U.S. won't confirm or deny Iraq spying story

Report says U.N. program used for spying on Baghdad

March 2, 1999
Web posted at: 2:33 p.m. EDT (1433 GMT)

In this story: Allegations nothing new to Baghdad CIA operatives? RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House on Tuesday did not confirm or deny a report that the United States planted spies among members of the now discontinued U.N. weapons inspection program in Iraq and carried out the infiltration while keeping U.N. officials in the dark.

The report in The Washington Post said agents and eavesdropping equipment were brought into Iraq under cover of the U.N. program, known as UNSCOM, and the U.N. team didn't know about it.

Asked about that, White House spokesman David Leavy said Washington provided technical assistance to UNSCOM.

But he refused to comment directly on the newspaper's report that U.S. agents rigged UNSCOM equipment and office space -- without permission -- to intercept Iraqi military communications between commanders and infantry and armored forces in the field.

"Everything that the United States did was to support UNSCOM in its effort to break Iraq's concealment of its weapons of mass destruction," Leavy said.

Allegations nothing new to Baghdad

Iraq has long claimed that the United States and its allies were using UNSCOM as a way to spy on Baghdad.

"For years now, Iraq has been telling the world that the U.S. administration and the Special Commission (UNSCOM) have been spying on Iraq," said a statement on Tuesday from Uday Al-Tai, director of the Iraqi News Agency.

Citing unidentified government employees and documents, the Post said UNSCOM was not aware it had been infiltrated by U.S. spies and did not authorize or benefit from the operation.

Annan

In New York, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said if the allegations in the newspaper's report are true, he had "no direct knowledge" of them. "UNSCOM does not report to me," he told reporters. "It does report to the (Security) Council."

Clinton administration officials have, all along, acknowledged gaining valuable information about Iraq as a byproduct of its cooperation with UNSCOM in rooting out President Saddam Hussein's forbidden missile, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.

But Leavy disputed claims that U.S. intelligence directly used UNSCOM to penetrate Iraq's security forces and undermine Hussein.

"No intelligence that was gathered to support UNSCOM was used for Iraqi regime-change activities," he said.

CIA operatives?

The Post report comes in the wake of a February 23 story in The New York Times citing galley proofs of a forthcoming book by former arms inspector Scott Ritter as saying he knew of CIA operatives being placed on U.N. inspection teams.

Ritter

Ritter, a former Marine officer, resigned last year as a U.N. inspector and accused the Clinton administration of undermining the inspectors' job.

Ritter has complained repeatedly that the administration's policy is ineffectual and wrong-headed and in turn has been criticized by administration officials who have attempted to discredit his assertions.

"I would just note that not everything that is said by former employees should be taken as sacrosanct on this issue," Leavy said.

Iraq halted UNSCOM inspections after U.S. and British planes carried out airstrikes on Baghdad and other sites on December 16-19. The strikes came after U.N. inspectors accused the Iraqi government of obstructing their search for weapons of mass destruction.

Correspondent John King and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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