Julian Borger in WashingtonTuesday April 16, 2002The GuardianPaul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary and a leading hawk in the Bush administration, commissioned a CIA investigation of the chief United Nations weapons inspector in an apparent attempt to undermine the importance of inspections and strengthen the case for military action against Iraq, it was reported yesterday. According to the Washington Post, Mr Wolfowitz asked the CIA earlier this year to look into Hans Blix's record when he was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) between 1981 and 1997. The IAEA's critics argue that during this period the agency took Iraqi assurances about its civil nuclear programme at face value and failed to spot signs that Saddam Hussein was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Mr Blix, a 73-year-old Swedish diplomat who now heads the UN monitoring, verification and inspection commission (Unmovic), told the Guardian that the IAEA during his watch had been prevented from carrying out intrusive inspections by the internationally agreed rules it was forced to operate under. But he conceded that before the Gulf war the Iraqis "were cheating and fooling us and everybody else" and he said "the lesson was learned". He promised that Unmovic would be "firm" in its inspections, although it would not "undertake any unnecessary provocations". He made his remarks in an interview before the news of the CIA investigation surfaced, and his office made no comment on the report yesterday. The CIA appears to have agreed that Mr Blix had conducted inspections "fully within the parameters he could operate" as head of the IAEA. Mr Blix is due to attend talks next week with Iraqi officials about the possibility of UN inspectors returning to Iraq for the first time in more than three years. However, Baghdad has asked for a postponement, arguing that the meeting would divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even if Unmovic is allowed into Iraq, the US hawks believe, the Iraqi leader will be able to convince Mr Blix that he has destroyed his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and they point to Mr Blix's time as IAEA chairman as evidence of his gullibility. The state department, meanwhile, has argued that the administration must support Unmovic inspections if it wants to persuade the rest of the world it has exhausted all diplomatic means of dealing with the threat of Iraq's suspected arsenal. The Washington Post said Mr Wolfowitz's request to the CIA "illuminates the behind-the-scenes skirmishing in the Bush administration over the prospect of renewed UN weapons inspections in Iraq." The inspection issue has become "a surrogate for a debate about whether we go after Saddam", Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and another prominent Washington hawk, said. In its routine inspections before the Gulf war, the IAEA failed to find evidence of Baghdad's nuclear weapons programme which was later found to have been within months of successfully building a bomb. "It's correct to say that the IAEA was fooled by the Iraqis, but the lesson was learned," Mr Blix said. However, he argued that the IAEA was hamstrung in its operations because it had no mandate before 1991 to conduct intrusive inspections. The Washington Post quoted a state department official as saying that Mr Wolfowitz had "hit the ceiling" when the CIA report appeared to support Mr Blix's defence, concluding he was operating within the "parameters" laid down for him. But an administration official claimed that the outspoken deputy defence secretary "did not angrily respond" to the CIA report because it only gave a "lukewarm assessment" of Mr Blix. Mr Blix will find himself in a sensitive position if Iraq allows Unmovic to carry out inspections. If he judges that Baghdad is cooperating with the inspectors, sanctions could be suspended. If not, it could provide the US with legal justification for a military assault. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
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