U.S. Gets First Look at Report

Overcoming initial objections from some U.N. members, the United States got a jump Monday on analyzing Iraq’s voluminous weapons declaration after pushing through the weekend to get the original sent down from New York.

The 11,807-page declaration was whisked overnight from New York to Washington after a weekend of intense diplomacy by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and U.N. Ambassador John D. Negroponte, who helped convince the 14 other Security Council members to change the arrangements for reviewing the document.

Scientists and intelligence experts immediately set to the laborious task of dissecting the document even as it was copied for U.N. weapons specialists and the permanent members of the Security Council.

The only part of the document made public Monday was its table of contents, whose entries include “nuclear materials,” “terminated radiation bomb project” and “production of ricin toxin.”

In one of the first tentative analyses of the dossier, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna said Baghdad’s 2,400-page section on nuclear weapons, which is being analyzed separately from sections on three other categories of weapons, looks very much like its statements from before 1998, when previous weapons inspectors left Iraq, according to Mark Gwozdecky, an IAEA spokesman.

The declaration lists Iraq’s research on and development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as ballistic missiles. It contains recipes for the production of agents and weapons and includes the names of foreign suppliers that provided Iraq with essential elements.

Although it may be several days before U.S. intelligence concludes its analysis, the Bush administration is already expressing doubt that Baghdad fully disclosed its arsenal. The White House expressed particular alarm Monday over Iraq’s apparent acknowledgment Sunday that it had been close to building a nuclear bomb.

“In terms of overall Iraqi statements, you need only look at the wistful way that leading Iraqi generals describe how close they came to getting nuclear weapons. That’s why the United States is skeptical of Iraqi intentions,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

The way Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime publicly “yearned” to build a nuclear arsenal “gives reason to pause and recognize that Iraq is a threat,” Fleischer added.

The Iraqi report says where the weapons work took place, but authorities in Baghdad say all specialized weapons facilities have been destroyed or converted to peaceful uses.

The Security Council has been concerned about the document’s dissemination, not only because the report provides information on Iraq’s weapons-making techniques, but also because it contains the names of countries and companies that assisted Iraq with equipment and know-how.

The United States, with British backing, made the case that it should take the sealed set of documents and CDs when it arrived in New York because the U.N. copying services were too slow and insecure to handle the job.

The weekend contacts reflect the degree to which Washington has retained control over the Iraq crisis, even under an international aegis.

On Saturday morning, Negroponte called Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, current president of the Security Council, to inform him of a brewing deal among the five permanent council members.

“He said they wanted to make some changes to the previous understanding, and that was it,” Valdivieso said Monday.

Syria was the only nation clearly against the changes, according to diplomatic sources. Mexico resisted at first, having pressed Friday for all 15 members to receive the same version of the declaration at the same time, as a matter of fairness. But Powell persuaded Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda, according to a Western diplomat.

In the end, the decision was Colombia’s. At 11:30 Sunday night, Valdivieso decided to allow the U.S. to take the Security Council’s sole copy. “I took the decision,” Valdivieso said. “It’s the presidential prerogative, but it was on the basis of consultation with the council.”

In comments to reporters Monday morning, Negroponte called it “a win-win situation,” portraying the decision as the United States doing a favor for the 14 other members, not as Washington subverting the council.

Dismissing what he called “invidious comparisons” about the five permanent members getting an unedited version while the remaining members receive an edited one, Negroponte said: “This is not a question of asserting some special privilege on the part of [the five]. It’s more a question of drawing on the expertise of the declared nuclear weapon states,” who can help with “precisely the kind of analysis that everybody is trying to achieve.”

Making the copies “is simply a service we are providing to the other countries,” he said. Britain and France reportedly received their copies late Monday.

But Syria strongly protested Monday that the U.S. had shattered Security Council protocol and taken the council’s copy of the declaration without the agreement of all its members.

“Indeed, we are not happy,” said Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe. “It’s in contradiction to the political logic, to the procedural logic, to every kind of logic in the Security Council.... It’s against the unity of the council as well -- all members of the council should have access.”

Norwegian Ambassador Ole Peter Kolby criticized Colombia for the unequal distribution of the declaration. “All members should have the same access to information in order to assess if Iraq is in compliance with its obligations,” he said.

Although reportedly unhappy with the decision, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan publicly supported it.

“If the council decided to do that, it is their right, and I will not quibble with it,” he said.

But he added, “War is not inevitable.” If Hussein continued his apparent cooperation with the U.N. and the inspectors and disarmed, “I would see no reason for war,” Annan said.

The Bush administration dismissed Iraq’s apology for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to a 12-year international drama and the current crisis. The State Department called the speech released by Hussein over the weekend a continuation of Baghdad’s “outrageous, inflammatory and bellicose rhetoric.”

“In this speech, Saddam Hussein again called for action against regimes in the region, praised those who use violence for political ends, attempted to shift the blame for the brutal invasion of Kuwait. These are just further examples of the threat the Iraqi regime represents to its own people and the people of the region,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

Indeed, a State Department official contended that the speech actually backfired on Hussein by leading Persian Gulf nations to appeal to Washington for protection -- and potentially helping the administration build a coalition from countries long reluctant to get involved in any U.S.-led military operation.

The official said several nations contacted the State Department on Monday to express their concern about Hussein’s call on Arabs to topple their governments.

In Iraq on Monday, weapons inspectors visited sites that may be related to both nuclear and chemical weapons. An IAEA team went back to the Al Tuwaitha Iraqi Nuclear Research Center, where several tons of uranium are stored under IAEA seal. The team took samples from the center’s radioactive treatment facility as well as a sewage system and land in the surrounding hills 12 miles south of Baghdad.

Iraq’s last known nuclear program was at Tuwaitha. It also was the site of the earlier Osirak reactor, which was bombed by Israel in 1981. Iraq’s declaration contains more than 180 pages on the Tuwaitha installation.

The IAEA team also visited two other sites, Ash Shakyli and Al Qa Qaa, to take inventory and collect samples to check for radioactive material.

In a separate inspection, U.N. specialists toured the Al Tariq General Co. in Fallujah, where, the U.S. and Britain have charged, Iraq reconstructed a chemical weapons facility destroyed in a 1998 U.S. airstrike. Iraq says the plant now makes chlorine and phenol.

The U.N. is slowly increasing the number of inspectors on the ground in Iraq. In addition to the 25 who arrived Sunday, up to 30 experts are scheduled to arrive today, officials said.

On another front in the U.S. campaign to pressure Baghdad, the United States moved Monday to widen its support of Iraqi opposition groups. The White House announced that six more groups would be eligible for funds from the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which provides money for support of the opposition.

The groups include the Assyrian Democratic Movement, the Iraqi Free Officers and Civilians Movement, the Iraqi National Front, the Iraqi National Movement, the Iraqi Turkmen Front and the Islamic Accord of Iraq.

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Wright reported from Washington and Farley from the United Nations.