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Interview: David Kay, Former Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector, Discusses What Can Be Expected When The Current Inspectors Report To The Security Council Tomorrow
Weekend Edition Sunday: January 26, 2003
Powell: Time 'Running Out' For Iraq
LIANE HANSEN, host:
From NPR News, this is WEEKEND EDITION. I'm Liane Hansen.
Secretary of State Colin Powell today reiterated US contentions that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein could exploit international complacency by using weapons of mass destruction or sharing his technology with terrorists. Powell spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, following a week in which Russia, Germany and France repeated strong reservations about a possible war with Iraq. But the secretary of State said today that the United States would act with or without multilateral support.
Secretary COLIN POWELL (State Department): We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. We continue to reserve our sovereign right to take military action against Iraq alone or in a coalition of the willing.
HANSEN: Secretary Powell's comments came as the head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency said there would be no surprises in reports from weapons inspectors to be submitted to the UN Security Council tomorrow. Those reports are not expected to contain substantial evidence of Iraqi nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Powell said the United States will study the reports but he cautioned that the Bush administration is losing patience with the inspection process.
Sec. POWELL: We're in no great rush to judgment tomorrow or the day after but clearly time is running out. There is no longer an excuse for Iraqi denial of its obligations.
HANSEN: David Kay was the United Nations' chief nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1992. He's a regular guest on WEEKEND EDITION. He's in our New York bureau this morning.
Good morning, David.
Mr. DAVID KAY (Former UN Chief Nuclear Weapons Inspector): Good morning, Liane.
HANSEN: What have you heard about he contents of the inspectors' report to be submitted tomorrow?
Mr. KAY: Well, I hear it's going to be a relatively short report, maybe a dozen and a few more pages than that, but it will contain no surprises. It will report there's been some progress. The inspectors have been able to return and reestablish monitoring over previously known sites. But there are also major incompletes. They've had difficulty flying freely. Their helicopters and the U-2 has not flown at all. They have been able to conduct no interviews in private and the declaration itself from the Iraqis on December 8th had major gaps.
HANSEN: Will extending the inspections process make any difference?
Mr. KAY: Well, this is where you get the difference of opinion. I think the US will argue you've had 12 years in which Iraq has refused to honor its obligations. The--what's happened in the last three weeks is very much in character with that, that is, the refusal of inspections and the U-2 and, in fact, there's no advantage to extending it. We know the Iraqis are not going to cooperate. Others will see an incomplete and say that means it takes more time.
HANSEN: Does it surprise you that at least three Iraqi scientists have refused to speak in private with UN weapons inspectors?
Mr. KAY: No, it does not. I would be surprised if any of them would agree to. The pressures upon them are tremendous, even if the Iraqi government formally says, `You're free to speak.' You'll note the agreement was that they could speak, be interviewed by the UN in a private hotel, the El-Rashid(ph), not at UN headquarters. That's probably the most bugged hotel in the world. Every Iraqi scientist would know anything he said in there was not in private.
HANSEN: These are supposed to be--many of these are supposed to be surprise inspections. The Iraqis are--supposedly don't know where the inspectors are going to go on any given day. But is there really that much mystery to where they go?
Mr. KAY: Well, the majority of sites have, in fact, been known sites, and were visited in the earlier inspection regime of UNSCOM so there was no surprise there. There have been a few inspections that are to unknown sites, the private home and all, which I think there was some genuine surprise.
HANSEN: But how good is Iraqi intelligence, say, about the plans of the inspectors?
Mr. KAY: It remains extraordinarily good. Just as in the first inspection, they clearly are monitoring all the communications they can from the inspectors. There are reported attempts to penetrate some, perhaps successfully, the inspection core itself, and the headquarters' staffs. They did this in the first regime with actual Iraqi agents being placed in them. So I think it--on balance, it looks like they're doing more of the same.
HANSEN: You've written that the UN inspection team looking for a smoking gun is, in fact, a fool's mission. We have about a minute left. Then, if it's a fool's mission, how did the UN get trapped into this process that seems to be designed to frustrate rather than illuminate, both now and 12 years ago?
Mr. KAY: Well, 12 years ago we got trapped--I guess I'm partly responsible because the first team I took in we actually made a major discovery. We discovered a previously unknown nuclear weapons program and that success emboldened us to go on and try to find more, despite the fact that the Iraqis were trying to block what we were doing. 1441, the current mission, was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be to test whether the Iraqis were voluntarily disarming themselves. But they began before the declaration was produced and they got started and inevitably the media and everyone else focused on `What have you found today?' And that's more of this `Where in the world of Waldo' that we're in right now.
HANSEN: David Kay was the United Nations chief nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1992, and he spoke with us this morning from NPR's New York bureau.
Always a pleasure, David. Thank you very much.
Mr. KAY: Thank you, Liane, I enjoyed it.
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