[ OUR OPINION ]

Lengthy hunt needed
to find Iraq’s weapons

THE ISSUE The Bush administration has opposed letting U.N. inspectors return to Iraq to verify weapons disarmament.

MEMBERS of Hawaii's congressional delegation are edgy about the inability of U.S. troops so far to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Whether Saddam Hussein had such weapons was not an issue in the United Nations' Security Council. That assumption was based not just on American and British intelligence but on Hussein's refusal to provide evidence that Iraq had destroyed biological and chemical weapons that he admitted having in the 1990s. His skill at hiding such weapons may require a lengthy search to uncover them.

"I get up every morning, as I did this morning, turn on television, hoping that the announcer would say, 'We have located a weapon of mass destruction,'" Senator Inouye told the state House Committee on War Preparedness this week. "Because the longer it takes, and if we don't do it, we'll have a lot of explaining to do." U.S. Reps. Neil Abercrombie and Ed Case expressed similar sentiments this week in remarks to the Star-Bulletin's editorial board.

Some of Iraq's unlawful weapons were discovered during the 1990s, but not right away. It took U.N. weapons inspectors four years to find well-hidden biological weapons laboratories in 1995, and then only after Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, defected and informed inspectors of their whereabouts. Iraq later admitted making three types of biological weapons using anthrax bacteria and biological toxins.

While conducting inspections earlier this year, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix reported to the Security Council that Iraq had refused to account for 1,000 tons of chemical agents that it had been proven to possess in the 1990s. He added that Iraq had offered "no convincing evidence" that it had destroyed 8,500 liters of anthrax that it had already acknowledged producing. Blix said inspectors had been told that Iraq may still have had chemicals used to produce VX, a highly toxic nerve agent. No one on the U.N. Security Council questioned that documentation.

White House opposition to the return of Blix's team of inspectors to Iraq could increase skepticism of the existence of such weaponry. If U.S. troops find biological or chemical weapons, skeptics will accuse the United States of having planted them and prevented verification. That is why the U.N. inspectors should be invited to return to Iraq, perhaps working in tandem with U.S. inspectors, to provide increased credibility to the effort.

"To find the weapons you need to have Iraqis tell you where they are," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "That is consistent with our approach now."

That was also the approach desired by Blix, but he was frustrated by Iraqi scientists' fear of reprisal against them and their families. That threat no longer exists.