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As the UN Security Council considers Saddam Hussein's offer to admit weapons inspectors "without conditions", an influential think tank has warned that an invasion of Iraq could worsen the terrorist threat, not reduce it. They fear it could disperse weapons stockpiles - and the scientists who can build and use them - into the murky world of global terrorism.
Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC says any force invading Iraq could only slowly assume control. It would not know where all the weapons were hidden, so many sites would not be secured. That would buy time for hostile forces to move weapons elsewhere.
There are plenty of customers for the weapons in the region, and after a foreign invasion of Iraq there might be more willingness to use them in terrorist attacks. So beating Saddam could in fact set back efforts to combat terrorism.
According to Iraqi defectors and UNSCOM, the UN special commission charged with finding and destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that withdrew from the country in 1998, caches and production plants are small-scale and hidden all over Iraq, often underground. And some are mobile.
Gates of Hell
UNSCOM discovered that, even before the Gulf War, commanders in charge of chemical and biological weapons were authorised to use them if Baghdad was hit. "What would those people do after a regime change?" asks Cirincione. "Wait around to be taken prisoner?"
They might use their weapons on invading forces. But Cirincione thinks they would be more likely to smuggle them out through Iraq's suddenly uncontrolled borders, either to sell them or seek revenge on vulnerable targets. "A major biological attack on Tel Aviv could provoke a nuclear response from Israel," warns Cirincione. "That would open the gates of hell."
This strengthens the case for weapons inspection over invasion. But if that happens, many former inspectors say the rules they operate under will have to change if disarmament is to be ensured.
Armed back-up
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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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UNSCOM
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Council on Foreign Relations
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This week in London, Cirincione will present a detailed proposal for "coercive" inspections drawn up by a group of experts including Rolf Ekeus, the head of UNSCOM from 1991 to 1997. Their idea is that when inspectors - equipped, unlike UNSCOM, with state-of-the-art communications and intelligence - are denied access to suspected weapons sites, they could call on armed back-up without waiting weeks for UN authorisation.
Former US Air Force general Charles Boyd, now with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC, says a force of 50,000 troops on Iraq's borders would suffice. Ekeus notes that US fighter jets successfully accompanied UNSCOM's U2 surveillance flights, and thinks similar armed back-up would aid ground inspections.
Terry Taylor, a former chief inspector with UNSCOM, is unconvinced. "I felt safer unarmed," he says. "Then the burden is on them to comply. If you're armed, it's up to you to shoot your way in. Then what if there's nothing there?" He favours well-equipped but peaceful inspectors - backed by a credible threat of regime-changing force.
But that will only work if Saddam is convinced giving up his weapons will keep him in power. As the war rhetoric escalates, that may be hard to guarantee.
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Debora MacKenzie
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