intimidation -- including imprisonment, torture and murder -- this is a key tool for inspectors to make certain that Saddam Hussein disarms,” Fleischer said. “By providing for such interviews in its resolution, the Security Council expects inspectors to take advantage of it.”

But Blix is reluctant to remove scientists from the country, saying there are “practical difficulties” in taking people who might not want to leave Iraq or who might not be able to return. Hussein’s regime reportedly has tortured and executed people who have offered help to inspectors in the past, and Blix is acutely aware of what is at stake if his team should ask anyone for a private interview.

Blix said the inspectors have an extensive list of Iraqi weapons specialists they would like to speak with but haven’t asked for any interviews yet.

“We are not going to abduct anyone,” Blix said Friday after meeting with the Security Council. “The U.N. is not a defection agency.”

If the U.S. has evidence that Iraq has weapons material, Washington should give it to the inspectors to investigate, Blix said somewhat testily Friday after a week of criticism from both Baghdad and Washington about the inspections.

“Any country is too big for inspectors to comb through every square centimeter. You need to have information,” he said. “They may be listening to what’s going on in the ether, and they may have a lot of other sources of information, but we can go to the sites legitimately and legally.”

The United States pressed hard for a provision in the new resolution that would allow the U.N. to take Iraqi weapons specialists out of the country so that inspectors could tap into the vital and most direct source of intelligence on Baghdad’s arsenal.

At least half of the specialists are believed to have worked on Iraq’s nuclear program, the area of greatest concern to Washington.

U.S. officials believe that Baghdad has worked hardest to conceal whatever remains of its nuclear program and that the scientists are a treasure trove with information, particularly about what has happened to weapons programs since previous inspectors left in 1998.

There are, however, problems with relying heavily on scientists and engineers, warn former inspectors and U.S. officials.

“There will be a lot of people who come forward and say, ‘I am a key member,’ and they are. But you do have to be careful you don’t let in [to the U.S.] every Baghdad taxi driver who claims to be a nuclear scientist,” said David Kay, a former weapons inspector who is now at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

“Over the past 11 years, there have been a number of people who have called who claimed to have important information who turned out not to,” he said.

One danger with specialists is that they might not actually know the current status of their work or the location of any hidden evidence, U.S. officials say.

“They may give you information, but then still you have to prove it -- the same problem you started with,” Kay said.

The White House said Friday that the handling of scientists who might be willing to defect would be the United Nations’ responsibility but that the United States and “much of the world stands ready to help.”

A bipartisan congressional effort to lure Iraqi scientists by providing U.S. residency in exchange for information collapsed last month when Congress adjourned without voting on the bill.

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Farley reported from the United Nations and Wright from Washington. Times staff writer Sonni Efron in Washington contributed to this report.