U.S. Experts Dive Into Baghdad’s Arms Report

A small army of U.S. experts on Monday began checking Iraq’s 11,807-page account of banned weapons programs it claims are now defunct against intelligence gathered by spies, satellites and other covert means.

Although the White House National Security Council is coordinating the overall effort, the CIA is leading the closed-door review at its headquarters in Langley, Va.

High-level task forces also have been mobilized at the Pentagon, the State Department and the Energy Department to help search for distortions, omissions or discrepancies in the massive Iraqi document, as well as tips for further investigation.

Scientists and engineers from the nonproliferation and international technology group at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, America’s premier nuclear weapons facility, will play a lead role in combing the 2,100 pages that deal with Iraq’s nuclear program, officials said.

The little-known group, which operates under the Energy Department’s Office of Intelligence, assesses the science, technology and infrastructure behind foreign nuclear weapons. It also develops high-tech nuclear detection and other devices for U.S. intelligence agencies.

The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department’s nonproliferation division and other U.S. defense and intelligence agencies will help analyze the bulk of the report, which focuses on Iraq’s efforts to produce deadly germ agents, chemical weapons and ballistic missiles.

Officials said Monday that they had not set a deadline for an initial U.S. assessment. Nor had they set a date to determine whether Iraq has met its obligations to provide the U.N. Security Council with full disclosure of any illegal weapons programs.

“We’re just getting into it now,” a U.S. intelligence official said. He said the chief goal is to compare the document with “information that we know.”

Another U.S. intelligence official cautioned that no specific piece of U.S. intelligence constitutes a “smoking gun” that will be a clear test of Iraq’s vow to disclose all its weapons programs.

“There’s no one key thing,” he said. “It’s a totality of little things.”

U.S. analysts and technicians will rely on “the whole panoply” of U.S. and allied intelligence collection efforts, he added, including spies and defectors, satellite images and electronic intercepts of Iraqi government and military communications.

They also will compare the new document with reports compiled by U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency inspection teams that worked in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, and with the numerous supposedly “final” arms declarations issued by Iraq during that time.

Much of the recent U.S. collection effort has focused on Iraq’s global network of front companies and other attempts to illegally obtain and import raw materials, spare parts and highly specialized tools and equipment.

“There’s not a single ‘gotcha’ here,” the official said of the procurement schemes. “But considering all we know, it would be an extraordinary set of coincidences if they aren’t doing something illegal.”

An index of the Iraqi document released at the U.N. on Monday indicated that 33 pages are devoted to “acquisition of equipment, material, supplies and empty munitions containers” for what Baghdad contends was a now-ended bioweapons program.

Other parts of the index indicated that the report also details Baghdad’s efforts in the past to procure parts and technical assistance for chemical and nuclear weapons.

The CIA, which believes that Iraq has secretly continued its weapons programs, has not shared raw intelligence with the U.N. weapons inspectors. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday that the administration needs to protect sensitive intelligence sources.

“We’re going to continue to work with the inspectors to help to get them the information so they can do their job,” he said. “Of course, at the same time, we want to make sure that sources and methods are not compromised in any information that could be conveyed to inspectors.”

Fleischer said “there’s skepticism and there’s fear about Iraqi intentions and capabilities.” But he withheld judgment on the new document, saying the administration wants to study it “thoroughly, completely, and fully and thoughtfully.”

The process, he said, “deserves respect and it deserves thoughtful judgment, and we’ll not rush to it.”

Officials said the sheer size of the report -- more than 12 volumes in English and Arabic, plus computer disks -- might be misleading, because it appears to include extensive documentation that Iraq handed over previously.

The report also includes dual-use chemical, biological and nuclear materials that might have either military or commercial purposes.

The Bush administration insists that Saddam Hussein’s regime already possesses an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons and is seeking to develop nuclear arms. It has asserted that Baghdad must disclose those weapons programs or face military attack.

Iraq says its latest declaration proves that it has destroyed all proscribed weapons and that it has abandoned efforts to build any others.