By Mark Riley
January 9, 1999
The Australian arms inspection chief, Mr Richard Butler, has conceded that intelligence gathered by his team in Iraq may have been secretly passed to the United States, but has denied involvement in any such exchange.
The concession comes as details surface of a plot to undermine Mr Butler's position at the United Nations and as US officials reveal that America did place intelligence officers inside Unscom, the team charged with verifying Iraq's compliance with UN disarmament resolutions.
According to US and UN officials, for almost three years the US monitored the radio communications of President Saddam Hussein's security forces, using equipment secretly installed by UN weapons inspectors.
As details emerge about how the US and the UN Special Commission (Unscom) shared resources, the plot to undermine Mr Butler appears to have backfired by forcing senior UN figures to voice support for him.
Mr Butler told the Herald that the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, had repeated his full support for him and his leadership of the weapons inspection regime.
Mr Butler acknowledged that intelligence may have been sent secretly from his units.
"The idea that somehow products of our work could be diverted to other purposes is theoretically tenable," he said. "But I have no knowledge of that."
At issue is the nature of any intelligence sent by Unscom inspectors to the US and whether it might have been used to aid a campaign to destabilise the leadership of Saddam.
A disgruntled former member of Unscom, Mr Scott Ritter, has claimed that intelligence was sent from the teams to the US, but only information relating to the system of concealment employed by Iraq to hide its weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Ritter is also the only person who has been prepared to go on the record with claims that Mr Annan has been wanting to sack Mr Butler.
But Mr Butler cast doubt yesterday on the accuracy of Mr Ritter's statements, saying he believed the former inspector was "very confused".
