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Interview: Charles Duelfer Discusses The Iraqi Presidential Compounds And What Weapons Inspectors Believe Could Be Hidden In Them
All Things Considered: October 2, 2002
 Iraq Presidential Palaces
JACKI LYDEN, host:
On the diplomatic front, the US is still working to line up support at the United Nations for a tough new resolution on Iraq. Yesterday in Vienna, the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, announced that a fresh team of inspectors would probably go to Iraq in two weeks' time. They're expected to have unfettered access to all sites within the country except for the eight presidential compounds belonging to Saddam Hussein, and that's emerging as a deal breaker for Washington.
Charles Duelfer joins us now. He's the former deputy chief inspector in Iraq. And you led the only official visit to the presidential sites back in 1998, Mr. Duelfer. Isn't that right?
Mr. CHARLES DUELFER (Former Deputy Chief Inspector in Iraq): Yes, that was quite an event, I must say.
LYDEN: Tell us more about these sites, what they might shelter and what your access was like.
Mr. DUELFER: Well, there was a lot of noise created at the time on many sides, but we had a very specific purpose in seeking to go to these locations, and that was our strategy had been to find out where the decisions were taken on funding these weapons, controlling them and distributing them. This...
LYDEN: So you thought you might find data, diagrams.
Mr. DUELFER: Fundamentally, we were looking for documents and computer records that would reflect the financial decisions and operational control decisions. So that's sort of one issue.
The other issue is what these large areas may actually contain, and they could contain, obviously, documents and computer records, but also some of these weapons are actually fairly small in their physical size, particularly biological weapons. And it may well be that within these compounds there could be stocks of those types of agents.
LYDEN: And so when you wanted to see these sites, was the agreement with the UN that you had to give the Iraqis advanced notice?
Mr. DUELFER: This took place after a long series of confrontational inspections. The secretary-general had gone to Baghdad and negotiated directly with Saddam Hussein over procedures for these points that Iraq said were critical to its sovereignty and dignity. And there were procedures put in place where there would be advance notification to include bringing along an accompaniment of diplomats, so that there would be outside observers to the inspections. This was, of course, quite controversial and did not allow for what would be a surprise inspection. Iraq certainly had a great deal of time to prepare for this inspection.
LYDEN: Weeks?
Mr. DUELFER: At least six weeks, and they made good use of the time, I must say. You couldn't get a cleaning service in Washington to clean up places as well as they did in Baghdad.
LYDEN: Tell us something about these palaces. What do they look like?
Mr. DUELFER: Well, they're large compounds, really. It's not just a single building, so don't get in mind something you might have seen on Disneyland. But there are large compounds. Within the eight areas, there are over a thousand buildings. Now some of them were quite palatial buildings and some of them were quite modest. The palatial buildings tended to consume a lot of marble. They all seemed to have large bodies of water around them and they were quite elaborate.
LYDEN: Although you did get a peek at something a lot of journalists might clamor for, which is the president's bedroom, Saddam's bedroom.
Mr. DUELFER: There were locations which, when the Iraqi minders--those are the government representatives who led us around--they would say, `Well, this is the president's bedroom,' and they were quite elaborate. One of them was about the size of a basketball court. And there was a fellow who, I believe, deserves an award because he neatly put a little pair of slippers next to the bed, which, you know, shows that the Iraqis are not without a sense of humor.
SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER
LYDEN: The administration is saying that it is a deal breaker unless there's a UN resolution that would allow inspectors to go anyplace anytime with the element of surprise. Do you agree?
Mr. DUELFER: Certainly, I think it would be a mistake to repeat the types of inspections that we did in the past. We tried for seven and a half years to do this, and I've come to the conclusion reluctantly it's impossible unless there are radically different ground rules which will allow for genuine surprise inspections. And I've distinguished between surprise and simply no notice. You have to be able to get to a place quickly and without the Iraqis knowing ahead of time. That's a very, very difficult thing because inspectors are behaving under UN rules, and they're confronting a nation-state with all the resources--security and intelligence--with no higher priority than to preserve the president and to preserve these weapons capabilities. The deck is stacked against the inspectors.
LYDEN: Charles Duelfer, thank you very much for talking with us.
Mr. DUELFER: Thank you.
LYDEN: Charles Duelfer is now a resident scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington.
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