Hans Blix, the UN's chief weapons inspector, has assured Iraq that the team he is sending into the country next week will be as free of spies as he can make it, writes Ewen MacAskill.
The previous inspections team, Unscom (UN special commission), which served in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, was regularly accused by Iraq of containing US spies. There were suspicions about British, French and Russian agents being involved too, and, indirectly, the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad.
Although the accusations were denied at the time, the involvement of at least the CIA was later confirmed by the UN, by the US administration and by former weapons inspectors.
A spokesman for the new weapons team, Unmovic (UN monitoring, verification and inspections commission), said yesterday that Mr Blix has taken significant steps to try to avoid any repetition of the spying by changing the make-up of the team as well as its finances.
The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Mr Naji Sabri, sought a guarantee from Mr Blix earlier this year that there would be no more spies. According to the Unmovic spokesman, Mr Blix told Mr Sabri that "we can never guarantee that we have not been infiltrated".
Mr Blix said that if he had given a guarantee, the Iraqis would not have believed him anyway.
Instead, he pledged that he had taken steps to filter out spies and anyone involved in such activities would face immediate dismissal.
In an attempt to counter accusations of infiltration by intelligence organisations, only 25 per cent of Mr Blix's 270-strong Unmovic team has been drawn from its heavily criticised predecessor, Unscom.
Mr Blix has expanded the number of countries from which his team has been drawn to 44, which amounts to a threefold increase in the pool of countries that made up Unscom, which had been heavily dependent on the US.
Mr Blix's team has only 27 members from the US, 10 per cent of the total, and 13 from Britain.
The Russians are sending 22 and France 25. One of the flaws in Unscom was that staff were mainly provided by governments who not only seconded their own people but also paid them. They were open to the charge that their first loyalty was to their countries rather than the UN.
Mr Blix's spokesman said that to avoid accusations of such bias this time round, only about half the staff have been provided by governments and the rest have been recruited directly through adverts. The inspectors tend to be specialists in their own scientific fields who are then given training on how to hunt for weapons.
A crucial difference from Unscom is that all the Unmovic staff will be paid for directly by the UN. The cash will come from Iraq: an Iraqi fund is held at the UN under an oil-for-food programme established to alleviate the impact of sanctions. Unmovic takes 0.8 per cent of this fund to pay its staff and other costs.
Unscom had a stormy relationship with Iraq and was headed by a fiery individual, the Australian diplomat Mr Richard Butler, and a former US marine, Mr Scott Ritter. In an account of his time in Iraq, called Endgame, Mr Ritter recounted how a CIA agent provided logistical and other help.
The US involvement included smuggling into Baghdad a large listening device known as "Stephanie", which was stored in Mr Ritter's office. He said that the most sensitive information went back to the US rather than Unscom. - (Guardian Service)