U.N. Inspectors Find Warheads, Seek Answers

U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq discovered 11 empty chemical warheads at an arms depot south of Baghdad on Thursday, their most significant find in nearly two months of searching for a forbidden arsenal.

The surprise discovery came on the same day that another team of inspectors interviewed two Iraqi scientists in their homes, dual developments that brought the inspections to a new level of intensity as the United Nations counts down to a Jan. 27 assessment from the arms experts before the Security Council.

The 11 rocket warheads, plus another with modifications that required further evaluation, were the same type that topped thousands of 122-millimeter rockets that U.N. inspectors had found in 1991 filled with deadly sarin and cyclosarin nerve agents. Those rockets were destroyed.

The discovery at the Ukhaider weapons depot 75 miles south of Baghdad appears to put Iraq in technical violation of the U.N. resolution requiring it to eliminate all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and delivery systems. Inspection team chief Dimitri Perricos, however, said the find was important but “not a smoking gun” that could trigger a war.

U.N. inspection team spokesman Hiro Ueki said in an interview from Baghdad that the monitors were still checking Iraq’s claims Thursday that the warheads had been declared to the United Nations in 1996 and again in the 12,000-page declaration Iraq handed over Dec. 7.

“There are still questions to be answered,” he said.

Instead of seizing on the finding as a “material breach” that might justify military action, U.S. officials reacted cautiously while they waited for the inspectors’ full assessment.

“We’ll have to wait and see what further develops on this question,” said the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John D. Negroponte. “I’m sure the inspectors are giving this their most rapid attention possible.”

At U.N. headquarters, diplomats debated the significance of the find. Are the warheads evidence that Iraq has an ongoing weapons program, or do they show that Iraq has failed to declare a past weapons program? Does possession of warheads designed to deliver chemical agents violate the ban on weapons of mass destruction even if they’re empty?

Some diplomats say that if they don’t contain chemicals, the warheads should not be considered chemical weapons. Others interpret Resolution 1441 demanding Iraq’s disarmament to mean that Iraq is not supposed to retain even the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction.

“Why keep the warheads if you say you don’t have the chemical agents?” one council diplomat asked.

U.S. officials say that Iraq’s December declaration failed to account for nearly 30,000 empty munitions that could be filled with chemical agents, among dozens of other omissions.

Between 1991 and 1998, when the last inspectors left, more than 10,000 warheads adapted for chemical or biological use were destroyed. Thousands more are still unaccounted for. Baghdad claimed it destroyed them but has never provided proof, U.S. officials say.

Iraqi officials downplayed Thursday’s discovery, saying that they had already accounted for the rockets to the United Nations and that they were so old they were simply overlooked.

“It is neither chemical, neither biological,” said Gen. Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate. “It is empty warheads. It is small artillery rockets. It is expired rockets. They were forgotten without any intention to use them, because they were expired since 10 years ago.”

Tension is building as nearly 75,000 U.S. troops move into the region and diplomats wait for inspectors’ assessment of Iraq’s cooperation Jan. 27. U.S. officials say they have been passing “hard-core” intelligence to the inspection teams and anticipate more findings before the end of the month.

On Thursday, inspectors increased the pressure by conducting more intensive and intrusive searches. They examined the homes of two scientists whose names weren’t on the list of weapons experts Iraq provided to the U.N. last month, suggesting that the inspectors were acting on intelligence tips.

Inspectors questioned Shakir Jabouri, a nuclear scientist, at his home. The second scientist, physicist Faleh Hassan, left with Perricos after a heated argument, carrying a box overflowing with documents. The physicist is the director-general of the Al Razi company belonging to Iraq’s Military Industrialization Commission and worked on Iraq’s laser enrichment program.

They drove to a field that was part of a farm Hassan had sold in 1996, Iraqi officials later said, and looked at a mound in the ground. The inspectors then copied the documents they described as “related to past proscribed activities,” and Hassan returned home, spokesman Ueki said.

A previous inspection team found nearly a million Iraqi secret service documents hidden on a chicken farm in 1995.

Interviews with scientists have become one of the most contentious issues related to inspections. In the past, the best information about Iraq’s hidden arms has come from defectors and weapons experts who had left the country, and U.S. officials have been pushing the inspection teams to take scientists out of Iraq for questioning.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice came to U.N. headquarters Tuesday for a discreet but intense meeting to press chief weapons inspector Hans Blix to try more private interviews soon.

The Iraqi government insists that its citizens have the right to witnesses, and Blix has also resisted taking people out of the country, saying that the U.N. is “not serving as a defection agency.” The U.S. and Britain have signaled that they will offer protection and relocation for scientists and their families who are willing to provide crucial information.

The combination of pressure and reassurance may be enough for Blix to try a more aggressive strategy soon.

On Thursday, during a stop in Brussels to meet with European Union officials on his way to Baghdad, Blix said that interviews of scientists are important ways to learn more about Iraq’s weapons programs and that more individual interviews were being planned.

“A precondition for the interviews to be credible will be that the persons can talk without feeling intimidated,” Blix said.

“If Iraq is absolutely sure that there is nothing that they have to hide, then they should be anxious that the interviewees could speak without intimidation.”

Blix called the Iraqi situation “very tense and very dangerous,” and will urge Iraq to actively cooperate with inspections during his visit to Baghdad on Sunday.

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Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.