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 TIMELINE | WHERE THEY STAND | INSIDE UNSCOM | MAPS FORCES IN THE GULF | VIDEO | BIOWEAPONS EXPLAINER |
Warnings over UNSCOM were ignored, weapons inspector says
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| Ritter | |
In this story:
- Says U.S. wiretap ordered by UNSCOM chief
- 'Total control' to 'no control'
- Russia, France call for Butler's ouster
- Related sites and stories
Web posted at: 6:13 p.m. EST (2313 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A high-ranking former U.N. official says his warnings in early 1998 that a secret listening device in UNSCOM headquarters would compromise the U.N. mission went unheeded by UNSCOM chief Richard Butler.
Moreover, former chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter told CNN on Sunday, Butler ordered him to have the eavesdropping device installed in July 1998.
In April, Ritter says he wrote an angry memo to U.N. Special Commission Chairman Butler, objecting to what he called efforts by the U.S. government to direct UNSCOM's inspections in Iraq.
UNSCOM was created to independently monitor Iraq's biological, chemical and missile weapons production capabilities for the United Nations. Ritter had been a part of the U.N. inspection team since its inception after the Gulf War ended in 1991.
In the memo, portions of which Ritter dictated over the phone to CNN, he said he could no longer assure Butler that the United States and other governments were making good-faith efforts in their dealings with UNSCOM.
Says U.S. wiretap ordered by UNSCOM chief
Ritter told CNN that Butler ordered him in July to have the UNSCOM team install the device, disguised like an office safe, which allowed electronic eavesdropping in the Baghdad headquarters of UNSCOM.
As reported last week, this equipment eventually monitored the conversations of the closest circle around Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Because Hussein had ordered his security forces, known as the Special Republican Guard, to conceal weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials have said, UNSCOM had legitimate reason to gather intelligence on the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard.
U.S. officials acknowledge a secondary product of this surveillance was information about Hussein.
Hussein's security forces were some of the major targets of U.S. and British bombs during four days of airstrikes against Iraq in December. The two nations said they took the action because Iraq had not given full cooperation to UNSCOM weapons inspections.
'Total control' to 'no control'
Ritter maintains UNSCOM lost focus of its international U.N. mandate in favor of unilateral U.S. aims in the spring of 1998.
The change "went from total UNSCOM control over everything but data processing to no UNSCOM control over anything. The United States was controlling every aspect," Ritter told CNN.
U.S. officials have denied the charges, saying that all relevant information to UNSCOM was shared and that most of the intelligence was not useful.
They say Ritter was upset because he no longer ran the inspection operation in Iraq. He was removed from the lead role because his security clearance was not at a sufficiently high level. Ritter resigned from UNSCOM in August.
Because the eavesdropping equipment belonged to the United States, it was processed by the U.S. government before it was turned over to UNSCOM.
The United States has denied it ran the UNSCOM operation and said Butler directed the focus of all inspections.
American officials have said the United States was asked to provide intelligence support because other countries had been reluctant to do so.
Russia, France call for Butler's ouster
The revelations have led some nations, including Russia, to call for the end of the current UNSCOM organization. A top Russian diplomat insisted Sunday that Butler be removed from UNSCOM and that the commission change its methods.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's representative to the United Nations, told Russia's ORT public television that the commission's methods so far "have completely discredited themselves."
He called for a monitoring system that would be controlled by "experts in Iraq by the application of various techniques," the Interfax news agency reported, citing Lavrov's television appearance.
A high ranking government official in France also has called for the reorganization of UNSCOM, without Butler as chief.
French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said Sunday a new weapons monitoring group was needed in Iraq. He said in a radio interview that the current U.N. weapons inspections "cannot progress further ... with the methods used by UNSCOM and by Mr. Butler."
Iraq has long called for Butler's replacement, accusing him and his inspectors of being spies.
State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.