So had George Bush. The cease-fire agreement was clear: Baghdad must dismantle its nuclear-weapons program and scrap all other weapons of mass destruction. But the evidence of violations, Bush said, was “incontrovertible, inarguable, clear.” A second round of military confrontation with the Iraqi dictator seemed possible. “We can’t, from a U.S. standpoint, permit this brutal bully to go back on what was a solemn agreement and to threaten people that are there under U.N. jurisdiction,” he said. “This man has no shame.” All 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, including Iraq’s lone friends Cuba and Yemen, agreed to demand that Iraq let the inspectors see the material that had been removed, at once, or face “serious consequences.” With no political cover, Saddam finally offered the United Nations full access. The White House, unimpressed, hinted it was still considering force pending proof of Saddam’s compliance. Before leaving for a Maine weekend, Bush held a strategy session with senior advisers. The Pentagon has contingency plans for airstrikes. The Air Force still has fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons in Saudi Arabia and Turkey (map). The Navy has two aircraft carriers in the region. But raids could prove difficult. Saddam could multiply the targets by dispersing the nuclear material in a large number of vehicles. That could foil even American smart weapons.
For the moment, the White House leaned toward diplomacy. A united front at the United Nations might convince Saddam that compliance was his only hope of seeing economic sanctions lifted. It would also provide political cover for any subsequent military action. But there was no rush, some officials argued; Saddam couldn’t lob a nuclear bomb at a neighbor tomorrow. White House aides predicted Saddam would get at least a few more days to let inspectors in. “Look, we’re still wiping our brow, thanking God we’re out of there,” said one. “The last thing the president wants on July Fourth” - when he will appear at Desert Storm victory parades in the Midwest - “is to have bombs dropping over Baghdad.”
Saddam’s game of hide-and-seek probably began well before the first shot of the gulf war. An Iraqi electrical engineer who defected to U.S. Marines in Iraq last month told American intelligence that, in contrast to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s Jan. 30 boast that U.S. smart bombs and cruise missiles had “destroyed all of [Iraq’s] nuclear facilities,” the allies had in fact located and bombed only three of seven nuclear weapons-related facilities in Iraq. The defector also revealed that from the facilities that had been destroyed, key nuclear equipment was evacuated before the bombers came. The defector, who claims he worked at one of the secret, undamaged sites, a uranium-enrichment facility buried in a mountain near Mosul in northern Iraq, said the facility housed an array of devices called calutrons. They enrich uranium to a grade capable of explosive fission, through an electromagnetic isotope-separation technique developed by the U.S. Manhattan Project in the 1940s. The defector says Iraq had produced 88 pounds of weapons-grade nuclear material - enough for two Nagasaki-size bombs. In an inventory submitted to the United Nations last April as part of the initial cease-fire proceedings, Baghdad did not mention either the equipment or the enriched uranium.
The 80 or so trucks that the U.N. inspectors pursued from Abu Ghraib to Falluja could contain that uranium; Bush administration sources believe they almost certainly contained the components of some 20 isotope-separation devices. Based on the defector’s report and satellite photos, U.S. intelligence officials also determined that Iraqi technicians buried crates containing sensitive nuclear equipment and parts at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex near Baghdad, which the allies bombed. After the war ended, the Iraqis dug up the equipment and attempted to hide it at Abu Ghraib. After the Iraqis stonewalled inspectors there, U.S. special forces saw the contraband convoy en route to Falluja. Again Washington alerted the inspectors, setting the stage for last Friday’s confrontation. “There’s a massive deception program going on here,” said a U.S. intelligence source. Whether George Bush waits out the diplomatic game, or ultimately resorts to force, it seemed unlikely that an American president who has already been stung by criticism over Saddam’s continuing grip on power would acquiesce in an Iraqi nuclear resurgence.
