Yet, too often, too many have expected too much from such mechanisms. Inspections are not a goal in themselves.

Having served as deputy chairman of UN inspections in Iraq for seven years, I know that arms inspections are no substitute for war or political compromise—or good independent intelligence.

There is perhaps no better case study for the limits and opportunities provided by monitors than Iraq. Baghdad manipulated the great powers, and infighting among them eventually led to a dramatic and unceremonious end to inspections without any clear knowledge of Baghdad’s WMD programme.

There are lessons to be learned from this fiasco — North Korea and Iran are equally recalcitrant, dangerous and advancing apace in realising their 
nuclear ambitions.

Back in 1991, at the conclusion of the first Gulf War, the UN Security Council crafted a ceasefire resolution that continued sanctions on Iraq, and the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was created to verify 
Iraqi disarmament. Thus began the most intrusive inspection regime backed by force since the Versailles Treaty imposed similar measures on Germany after World War I. So by 1998 I found myself in Iraq at the center of a circus. I was leading a team of 70 monitors from a dozen countries to “inspect” over 1,000 buildings in eight large presidential areas, considered the most secure of Iraqi sites, access to which had been completely denied in the past. Per an agreement between Saddam Hussein and Kofi Annan, the increased oversight would hopefully lead to the end of this intrusive inspections regime. But alas, this was not exactly to be. We traveled from one palace area to another in a huge Slinky-like convoy of over 70 vehicles, and, at every location, we found the Iraqis had meticulously cleansed each building. There was not a scrap of paper anywhere. Computers had vanished.

Because of these infractions, monitors demanded short-notice, anytime, anywhere inspections essentially ad infinitum. They were unwilling to sign off on Iraqi compliance as “good enough.” But Annan and some members of the Security Council believed inspectors were seeking to do too much. The French wondered whether we were being too fastidious. Was sorting out the remaining uncertainties really worth the cost of sanctions?

Making matters worse, Iraq eroded any remaining unity among Security Council members by offering economic incentives to those who aided its case for ending sanctions. Russia and France were given preferential treatment in the allocation of lucrative Iraqi oil contracts under the UN oil-for-food programme. Baghdad was also dangling rich oil-field-development rights in front of the noses of Security Council countries. But Washington had no interest in ending sanctions, which were the only tool short of war the US had to contain Saddam.

What this meant in the end was a lack of unity and credibility on maintaining the sanctions regime or even ratcheting up to war by the Security Council. These divisions were the death knell for inspections in Iraq. In some ways the cases of North Korea and Iran are eerily similar. Both countries are single, dedicated, unitary actors opposed in their WMD activities by a coalition of varying unity, commitment and purpose. Each has sought to sow dissension among the nations that want to deter its programs.

Neither Pyongyang nor Tehran will ever agree to the level of intrusive inspections that happened in Baghdad. Barring difficult-to-imagine military invasions of either state, we will have to settle for less. Yet this is clearly better than nothing. First, the case of North Korea. It is impossible to know what Kim Jong-Il will decide with respect to future negotiations or the possible return of inspectors. He is not overly vulnerable to sanctions. Like Iraq, North Korea is driven by a tyrant and calculations about policy are deeply affected by how long that ruler may last and what 
may follow. Unchecked, Pyongyang can, over the period of a few years, develop and test nuclear warheads deliverable on missiles. In the nearer term, such missiles can threaten the cities of neighbouring Japan, South Korea or China. In the longer term, North Korea may be able to launch a longer-range missile with sufficient payload to carry a weapon to the United States. So the primary goal is to contain or walk back Pyongyang’s nuclear capability and, perhaps even more importantly, guard against the transfer of weapons or fissile material to other state or non-state actors. In the case of Tehran, we are looking less at how to bide our time than how to provide trip wires. Iran can build a nuclear weapon. The questions are when and whether it will decide to do so. Weapons inspectors can perform an alert function. It would be safe to assume that Iran’s intention is to get to a point where the lead-time between a decision to build a nuclear weapon and the means to effectively deliver one is relatively short.

There are three key factors here: the length of time to go from low-enriched uranium produced for civilian reactors to the highly enriched uranium required for a weapon; the ballistic-missile technology required to make a long-range weapon; and the creation of a nuclear warhead to place atop the 
ballistic missile. While limited, the current IAEA inspection activities do provide some important bounds on uncertainty. If Iran decides to produce highly enriched uranium, the monitoring procedures will force Tehran to either build separate clandestine enrichment facilities or break inspection procedures in a way that provides clear evidence of intent to proceed beyond its purely civil
 nuclear programme.

What is lacking in the current inspection procedure is the ability to detect clandestine enrichment or the kind of weaponisation activity that would help produce a functioning ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead. It is improbable that Iran will accept an inspection regime that would make this possible. And lest we forget, the invasive inspections in Iraq couldn’t even tell us everything. We will likely remain in an ambiguous, prolonged diplomatic process with Tehran that will wind up with an “assumed” ability of Iran to go nuclear at a point in the future—the so-called virtual-nuclear-weapons state. Indeed, United Nations inspectors may have lots of rights written by ambassadors between their long lunches in New York, but on the ground in Iraq and elsewhere, outside some of the most heavily guarded facilities on the planet, these inspectors have only blue hats, cameras and pencils. The other guys have guns, and they determine the real limits of inspection activities.

From the experience in Iraq, we have seen the ability of the international community to hide behind inspectors in some circumstances and to expect too much from them in others. As we attend to the evolving problems with proliferation in North Korea, Iran and the states to follow, watch out for those trying to place too much responsibility on inspections and inspectors.

Charles A. Duelfer served as deputy executive chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq from 1993 to 2000   

© IHT