Analysis: Iraq's response to inspections confirms U.S. fears

Iraq's response to UN inspections of chemical, biological and nuclear sites is just what the Bush administration feared, officials said: initial compliance but little evidence that Saddam Hussain is genuinely ready to disarm.

With two days of inspections completed, U.S. officials and experts outside the government said they expect Iraq to cooperate even as it attempts to conceal ongoing weapons programmes.

They point out that Iraq, even as it agreed to allow inspectors back after a four-year hiatus, insisted that it has nothing to hide. But that assertion flies in the face of evidence the United States, Britain, France and other governments say their intelligence agencies have amassed that Iraq is pursuing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes. "What they've been doing is complying, but grudgingly ... in a way that portends bad things to come,'' a senior Bush administration official said on condition he not be identified.

Iraq-watchers outside the government largely agreed.

"The Iraqis are very confident in their ability to continue to hide this stuff from the inspectors,'' said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA expert on Iraq. Pollack, who served on President Clinton's national security Council staff argues in his book, The Threatening Storm,' that the only reliable way to disarm Iraq is through military action. "They know it's simply a waiting game,'' Pollack said. "They've waited out the international community once, and I think they're confident they can do it again.''

"(Saddam) will do everything possible to delay, protract, draw the process out in hope that something will happen to derail us,'' said David L. Mack, a former State Department official and Iraq expert. "His history is based on believing that something will happen that allows him to escape.''

President Bush and his aides have made clear for weeks that Iraq's level of cooperation with the inspectors was a key early test - and that, if the Iraqis failed it, a U.S.-led invasion would shortly follow. That's still the case, the senior official said. "The only way this is going to work is if Iraq is willingly complying,'' he said.

He acknowledged that Iraqi officials had allowed the inspectors to enter the country and begin their operations unhindered. But more significant and more worrisome, he said, were the Baghdad government's repeated statements arguing that the inspections regime is unfair.

"They continue to say there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,'' the official said. "(Inspect-ions chief Hans) Blix has told them you need to prove that's true.'' The next major test will come on Dece-mber 8, when Iraq is to submit an "accurate, full and complete declaration'' of its nuclear, chemical and biological programmes.

And there, the experts say, Saddam faces several options - and they disagree over which one he is most likely to choose.

Saddam might say that he has nothing to declare - that Iraq has no weapons programmes beyond the ones it has already acknowledged. Or he may try to guess what the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies know about his weapons programmes, and declare a little more.

Or he may declare everything - and drown the United Nations in paper by including every chemical and biological laboratory in the country, from weapons programmes to veterinary stations and high schools.

But some analysts think the difficulty could come from the opposite direction - if Saddam gives the inspectors too much data instead of too little. "He could give them a lot of meaningless stuff to make it look like he's softening,'' warned Judith Yaphe, a scholar at the National Defence University.

"He'll say, 'Of course we'll comply.' But his objective will be to slow the process down, be patient, and expect to get it all back some day.''

© Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service