U.S. Spied On Iraqi Military Via U.N

In interviews for this story, spokesmen for the CIA, Pentagon, White House and State Department declined to repeat any categorical denials.

"In general our efforts with UNSCOM were focused on how to help UNSCOM, through a number of different means, uncover and track down the mechanisms and the materials associated with weapons of mass destruction," State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said in a prepared statement. "We worked very hard at that. We contributed great resources, personnel and effort. I cannot comment on the specific intelligence question that you raise."

Asked whether use of a multinational arms control panel for U.S. espionage would undermine efforts to halt proliferation elsewhere, Rubin said he could not confirm or deny there had been any such espionage. He added: "The Iraq case was a unique case in history" because other arms control arrangements are voluntary. "UNSCOM never has been seen as a precedent, nor need be seen as a precedent, for other nonproliferation efforts around the world."

UNSCOM's present leader, Butler, declined to be interviewed for this story after being told of the subject. "Richard Butler has no knowledge of these matters and won't comment on allegations the veracity of which is not clear," said his spokesman, Ewen Buchanan.

Privately, according to close associates, Butler expressed distress when he first learned of the allegations, saying any such espionage under UNSCOM cover would discredit other efforts to verify compliance with international weapons pacts. The Australian diplomat wrote his postgraduate dissertation on nuclear nonproliferation and has spent most of his career in arms control.

"If all this stuff turns out to be true, then Rolf Ekeus and I have been played for suckers, haven't we?" he was quoted as saying in one such conversation. "I've spent a lifetime of helping build and defend the nonproliferation regimes. Piggybacking in this manner [by U.S. intelligence] can only serve the interests of those who reject meaningful efforts at arms control."

One U.S. official with direct knowledge said the camera-relay intercepts were "normal military communications, not related to UNSCOM" except insofar as they formed "part of the whole mosaic, and any one piece can help unlock others." One UNSCOM inspector said the U.N. panel had no use for sort of signals overheard on this channel, noting, "We don't have an interest in the troop rotation policy of [Iraq's] V Corps."

A final irony is that the American spies, in turn, were spied upon. Some of UNSCOM's technical staff detected mysterious burst transmissions from the ground that coincided with the overflight of American U-2 spy planes, but were unable to identify their source.

According to knowledgeable sources, an Iranian agent in Baghdad also took note of the encrypted transmissions and sent a message back to Tehran speculating that Americans were running a signals intelligence operation out of the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters.

The British government, in turn, intercepted the Iranian transmission. In May 1997 Britain's General Communications Headquarters asked its American counterpart, the National Security Agency, for an explanation. The Fort Meade-based agency, according to sources, did not provide one.

"We don't tell the British everything, even if they are our closest intelligence ally," said one U.S. official. "They don't tell us everything they're doing either."