Armes biologiques : quelques leçons irakiennes

Résumé En Fr

■ Jonathan Tucker, Biologie Weapons : Some Lessons from Iraq Eight years of inspections and monitoring by UN weapons Inspectors and the Iraq Survey Group (reporting to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) have yielded extensive information on the Iraqi biological weapons program and some useful lessons. Iraq's pursuit of biological weapons during the 1980s was shaped both by geostrategic factors and by the unique characteristics of the Iraqi regime, including the personal idiosyncrasies of Saddam Hussein. For Saddam, biological weapons served multiple strategie functions : pre-conflict deterrence, intraconflict deterrence, and escalation dominance. Iraqi BW use doctrine and command-and-control arrangements were influenced both by external threats and domestic factors (such as Saddam's fear of a coup d'État) and evolved over time in response to crisis. The UN investigation of the Iraqi biological weapons program demonstrated the effectiveness of an approach combining multiple methodologies, including aerial surveillance, on-site inspections, import monitoring, interviews, and sampling and analysis. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Iraqi defectors provided little useful information and, indeed, were often a source of deliberate distortions.

Les programmes d'armes biologiques irakiens avaient pour ambition la dissuasion extérieure et l'intimidation interne. Ils ont été cachés avec constance aux équipes d'inspection de l'Organisation des Nations unies (ONU) qui ont dû user de méthodes complexes pour en découvrir l'essentiel. Cette clandestinité a conduit les responsables occidentaux à d'importantes erreurs d'appréciation. Les reliefs de ces programmes, qui demeurent dangereux, doivent encore être suivis avec attention.