cover image The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Growing Crisis of Global Security

The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Growing Crisis of Global Security

Richard Butler. PublicAffairs, $26 (262pp) ISBN 978-1-891620-53-9

It has been a full year since an international team of disarmament specialists was booted out of Iraq, leaving the world with the chilling question: Who is watching Saddam Hussein? As a former chairman of UNSCOM, the body created by the United Nations to monitor Iraq for weapons violations after the Gulf War, Butler has a unique perspective on the matter. Having intimate knowledge of Iraq's programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, Butler engaged in what he calls ""an elaborate shell game"" with Iraq in 1997 and 1998, as his team investigated Saddam's deadly arsenal. In this revealing and beautifully executed record of those years, Butler recounts the intransigence of Iraqi negotiators and the maddening charades they played to foil international law. As Butler makes clear, the stakes are staggering: a single warhead carrying 140 liters of VXDone of the most toxic substances ever madeDcould kill a million people. UNSCOM found that Iraq made at least 3,900 liters of VX, along with anthrax and other weapons of mass destruction. Butler also details how Russia, France and China flouted disarmament efforts to protect their own political interests, and he argues that UNSCOM's mandate was bargained away in Baghdad by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Especially interesting is the author's stern rebuttal of claims by his chief inspector, Scott Ritter, that UNSCOM was a puppet of the Pentagon, funneling intelligence to the U.S. Certain to have a profound impact on international diplomacy, Butler's remarkable story can be ignored only at the world's peril. Maps. (June)