Germ Gambits: The Bioweapons Dilemma, Iraq and Beyond by Amy Smithson

Author:Amy Smithson [Smithson, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Military, Biological & Chemical Warfare, Arms Control, Political Science, History, General
ISBN: 9780804775533
Google: qs2E2wmchM4C
Amazon: 0804775532
Goodreads: 12415542
Publisher: Stanford Security Studies
Published: 2011-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

9 LESSONS EXPERIENCED II: SHARPENING THE TOOLS OF INSPECTION

THE UNITED NATIONS Special Commission’s (UNSCOM’s) biological inspection missions had different basic objectives, including to clarify Iraq’s declarations and conduct initial site visits; to establish baseline data for ongoing monitoring; to inventory, tag, and document dual-use equipment; to perform ongoing monitoring and verification; to destroy equipment and facilities used in Iraq’s weapons program; to locate and review documents pertinent to dual-use activities; to interview relevant Iraqis; and to expound Iraq’s past bioweapons activities. The bioweapons inspectors conducted some missions jointly with inspectors in UNSCOM’s Baghdad monitoring and verification office or other inspection teams. The inspectors hunted and evaluated data related to the weapons, facilities, sites, equipment, technologies, documents, materials, human resources, finances, procurement, events, and activities of Iraq’s germ weapons program. By examining data across these areas, the inspectors isolated patterns and factors that helped to expose more about the bioweapons program that Iraq was hiding.1

Time and distance from an event or process give participants opportunities to ruminate on the effectiveness of policies, practices, and actions, allowing them to project how things could be done better in similar circumstances in the future. All too often, lessons are identified and characterized but never utilized for constructive changes in policy and practice. As noted in Chapter 8, unapplied knowledge rests as a lesson experienced but not yet learned.2

This “lessons experienced” chapter addresses lessons about the actual conduct of field inspections. Drawn primarily from those with extensive experience inspecting dual-use biological facilities in Iraq, these observations pertain first to biological arms inspections, in which the lines between peaceful research, commercial production, and permitted defense activity and illegal offensive weapons work are notoriously thin. “This is not like finding a bomb in a building some place,” said UNSCOM chief biological inspector David Huxsoll. “The challenge in biological inspections is to find information that can be easily disguised and doesn’t leave much of a signature.”3 The lessons in this chapter, however, are easily translated to chemical, nuclear, missile, and conventional arms inspections.

Several lessons derive from the trails that UNSCOM blazed in inspection strategy and practices. True, since 1957 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been inspecting nuclear power plants and research reactors around the globe to see that they are safely operated and not serving as a cover to develop fissile materials for weapons. When UNSCOM was created, however, not that many countries had experience with IAEA inspections because of the relatively sparse number of nuclear reactors worldwide. The inspectorate for the Chemical Weapons Convention, which has sent teams to industrial and military chemical facilities in some eighty countries since 1997, was half a dozen years away from starting operations when UNSCOM inspectors set foot on Iraqi soil.4 The conduct of biological inspections was still uncharted territory because the treaty banning this category of arms, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, has no verification provisions whatsoever. So, to begin with, “there was a lot of hesitation to really utilize this funny thing called UNSCOM,” said UNSCOM bioweapons inspector Debra Krikorian.

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