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Wyn Bowen has the chummy air of a newly qualified teacher who thinks his subject is `pretty cool'. But, in fact, he'sa senior lecturer in Kings College London's Department of Defence Studies and the holder of a PhD in missile proliferation. But Dr Bowen is no ordinary academic; his work tracking missile proliferation treads the fine line between academia and intelligence and his expertise has landed him the job of specialist advisor to the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee into weapons of mass destruction. He is one of the youngest UN weapons inspectors to conduct missions inside Iraq.

I was contacted by the UN in September 1997 while working at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. That's the place where the student whose thesis was plagiarised by the government in their dossier on Iraq was based. I ran their missile proliferation project.

I tracked missile proliferation around the world. Going through the trade in technology and development of missile programmes, news reports, anything and everything I could get my hands on to develop an idea of what was going on in various countries. A big part of that was looking at Iraq.

What's the difference between the work of government intelligence agencies and what you were doing?

We dealt purely with open sources. Any sort of information that you generate has to be freely available to the public. Sometimes we used commercial satellite imagery which can cost thousands of pounds for a couple of decent shots. But at the other end of the scale it's newspapers, reports, scientific journals, everything in all languages in all parts of the world.

Occasionally we would seek open source information from journalists or officials working in specific countries. However, everything has got to be above board. You're not involved in spying so you have to tread a very fine line.

There are technical specialists in each area, nuclear, biological and chemical. I'm a missile specialist, so I'm primarily involved in looking for rockets and missiles which could deliver these weapons to foreign targets. We have people who specialise in guidance and control systems, propulsion systems, liquid and solid fuels and systems specialists who know how everything fits together. In addition there are people who specialise in looking at documents on imports and exports, linguists and even people who read body language.

Is there any truth in the Iraqi allegation that there were British and American intelligence officers on the weapons inspection teams?

I wouldn't have a clue. W1e had Russians, French, Egyptians and on my last mission we had a Chinese rocket specialist. The problem is that although the teams have to be multinational because it's a UN mission, most of the specialists are from the US and UK and that opens us up to the allegations of spying.

I can't go into too much detail because I signed a confidentiality agreement, but basically I was involved in looking at Iraq's `legal' missile programme, monitoring it to see where it was going. I was making sure nothing `illegal' was being done.

We didn't find anything hugely significant but we found a lot of low level things that didn't add up. For example, you'd find a document in an establishment which was supposed to have nothing to do with the missile programme. It might have high level technical information on missile range and payload capability, but the excuse would be, `no no no, it's scrap paper. We have a paper shortage!'

Some were well-known parts of the missile programme. Occasionally we'd visit sites which were not obvious. Some of those locations would have been passed from US satellite imagery and signals intelligence.

Up until mid-1999 the weapons inspectors took everything the Iraqis said on face value until Hussein Kamel, one of Saddam's son-in-laws, defected. He spilled the beans about the Iraqi weapons concealment programme. Kamal told western intelligence about a gas centrifuge, used to enrich uranium, which was being hidden on a chicken farm. The weapons inspectors found and destroyed the centrifuge but satellite imagery, showed that a large number of documents were removed from the site before inspectors got there. The UN realised that the Iraqi regime was determined to preserve its weapons of mass destruction and the inspections became more of a forensic process. The Iraqis mainly employed low level tactics like delaying access to sites. If you wanted to poke around the director general's office in a factory You'd get the whole party line about how this was unacceptable and would endanger national security.

When you prepared for an inspection You would go into a room which was soundproofed as well as possible. You never referred to the location of the inspection, you'd rite it on a white board but nobody would actually speak it. There was real concern that the UN monitoring and verification centre in Baghdad was bugged. We tried setting off in two convoys to confuse them and revisited sites that had already been inspected. We were constantly trying to surprise them but I don't think we managed it that often. You knew as soon as you started moving ,bar you were being followed, the concealment mechanisms were kicking into action and the sires would be alerted.

There are too many things unaccounted for. They claim they've unilaterally destroyed things but haven't given evidence of when or how they did it. There are significant gaps in the chemical, biological and missile areas.

I would subscribe to the idea that they have the design and components for a nuclear device but not the fissile material to put into it. They've spent so much time and money on this thing. It really was the number one goal of the regime to have a nuclear capability. One of the big concerns about Iraq is their long-term aspirations to become nuclear capable because of the kind of power that would give them in the Middle Fast. That's what's scaring the hell out of people at the moment, regardless of 9/11, terrorism and all that stuff.

