With a war creeping ever closer, we wonder whether the Iraqis will pull out their chemical and biological weapons and start spraying them around the landscape - or even the region. The UN Inspectors rush madly across the desert and over the hills, hither and yon, seeking, ever seeking, for the stockpiles. Yep, Iraq is big. Most countries are, after all. There are a lot of nooks and crannies in a country the size of Iraq, a lot of places to hide stuff and forget about it.
But I'm confused about a few things regarding this hiding. And when I'm confused, I fall back on the one rule that has never failed me: if something is being done, then it is people who are doing it. Because forgetting about the weapons is the last thing anyone is going to want to do.
I trust two things about the Inspectors. First, that they are really trying to find any existent stockpiles of weapons or evidence of the capacity to produce them; and second, that they are good at their jobs. I don't expect that the Iraqis can just leave stuff lying around; that if they are hiding weapons or factories, they really have to, you know, hide them. If the Inspectors were not doing a good job and/or the Iraqis were not successfully hiding whatever they have to hide (if they have anything to hide, of course), then I'm pretty sure the US case for the existence of such weapons would be a lot stronger than it is.
The weapons (if there are any) are well hidden. But if Iraq is about to be invaded, then they might want to use the weapons on the invading forces (or to provoke Israel, or to punish Kuwait, or to do any of a host of other nefarious things, if we're to believe what we read). So, the weapons have to be accessible.
Weapons don't fight by themselves; they don't work sitting underground; you have to have troops of some sort to use them. In order to effectively use chemical or biological weapons, you probably need troops who have training in their use. Would you give an untrained and scared young man a weapon which improperly used is more dangerous to him and his unit than to the enemy?
Does Iraq have special c/b trained units or individuals? How were they trained (classroom or field; if field, did our satellites watch)? Do the Inspectors know which units they are? Does the CIA? Are these units or trained individuals stationed anywhere near the weapons?
How will they deploy the c/b weapons? Do they store the delivery systems with the active c/b agents? How will they get the c/b weapons to the point of attack? (The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says that Iraq has the capacity to deliver chemical or biological weapons by: missile warhead, rocket, aerial bomb, artillery shell, and aerial spray tank; the CIA says Iraq is developing an unmanned aircraft too.)
If a chemical weapon is loaded into an artillery shell (or rocket or warhead or bomb), then it still needs to be fired in order to be effective. The Iraqis are probably not storing the shells with the artillery units (rockets with the rocket launchers, warheads with the missiles, etc.) because the inspectors would look there. So, in order to deploy a chemical weapon, someone has to go and get the weapon/loaded shell in order to bring it to the delivery system. Which means someone has to drive a truck (more likely more than one) to the hidden storage place, load several cases of scary stuff onto the back (where do the teamsters come from?), and then drive to an artillery unit. All of this has be done at breakneck speed, possibly under fire, definitely under the glare of satellite and aircraft surveillance. Maybe the pace can be a little slower once the Inspectors leave, but not much, as the hot war could begin at any moment once those gentlemen clear Iraqi airspace.
A thought about roads. Iraq is not well supplied with good roads (38,400 km of paved highway; anyone who has driven around a poor country or a poor county can tell you that a lot of that is probably not "good"). Certain types of vehicles need a certain quality of road. Trucks can't go just anywhere. And the places trucks can go, they can't go quickly. Iraq gets a whole lot smaller if you have to follow the roads.
It seems to me that for the chemical or biological weapons to be able to be used effectively, the Iraqis have to be able to move them quickly. That means access to roads. And the Inspectors should be able to find them more easily. Or, if they are well hidden, it means that the Iraqis won't be able to use them against attacking forces.
So where are the WMDs?
Posted by Martial