Botched Iraqi Arms Deal Is Detailed

The no-honor-among-tyrants case provides the first solid evidence that Iraq and North Korea were directly conducting clandestine business deals in violation of a United Nations arms embargo, senior Bush administration officials said.

The case is only one of several illegal Iraqi military procurement schemes uncovered by U.S. investigators since they began scouring Iraq early last summer for evidence of Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction, according to David Kay, head of the weapons-hunting teams.

Other nations, including several in Europe, and companies and individuals are also under investigation, he said, but he declined to name them.

How significant such deals were is a matter of debate.

Kay, speaking to reporters in a conference call organized by the CIA, said he had uncovered a "rather remarkable amount" of evidence -- from smuggling schemes to hidden laboratories -- that Iraq had concealed from U.N. weapons inspectors. Had the U.N. Security Council known that last spring, he said, "I'm confident there would have been an uproar."

But Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat who led the prewar U.N. weapons inspections, said that Kay's unclassified report showed only "some fairly minor items that should have been declared" to the U.N. and that they probably would not have affected council deliberations.

"It's a long way from finding some minor things, as they did, to concluding Iraq was an imminent danger," Blix said in a telephone interview from Stockholm.

Blix said most of Kay's discoveries "don't seem very big, and some may be legitimate dual-use items" that are allowed under U.N. rules because they have civilian applications.

"In many cases, Kay's report says they may be suitable for this or suitable for that," Blix said. "Well, a butcher's knife is also suitable for murder."

So far, Kay said, the group has found the greatest surprises in documenting Hussein's covert efforts to develop and build medium- and long-range missiles able to fly well beyond the limit imposed by U.N. resolutions.