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The shell game: A pattern of blocking inspectors
From CNN World Affairs Correspondent Ralph Begleiter
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The showdown with Iraq is not the first stumbling block Saddam Hussein has put between the world and his best-kept secrets.
In the 6 1/2 years since the Persian Gulf War, Iraq and the United Nations have played a cat-and-mouse game: inspectors seek to discover the extent of Iraq's programs of mass-destruction weapons -- and Iraq seeks to hide them from view.
"There has been a history of concealment," said Richard Butler, the current U.N. inspections chief.
U.N. inspectors say Iraq has played a shell game with its weapons and research programs, hiding missiles in one place while giving inspectors a look at chemical weapons elsewhere, for instance.
The most recent U.N. report on Iraq says weapons inspectors have found "... a pattern of Iraqi blockages and evidence of removal and/or destruction of documents and materials at 'sensitive sites.'"
In one instance, inspectors went to a downtown Baghdad building where they expected to find evidence of chemical weapons production. They were held outside for almost an hour as they watched Iraqis inside the building burning documents and then taking the ashes to a nearby river to dump them. Inspectors videotaped that incident.
Rolf Ekeus, the former U.N. inspections chief, recalls another occasion: "When our team arrived, they blocked us at the entrance, and they started to move these convoys with heavy material out of the back door," he said.
On another occasion, an inspector taking pictures from a helicopter was stopped when an Iraqi officer on board grabbed the flight stick and harassed the pilot. The chopper was still in the air at the time.
And then there are the photographs from planes.
"Some of the most damning U-2 photos I've personally seen in Iraq are photos ... of where we entered the front door of a facility and out the back door comes a stream of trucks and individuals carrying scientific equipment," said David Kay, a former U.N. inspector in Iraq.
Although aerial photography cannot expose what is going on inside buildings, and cannot provide a glimpse into computer files that hold evidence of Hussein's military plans, inspectors have gotten closer to his secrets.
They have discovered equipment that could produce chemical and biological weapons. They also have found missiles that could carry them throughout the Middle East.
Since last April alone, the U.N. has conducted almost 1,000 on-the-ground inspections. And, the U.N. reports that, "to be fair," the majority were conducted without hindrance.
But as the inspectors get closer to Iraq's secret military plans, the shell game appears to escalate.
Recently, Hussein admitted that his "Special Republican Guard," his security service and his intelligence services are coordinating their efforts to hide prohibited weapons materials - and to hide the evidence that Iraq is secretly obtaining more.
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