Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

• Author: Ogilvie-White, Tanya
• Position: Book Review

DISARMING IRAQ: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction

Author: Hans Blix Published by: Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2004, 288pp, 16.99 [pounds sterling].

On 12 January 2005, us intelligence officials confirmed that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was finally over. Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, and his predecessor, David Kay, had reached three conclusions following the two-year search: first, that the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that had been used to justify the US-led invasion did not exist; second, that there were no traces of any active weapons of mass destruction programmes; and third, that no formal plans to revive these programmes had been uncovered. These findings, which have gradually come to light over a period of 18 months, have stunned proliferation experts the world over, most of whom were confident that some evidence of reconstituted weapons of mass destruction programmes, if not weapons stockpiles, would be found.

In Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Hans Blix, former Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and head of UNMOVIC, the team of UN inspectors tasked with verifying Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programmes in 2002-03, admits that he too suspected Saddam Hussein's regime of hiding prohibited weapons of mass destruction activities. He describes these suspicions as a 'gut feeling' that he found hard to dispel during the run up to war--a feeling that he decided to keep to himself until sufficient evidence emerged to confirm or dispel it. This is one of the most interesting aspects of Blix's account of the Iraq inspections and the frantic diplomacy that preceded the US-led invasion; it is clear throughout that he, like the US and UK administrations, expected to find evidence of Iraqi guilt. However, where London and Washington were willing to interpret unverified information, from aluminium tubes to mobile labs, as proof of prohibited activities and malign intentions, he and the rest of the UNMOVIC and IAFA inspection teams were determined to cast a critical eye over every piece of evidence that came their way. Blix's account of these different approaches and their consequences highlights a crucial lesson for government officials charged with responding to crises in the nonproliferation regime: that the accurate interpretation of intelligence is a complex, difficult and time-consuming process, and that...