Key factor: Iraqi scientists

The truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) may not lie hidden in the Iraqi desert. Nor is it likely to turn up at previously targeted sites like presidential palaces or toothpaste factories.

UN weapons inspectors Tuesday expanded the scope of their search, targeting as one of five sites a remote desert uranium mining facility here six hours from Baghdad. But increasingly, experts are pointing to only one sure way to reveal the true scale of Iraq's weapons programs: talking to the Iraqi scientists who built the programs.

It's an issue of paramount importance as pressure builds on all sides to get results after two weeks of inspections. "Solid evidence" that the US and Britain claim to have of ongoing WMD development is coming under question, and senior US officials are now dampening expectations, briefing journalists that there is no "smoking gun."

The UN's ability to talk with Iraqi scientists may turn on chief UN inspector Hans Blix's willingness to use a robust new plank in the UN disarmament mandate that permits the UN to spirit out of Iraq specialists and their families. The scientists could then speak freely without fear of reprisal from Saddam Hussein's regime.

"This new tool is virtually invaluable, because it gives you the chance to get at knowledge that can lead you quickly to places that have prohibited weapons, if they exist," says Gary Milhollin, head of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington.

"Any inspection regime that is going to answer the question, 'What does Saddam have?' is going to have to interview scientists exhaustively," Mr. Milhollin says. "There's just no substitute for talking to the people who really know the program."

With less than 50 inspectors so far on the ground here prosecuting the most intrusive inspection regime ever devised to rid a nation of illicit weapons, the UN has yet to begin any serious interviews.

Despite explicit pressure from Washington - which, with Britain, accuses Iraq of continuing to pursue WMD programs - Mr. Blix appears reluctant to push the limit. The UN, he says, will not "abduct" scientists, nor become a "defection agency."

The new powers stem from the limited results of UN inspectors in the 1990s, who had to interview scientists under the intimidating gaze of a government official. "Anybody who revealed anything that the leadership did not want them to reveal, basically disappeared and was never seen again by the inspectors," Milhollin says.

Inspectors have already visited several sites pinpointed as suspect in a British dossier released in September, and a CIA report in October. The UN has so far not signaled any irregularities.

"It is unlikely the Iraqis have used these declared facilities for additional production. It's the sites that are not known about that are critical," says Jonathan Tucker, a chemical and biological weapons expert and former UN inspector now at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "If Iraq is determined to hide its weapons, the inspectors are not going to find them.

"What they will find instead is a pattern of circumstantial evidence that the weapons exist, but have not been destroyed," Mr. Tucker says. "But that will take time, like building up a mosaic."

Iraqi officials grudgingly accept the requirement to export their experts, but say any decision to cooperate or leave will be up to the individuals. "It's like inspections. Do you like to be inspected, to be frisked at airports?" asks Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, a British-educated chemist and key adviser to Mr. Hussein who once controlled key elements of Iraq's WMD program. "Some things are like medicines, bitter pills."

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