David Ensor: Bush administration puts renewed attention on Iraq

David Ensor

CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor reports on facilities in Iraq that U.S. officials say have been rebuilt and could be producing chemical and biological weapons.

Q: What evidence does the U.S. have that these plants may be up and running in Iraq?

ENSOR: They say they have intelligence evidence, including satellite imagery and presumably other forms as well. The United States watches Iraq with satellites. It listens in on communications and has human intelligence, or people on the ground. Presumably, the evidence comes from all of those sources. It certainly comes from photography.

Q: What does the various satellite imagery show?

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ENSOR: The satellite imagery shows that a number of factories which were bombed during Operation Desert Fox in 1998 have been rebuilt. These are factories the United States had evidence showing they were dual-use facilities. In other words, they were factories that might, for example, be producing castor oil for brake fluid -- a by-product of which is the deadly biological toxin known as ricin.

What U.S officials are now saying is that a number of these dual-use factories -- plants capable of producing components of biological and chemical weapons -- have been rebuilt and are back in operation since being bombed in Operation Desert Fox.

The U.S. government doesn't have proof -- or at least they are not saying so publicly -- that these facilities have in fact been used to produce chemical or biological weapons.

Q: Without chemical or biological weapons inspectors there, how are the United States or the United Nations to know what is going on in those factories?

ENSOR: It is not possible to be 100 percent sure without going to the facilities and looking closely at what they are producing.

When there were U.N. arms inspectors traveling around Iraq, they were able to evaluate that nothing untoward was being done in the facilities they visited. Now, there is no surety.

And that is the problem facing the Bush administration.

Q: How does this latest information differ from earlier information the United States had on Iraq?

ENSOR: There was a recent Pentagon report. In it, the Pentagon said, "In the absence of UNSCOM inspections and monitoring during 1999-2000, we are concerned that Baghdad again may have produced some biological warfare agents." That's about as specific as the report gets.

What we now have is officials confirming more specific information. For example, that Iraq has rebuilt this series of factories west of Baghdad.

So, this new information has a greater degree of specificity about a point that was generally made in the earlier Pentagon report, which came out 10-12 days ago.

Q: How high up on the new administration's foreign policy agenda is Iraq?

ENSOR: At the briefing then-President-elect Bush had at the Pentagon on January 9, I'm told that 75 percent of the discussion was about Iraq and that this report, along with the classified part of it, was handed over to the new team.

So, they clearly regard Iraq and this report as one of the major problems they must tackle.

Richard Butler of the Council on Foreign Relations and the former head of the U.N. inspections teams is advocating that they should try to get arms inspections in Iraq again. To do that, they are going to have to convince the Russians and the French to favor, support and insist on the inspections. That will not be easy.

But if the United States says either let arms inspectors back in there or we are on the road to military action against Iraq, Butler and others feel that might be enough to convince the Russians to allow arms inspectors to resume their work. That would make it possible to go and look at these factories to make sure they are not doing something illegal.

Saddam Hussein and his government have said they do not want weapons inspectors and they will never accept them. If that is true, then this new Bush administration will have to face the question of whether or not it wants to go to military action.

Q: The new U.S. secretary of state, Colin Powell, has had some tough words recently for Saddam Hussein, saying Hussein "is not going to be around in a few years time." What are we to take that statement as meaning?

ENSOR: I think that statement is supposed to be in the eye of the beholder. Clearly, it is rhetoric designed to make Saddam Hussein feel less secure and less sure about what the new administration may have up its sleeve.

This new information is going to put renewed attention on the issue of possible weapons production by Iraq. Many suspect weapons production has resumed. Here we are at the beginning of a new administration. Within days of taking office, this story comes out and puts new pressure on President Bush to put Iraq near the top of his foreign policy issues. This will only heighten the sense that (Iraq) has to be dealt with and dealt with soon.