With continued sanctions, quite a while really. But the wild card is that they could acquire the nuclear material from abroad so they wouldn't have to perfect the technology to enrich uranium. That's the most frightening scenario and it's not unrealistic.

I don't think anyone disputes the ambitions of the country what we do differ on is the level of threat the country poses with these weapons. The French and Russians look at it very differently from the Americans and the British. The Russians are still owed billions of dollars from past weapons acquisitions and I would argue that chat influences their view of the weapons issue.

It's a threat to its own people and if left unhindered the regime would develop into a significant threat. But when I say unhindered, it could be that the weapons inspectors themselves will be enough of a hindrance. It's a difficult one.

They have been hugely successful in the past. In the 1990s they did find and destroy a whole heap of material. But that said, they didn't get close to other materials which should have been destroyed. Iraq is the size of France and it's very difficult to disarm a country that doesn't want to be disarmed. There has been a certain degree of success but I'm pessimistic that the regime will ever totally give up everything.

If you can keep the regime in its box then great, and the argument could be made that it is possible, but the 9merican perception is totally driven by 9/11. There has been a significant change in the way the US deals with vulnerabilities and threats. It has decided to go for them at source. Iraq is seen as the so of a major future threat on the level of North Korea so they're trying to cut it off now.

It's just a totally different ball game. We suspect they have a nuclear capability and that they are getting close to being able to deliver a warhead to the US. They have a massive chemical and biological weapons programme and they have the ability to deliver missiles armed with those kind of weapons anywhere into South Korea and Japan. The US can't deal with it because its military is massive and because Seoul is located so close to the de-militarised zone that North Korea has the ability to flatten it within minutes. A lot of people are arguing that this is a situation we just can't deal with and the best we can do is to stop Iraq developing into a threat on the same scale.


