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Tuesday, March 23, 1999 Published at 03:18 GMT

World: Middle East

Unscom 'infiltrated by spies'

UN inspectors at work in Iraq in March last year

Unscom, the now-defunct UN weapons inspection programme in Iraq, was "infiltrated and fatally compromised" by the American and British intelligence agencies - according to a report by the BBC's Panorama programme.

Unscom was set up after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War of 1991 to track down and destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Using interviews with former weapons inspectors, and with Unscom chief Richard Butler, investigative journalist Tom Mangold alleges that:

The infiltration began in 1996 when weapons inspectors grew impatient with Iraqi efforts to "lie, cheat and deceive".
American and British inspectors began to take over specific Unscom operations, thereby compromising the UN's independence.
In one case, codenamed "Operation Teacup", a team of Unscom personnel - who were in fact working for US and British intelligence - thwarted an Iraqi attempt to obtain banned material in Romania.
US intelligence agents succeeded in smuggling into Baghdad a large and sophisticated listening device known as "Stephanie". The device was kept in the office safe of American weapons inspector, Scott Ritter.

According to Mr Ritter - who resigned from Unscom last year - the US took over the whole "Stephanie" operation.

And, he says, the most sensitive information from "Stephanie" went to US intelligence, not to Unscom.

In Operation Desert Fox last December, when the US and Britain launched sustained air strikes on Iraq, they used the "Stephanie" material to help them choose their targets, the programme says.

According to Scott Ritter, "the US killed Unscom" - a charge flatly denied by Richard Butler.

The programme concludes that, because Unscom's work was left unfinished, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's future efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction may go undetected.