UNSCOM and Desert Fox

Standoff over arms inspectors leads to another strike in the Gulf

This is a text adaptation of CNN's Special Report, "The Unfinished War: A Decade Since Desert Storm," hosted by Brent Sadler, which debuted on Tuesday, January 16, 2001, on CNN and CNN International.

Clinton orders another attack on Baghdad

(CNN) -- On March 3, 1991, President George Bush reported to the U.S. Congress that "aggression is defeated, the war is over."

The victory was sweet, but the reality of dealing with a defeated Iraq would leave a bitter taste.

But the U.N. arms inspectors charged with dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (UNSCOM) have yet to give Saddam Hussein a clean bill of health.

"The fundamental obligation was on Iraq to hand over the weapons. They never did. They concealed, ... they made false declarations. They blocked inspections and they told us a series of lies about their weapons program," says Richard Butler. Butler became executive director of UNSCOM in 1997.

UNSCOM's insistence on inspecting Saddam Hussein's own presidential properties became a flash point. The Iraqis claimed these inspections were an affront to Iraq's sovereignty -- that there were no weapons there. They invited journalists to tour the palaces to make their case.

"Iraq played the palaces issue rather brilliantly," remembers Butler. "These wicked foreign inspectors want to go into the sacred places of the Iraqi leader. That was not what we were about. ... It was about presidential areas which were some 40 square miles containing over a thousand buildings where warehouses, places where heavy trucks, heavy machinery, relevant documentation were stored."

The Iraqi leadership argued that Butler and UNSCOM had changed the ground rules and that, no matter how sincere their efforts, Iraq would always be judged as falling short of full compliance with the U.N. disarmament resolutions.

Iraq resisted inspections of the presidential palaces

"My God, when am I going to satisfy the Americans who are leading UNSCOM, who are governing UNSCOM ... that I have done my requirements, I have done my commitments and I am entitled to the lifting of sanctions," says Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

In 1998, the relationship between UNSCOM and the Iraqi leadership deteriorated even further. Reports surfaced that UNSCOM was involved in intelligence gathering with the United States and Israel. UNSCOM weapons inspector and former U.S. Marine intelligence specialist Scott Ritter was singled out.

"You can judge from his behavior. And his behavior is actually the behavior of a spy," Aziz said in January 1998.

Ritter defends his contacts with Israeli military intelligence as essential to his work in revealing Iraq's weapons concealment program.

"We developed a working relationship that you know matured in December of 1995 and was constant up until the time of my resignation in the summer of 1998. Without this relationship UNSCOM would not have been able to continue as an effective organization," Ritter says.

Butler defends the contact. "The Security Council instructed all states to give UNSCOM all possible assistance. Some 40 states did, amongst them the United States and Israel. ... And that's what happened and it was within the law. "

The spy charges caused irreparable damage to UNSCOM and gave Baghdad a ready-made reason to halt cooperation with the arms controllers. In December 1998, Butler pulled his inspectors out of Iraq. Less than 24 hours later, the United States, along with Great Britain, launched Operation Desert Fox.

UNSCOM inspectors left Baghdad

"Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq," President Bill Clinton explained on December 16, 1998. "Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. ... Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States and, indeed, the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world."

But, according to Ritter, Desert Fox was more than a punitive raid. He believes that intelligence gathered under the auspices of UNSCOM was diverted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to serve the American military. The Pentagon had no comment.

"They were able to isolate that that night, the time of the strike, Saddam Hussein would be with his mistress at one of two locations," Ritter says. "So the first cruise missiles that hit Iraq impacted where Saddam was going to be. ... These were villas, these were residential complexes and the only reason they were struck is because there was a high degree of probability that Saddam Hussein was there."

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch disagrees. "We targeted weapons of mass destruction facilities and their means of control and concealment. There was no intention to target civilians or any other parts of the regime," he says.

However, Welch adds, "It would be no disappointment to most Americans and certainly many official Americans when Saddam is no longer there, but we are not trying to bomb his house or anything to make that happen."

The question, of whether Saddam Hussein was ever specifically targeted during Operation Desert Fox, may never be answered. Likewise, the current state of Saddam Hussein's arsenal remains a matter of debate. To this day, UNSCOM -- withdrawn on the eve of Operation Desert Fox -- has never returned to Iraq.

A new team of U.N. weapons inspectors has assembled in New York, but they have no deployment date.