The Weapons Inspector Ruaridh Arrow's exclusive interview with UN Weapons inspector Wyn Bowen, prior to the US led invasion of Iraq.	Wyn Bowen Yesterday
Wyn Bowen has the chummy air of a newly qualified teacher who thinks his subject is `pretty cool'. But, in fact, he'sa senior lecturer in Kings College London's Department of Defence Studies and the holder of a PhD in missile proliferation. But Dr Bowen is no ordinary academic; his work tracking missile proliferation treads the fine line between academia and intelligence and his expertise has landed him the job of specialist advisor to the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee into weapons of mass destruction. He is one of the youngest UN weapons inspectors to conduct missions inside Iraq. How did you become a weapons inspector? I was contacted by the UN in September 1997 while working at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. That's the place where the student whose thesis was plagiarised by the government in their dossier on Iraq was based. I ran their missile proliferation project. What did that involve? I tracked missile proliferation around the world. Going through the trade in technology and development of missile programmes, news reports, anything and everything I could get my hands on to develop an idea of what was going on in various countries. A big part of that was looking at Iraq. What's the difference between the work of government intelligence agencies and what you were doing? We dealt purely with open sources. Any sort of information that you generate has to be freely available to the public. Sometimes we used commercial satellite imagery which can cost thousands of pounds for a couple of decent shots. But at the other end of the scale it's newspapers, reports, scientific journals, everything in all languages in all parts of the world. Did you use human sources for information from those countries? Occasionally we would seek open source information from journalists or officials working in specific countries. However, everything has got to be above board. You're not involved in spying so you have to tread a very fine line. What kind of people are included in a UN weapons inspection team? There are technical specialists in each area, nuclear, biological and chemical. I'm a missile specialist, so I'm primarily involved in looking for rockets and missiles which could deliver these weapons to foreign targets. We have people who specialise in guidance and control systems, propulsion systems, liquid and solid fuels and systems specialists who know how everything fits together. In addition there are people who specialise in looking at documents on imports and exports, linguists and even people who read body language. Is there any truth in the Iraqi allegation that there were British and American intelligence officers on the weapons inspection teams? I wouldn't have a clue. W1e had Russians, French, Egyptians and on my last mission we had a Chinese rocket specialist. The problem is that although the teams have to be multinational because it's a UN mission, most of the specialists are from the US and UK and that opens us up to the allegations of spying. What were you looking for specifically? I can't go into too much detail because I signed a confidentiality agreement, but basically I was involved in looking at Iraq's `legal' missile programme, monitoring it to see where it was going. I was making sure nothing `illegal' was being done. Did you find anything significant during your missions? We didn't find anything hugely significant but we found a lot of low level things that didn't add up. For example, you'd find a document in an establishment which was supposed to have nothing to do with the missile programme. It might have high level technical information on missile range and payload capability, but the excuse would be, `no no no, it's scrap paper. We have a paper shortage!' How were the sites you inspected chosen? Some were well-known parts of the missile programme. Occasionally we'd visit sites which were not obvious. Some of those locations would have been passed from US satellite imagery and signals intelligence. What tactics did the Iraqis employ to inhibit the inspections? Up until mid-1999 the weapons inspectors took everything the Iraqis said on face value until Hussein Kamel, one of Saddam's son-in-laws, defected. He spilled the beans about the Iraqi weapons concealment programme. Kamal told western intelligence about a gas centrifuge, used to enrich uranium, which was being hidden on a chicken farm. The weapons inspectors found and destroyed the centrifuge but satellite imagery, showed that a large number of documents were removed from the site before inspectors got there. The UN realised that the Iraqi regime was determined to preserve its weapons of mass destruction and the inspections became more of a forensic process. The Iraqis mainly employed low level tactics like delaying access to sites. If you wanted to poke around the director general's office in a factory You'd get the whole party line about how this was unacceptable and would endanger national security. How did the inspections teams try to beat the Iraqi concealment tactics? When you prepared for an inspection You would go into a room which was soundproofed as well as possible. You never referred to the location of the inspection, you'd rite it on a white board but nobody would actually speak it. There was real concern that the UN monitoring and verification centre in Baghdad was bugged. We tried setting off in two convoys to confuse them and revisited sites that had already been inspected. We were constantly trying to surprise them but I don't think we managed it that often. You knew as soon as you started moving ,bar you were being followed, the concealment mechanisms were kicking into action and the sires would be alerted. What weapons do you think the Iraqis have? There are too many things unaccounted for. They claim they've unilaterally destroyed things but haven't given evidence of when or how they did it. There are significant gaps in the chemical, biological and missile areas. What about nuclear weapons? I would subscribe to the idea that they have the design and components for a nuclear device but not the fissile material to put into it. They've spent so much time and money on this thing. It really was the number one goal of the regime to have a nuclear capability. One of the big concerns about Iraq is their long-term aspirations to become nuclear capable because of the kind of power that would give them in the Middle Fast. That's what's scaring the hell out of people at the moment, regardless of 9/11, terrorism and all that stuff. How long would it take Iraq to become a nuclear power if left alone? With continued sanctions, quite a while really. But the wild card is that they could acquire the nuclear material from abroad so they wouldn't have to perfect the technology to enrich uranium. That's the most frightening scenario and it's not unrealistic. Do you think there is legitimate cause for a war if inspections fail? I don't think anyone disputes the ambitions of the country what we do differ on is the level of threat the country poses with these weapons. The French and Russians look at it very differently from the Americans and the British. The Russians are still owed billions of dollars from past weapons acquisitions and I would argue that chat influences their view of the weapons issue. Do you see Iraq as a threat right now? It's a threat to its own people and if left unhindered the regime would develop into a significant threat. But when I say unhindered, it could be that the weapons inspectors themselves will be enough of a hindrance. It's a difficult one. How effective do you think weapons inspections are? They have been hugely successful in the past. In the 1990s they did find and destroy a whole heap of material. But that said, they didn't get close to other materials which should have been destroyed. Iraq is the size of France and it's very difficult to disarm a country that doesn't want to be disarmed. There has been a certain degree of success but I'm pessimistic that the regime will ever totally give up everything. Unless we go to war? If you can keep the regime in its box then great, and the argument could be made that it is possible, but the 9merican perception is totally driven by 9/11. There has been a significant change in the way the US deals with vulnerabilities and threats. It has decided to go for them at source. Iraq is seen as the so of a major future threat on the level of North Korea so they're trying to cut it off now. Why can't we deal with North Korea? It's just a totally different ball game. We suspect they have a nuclear capability and that they are getting close to being able to deliver a warhead to the US. They have a massive chemical and biological weapons programme and they have the ability to deliver missiles armed with those kind of weapons anywhere into South Korea and Japan. The US can't deal with it because its military is massive and because Seoul is located so close to the de-militarised zone that North Korea has the ability to flatten it within minutes. A lot of people are arguing that this is a situation we just can't deal with and the best we can do is to stop Iraq developing into a threat on the same scale.