Iraq confesses
After four years of denial, deception and evasion, Iraq has acknowledged that it stockpiled frighteningly large quantities of germ warfare agents in the late 1980s. Regrettably, it has yet to explain fully what subsequently became of the thousands of gallons of anthrax bacteria and botulism toxin it produced, enough to make hundreds of lethal bombs, each one capable of killing thousands of people.
Biological agents have no real battlefield utility. They are terror weapons designed for the wholesale slaughter of civilians and the blackmail of their governments. Iraq is not the only country to develop biological weapons. The United States and Soviet Union produced them during the Cold War. But given Saddam Hussein's demonstrated record of aggression and ruthlessness, his possession of such means of mass murder is a chilling thought.
It is certainly a positive development that Iraq has now decided to be more candid on this issue. Much credit is due to the tenacity of Rolf Ekeus and his team of UN inspectors, who confronted Iraq with information obtained from supplier countries and made clear that without fuller disclosure on this issue Baghdad would never get the clean bill it needs for UN sanctions to be lifted.
But admission to past stockpiles is not enough. The UN now rightly demands a detailed report on how the biological agents were produced and which countries supplied what raw materials. It also needs to know how far Iraq got in turning these agents into weapons and exactly what happened to them after Baghdad ostensibly abandoned its germ warfare program in 1990.
After receiving this report later this summer, UN inspectors will follow up with their own independent investigations, including interviews with those involved and physical tests for residues at the sites where the germ agents were reportedly destroyed. The United States, which suspected that Iraq possessed biological weapons but did not know where they were made or housed, did not bomb the main production center 60 miles from Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War.
Iraq's chief motive for cooperation and disclosure continues to be its strong desire for relief from the sanctions that prevent it from selling its oil on the world market. According to the cease-fire resolution that ended the war, relief is possible only when the UN determines that Baghdad has completely revealed and eliminated its efforts to manufacture biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and longer-range missiles.
Biological weapons are now the only area in which the UN remains unsatisfied.
The United States has been right to insist on full compliance before approving any sanction relief. But it is wrong to hold out for additional conditions when these arms control targets come within reach. Other grievances like human rights abuses and the return of stolen Kuwaiti property can be addressed by other means.
The world's best assurance against future Iraqi aggression is a scrupulously monitored arms control and verification system. As the latest disclosures demonstrate, such a system provides useful incentives for Iraqi cooperation. Baghdad can undo some of the damage of past evasions by providing the fullest possible report on details of its germ warfare efforts. Only then can sanctions be lifted.
-- The New York Times