U.S. officials have said that U.S. troops in Iraq will focus their search for suspected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction to about three-dozen priority sites, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today (see GSN, April 14).

The priority sites are scattered throughout Iraq and were chosen from a list of more than 1000 suspect sites, the Herald reported.  The U.S. Army’s 75th Intelligence Exploration Unit, which consists of intelligence officers and scientific experts, is conducting the search, which is expected to take a least a month even with the reduced list of sites (Sydney Morning Herald, April 15).

“To do the first 40 sites, you’re probably talking at least a month and maybe longer, maybe six weeks,” said former U.N nuclear weapons inspector David Kay (George Edmonson, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 15).

If ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been able to maintain WMD stockpiles, U.S. troops should be able to find evidence of them within several weeks, according to weapons experts.

“That’s a time frame that’s reasonable,” said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “By then they should be able to go to the remaining sites they are interested in and should have gotten some serious information from former Iraqi officials and scientists,” he said.

One way the search could be accelerated would be through the use of international inspectors, who would also lend the search more credibility, experts said.  The United States, however, has balked at that idea.

“The Pentagon doesn’t want anyone else involved.  They are mad at (chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans) Blix and (International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed) ElBaradei,” said former U.N. inspector David Albright.  “It’s one thing to be mad at them, but it’s another to delay us knowing that we have weapons of mass destruction under control in Iraq,” he said (Guynn/Pugh, Knight Ridder News Service, April 15).

However, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command today did not rule out the future involvement of international inspectors.

“Right now our searches are done under military control, and it’s not appropriate to add anyone to that equation,” said Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks.  “But when things are found, I think we certainly would intend to keep that as open as possible.  And that’s the way we intend to approach it,” he said (Federal News Service transcript, April 12).

Suspicious Laboratory Equipment Cleared

Meanwhile, U.S. troops yesterday discovered 11 buried containers of laboratory equipment and materials that they thought could be mobile chemical or biological weapons facilities, but additional examination today showed that the materials were for propellants and conventional munitions, CNN reported today (CNN, April 15).

The laboratories were discovered inside 20-by-20-foot containers that could have been attached to trucks or railroad cars, according to the New York Post.  The laboratories could have been used for civilian purposes, or possibly to develop biological and chemical weapons, said Brig. Gen. Ben Freakley (Lathem/Geller, New York Post, April 15).

Australian Aid

Australia plans to send a team of 12 weapons experts to Iraq by next week to aid the WMD hunt, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill said today.

“The prime minister mentioned last week that the Australian government is prepared to provide a component to a coalition-sponsored group of specialists that will continue that task for some time,” Hill said.  The team will head to Iraq to “make a contribution on Australia’s behalf to ensuring that full benefit is taken in terms of avoiding a threat from weapons of mass destruction in the future,” he said (Sydney Morning Herald II, April 15).

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he believed Iraq hid its WMD stockpiles outside of Baghdad.

“I think it’s likely that a lot of this material has, over the last few months, been buried, and has been buried out of Baghdad,” Downer said.  “And to find where this material has been buried … we will have to get people to tell us.  It won’t be possible just to, you know, send the army around and try to find these particular sites,” he added (Radio Australia/BBC Worldwide Monitoring, April 15).

Iraqi Scientists

According to experts, the two senior Iraqi scientists who have recently surrendered — Jaffar Jaffar and Lt. Gen. Amir Saadi — are highly knowledgeable.

Jaffar, an Iraqi nuclear scientist, and Saadi, a chemical scientist, “know between the two of them, everything about the country’s nuclear, biological, chemical and missile programs,” Albright said, adding that Jaffar “is the best scientist Iraq ever produced.”

U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed Albright’s assessment of Jaffar, but have said he has not provided much useful information during questioning.  If Jaffar were to cooperate, however, “he could tell us the whereabouts” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, along with the identities of the countries and groups that provided Iraq with related materials and information, an officials aid.

The two scientists amount to “a very good catch,” said Khidhir Hamza, head of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program until he defected in 1994 (Dana Priest, Washington Post, April 15).

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