Sunday, June 28, 1998

Iraq suffering tunnel vision over weapons

Perhaps that unhappily loaded phrase "light at the end of the tunnel" is a jinx.

Richard Butler, the chief United Nations arms inspector, recently discerned that light, saying his team might be able to verify the destruction of Iraq's strategic weapons by August and that seven years of sanctions might be lifted as early as October.

The judgment now seems premature. Inspectors have since discovered the remains of missile warheads loaded with nerve gas in advance of the Gulf War.

Almost any country with a chemistry set can experiment with nerve gas, and the Iraqis acknowledged they had. It is a much trickier step to stabilize the lethal gas in a militarily usable form and load it into a special warhead. The Iraqis have steadfastly and vigorously denied taking those additional steps.

They lied, and that calls into question the veracity of their claims about other weapons systems. Butler wants conclusive evidence of how much gas the Iraqis manufactured and how much they "weaponized."

As they regularly seem to do, the Iraqis have shot themselves in both feet just as their prospects were brightening. Their response has been typical: evasions, hints that the United States planted the tainted warhead shards and blustery threats of "grave consequences" if sanctions aren't lifted.

The advocates of lifting sanctions -- Russia, France and China -- have again been embarrassed. With little discussion, the U.N. extended sanctions another 60 days. And the light at the end of the tunnel is a whole lot dimmer.