Post-Afghanistan nuclear security 1-20

This is the fourth part of a four-part series.

IV. NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH TO KEEP THE PEACE

Nuclear security is everybody’s responsibility. How can we ensure this? We need to promote a Neighborhood Watch strategy within and between countries to help spot risks and detect violations of Nuclear Club rules.

While specifically authorized responsibilities are assigned to official club and U.N. inspectors, all of us, concerned citizens and organizations, should be on the alert and prepared to act. We need to rely on and listen to whistle-blowers and concerned citizens — on site and in cyberspace. Here’s an actual example, over two decades old, that makes the point:

Back in 1986-87, when our WHO and UNICEF child immunization teams were working in Iraq, team members came off the field to report finding dead Iraqi men, women and children on doorsteps. We sent out medical staff to verify this and determine cause of death, fearing some deadly new disease outbreak.

The causative agents turned out to be chemical weapons ranging from old mustard gases to the latest nerve gases such as Sarin. Saddam Hussein was using chemical WMDs on his own people. This did not fall within WHO’s normal “terms of reference.�

Nevertheless, we went to see Saddam Hussein’s health minister and then called in high-level support from Saudi Arabia and others to sit down with Saddam Hussein himself and read him the riot act. He got the point and issued orders to bury (quite literally) the bio-chemical weapons program. Thanks to Neighborhood Watch and good diplomacy, we were able to achieve a peaceful, secure outcome without military intervention.

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If the story had ended there, that would have been one thing. But it didn’t. We briefed ambassadors in Baghdad, Cairo, Paris, London and Washington, D.C., about Saddam Hussein’s weapons program and his decision to destruct.

Nevertheless, for the next two-and-a-half years the White House repeatedly announced that Saddam Hussein had not used chemical weapons on the Iranians or on his own people. Politics and thirst for oil and oil pipelines trumped truth and national security. This is a particularly egregious example of the failure to use readily available “neighborhood� intelligence, and we have paid for it ever since.

 Later, Saddam Hussein scrapped his nuclear weapons program as well, as confirmed by Scott Ritter, Hans Blix and other official U.N. and U.S. inspectors and intelligence officers, including those of the CIA itself. In January 2003, the U.S. president held in his hands the latest CIA/Defense Department report that found “no evidenceâ€� of a continuing WMD program.

The U.S. administration, however, for its own reasons did not accept these findings. So, in March 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq in a “war of choice,� the U.S. military never found WMDs in Iraq, and we have been mired there ever since. History would have been different if we had listened to our “neighborhood friends� and whistle-blowers, used firm diplomacy and set our foreign policies and actions accordingly.

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We have many bright young diplomats, intelligence officers and foreign aid personnel working abroad in countries where the risks of misuse or leakage of WMDs are high. In Arab countries, many of these young people know the local scene better than any formal intelligence reporting. Some smoke hubble-bubble pipes and speak Arabic with the locals. They learn a lot.

But are they listened to? Too often, their reports are rewritten at intermediate levels to conform to what higher levels and senior officials Washington expect and want to hear. So vital intelligence information is distorted, ignored or lost entirely.

I have actually witnessed this first hand. Within the Department of State, the CIA and other U.S. agencies we have experienced, clairvoyant personnel who have been pleading for years to be listened to in Washington — but in vain. We also have ordinary Americans working in these countries who may fortuitously find themselves witness to suspicious nuclear events and emerging risks.

The successful waging of the war against terrorism depends on an informed, trusted and alert public. We must not allow paranoia over national security and state secrets to interfere with the effectiveness of our Neighborhood Watch or be used as a smokescreen to cover up malfeasance in government.

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In sum, the answer to how to protect ourselves from WMDs after our withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan is (1) obedience to the rule of law and human rights, (2) better intelligence and police work at home and abroad, (3) adherence to a new comprehensive treaty on nuclear energy for peace, with mandatory verification for all members of the “nuclear club� and (4) cooperative and diplomatic actions including greater reliance on Neighborhood Watch within and between countries.

If we do these things, we won’t have to rely on actual military intervention to secure nuclear security and world peace.

Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and general legal counsel of the World Health Organization.