WizardOfAz

Disarmament experts to search for weapons



Jack Kelley USA TODAY


KUWAIT CITY -- Teams of U.S. intelligence officials, special operations forces and military disarmament experts were poised to enter Iraq with U.S. ground troops. They hope to locate, examine and possibly destroy up to 1,400 sites where banned weapons were built, tested and may still be stored, senior Pentagon officials say.

If their suspicions about the sites turn out to be true, they will have uncovered damning evidence of Saddam Hussein weapons programs that United Nations inspectors weren't able to find.

''We have to act fast. We know the clock will be ticking,'' a senior U.S. disarmament expert says. ''We've got to get to the weapons before Saddam can.''

The teams, based in Kuwait, will be deployed with two mobile labs that can analyze samples of biological or chemical weapons with a 90% accuracy rate in less than 24 hours, the officials say.

Three of the suspected weapons sites the teams hope to visit first are the Salman Pak, Sammara and Tuweitha complexes near Baghdad, Pentagon officials say. U.N. weapons inspectors recently searched the three sites, but they were unable to locate tunnels that former Iraqi officials say have been used to store banned weapons in the past, officials say.

In his March 7 report to the Security Council, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Iraq had denied reports that ''proscribed activities'' are conducted underground. ''During inspections of declared or undeclared facilities, inspection teams have examined building structures for any possible underground facilities,'' he said. ''In addition, ground penetrating radar equipment was used in several specific locations. No underground facilities for chemical or biological production or storage were found.''

The U.N. and U.S. critics say the Bush administration has failed to provide convincing evidence that Iraq is still developing biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. But a senior U.S. disarmament expert says the United States is ''nearly certain'' that the weapons were built and stored in those underground facilities.

U.S. special operations forces, along with the 75th Exploration Task Force, planned on securing the three sites within hours of the start of the war, Pentagon officials say. U.S. intelligence officials also plan to interview Iraqi scientists who worked on the country's biological, chemical and nuclear programs to solicit their help in locating other suspected weapons sites, the officials added.

U.S. intelligence officials, citing U.N. documents and information from former Iraqi military officials, estimate there could be up to 1,400 locations where biological, chemical or nuclear weapons were researched, built, tested or stored. It could take months before all of them are examined.

''We don't know where (weapons are) hidden, how easily they can be transported and how quickly we can get to them,'' says Andrew Krepinevich, an adviser to the Pentagon and executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent think tank based in Washington, D.C.

If a suspected biological, chemical or nuclear stockpile is found, disarmament experts and soldiers from the Pentagon's Consequent Management Assessment Teams will take samples at the site, try to determine what the weapon is and decide the best way in which to handle it.

If special operations forces are unable to secure the site because it is located in an urban area, they plan to lay mines around its perimeter until outside experts can be brought in to dismantle the weapons.

They also can call in an airstrike with a high-powered microwave weapon called an ''E-bomb,'' which disables the computer circuits that operate the weapons.

Maj. Gen. John Doesburg, who heads the Soldier Biological and Chemical Defense Command that trains forces to decontaminate weapons sites, says U.S. forces will not blow up the sites and risk spreading toxins. ''We learned in the first Gulf War (news - web sites) that Saddam often mixes things in his depots and weapons storage sites,'' Doesburg says. ''You don't want to say it's purely conventional munitions and miss the chemical munitions.''

Saddam conceded on Monday that Iraq once had weapons of mass destruction for defense against Israel and Iran, but has destroyed them. ''We are not weapons collectors,'' he said. ''When Saddam Hussein says he has no weapons of mass destruction, he means what he says.''