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Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and one man’s mission to find them was the topic of discussion last Wednesday when the Computer Sciences Department sponsored the third part of its Homeland Security Lecture Series. Rocco Casagrande, a former UN MOVIC Biological Weapons Inspector was invited to campus to speak.
Casagrande joined a team of more than 20 other highly specialized biochemists from all over the globe for a three- month term, Dec. 5, 2002 to March 5, 2003. During these months, he inspected any buildings or landmarks that could have been used to produce biological weapons, such as hospitals, breweries and universities.
“In the early ’90s, Iraq was suspected of developing biological warfare. They denied the accusations, but in 1995, were found to indeed have these weapons and facilities creating these weapons. Now, the UN finds it necessary to hold these inspections to ensure no such activity continues,” said Casagrande.
Casagrande went on to explain inspections themselves, condensing those three months into an hour lecture, as he outlined the typical day in his life.
His morning started early; he and all inspectors had to report to their headquarters at 7:15 a.m. They spent only 45 minutes relaying plans for the day and packing their gear, all while speaking in code, checking perimeters and taking every precaution not to be heard or followed.
At 8:30 a.m., their convoy left headquarters and continued to a ‘meeting point’ unknown by even the inspectors, whereas afterwards they would divide into separate cars again and continue route.
The remainder of the day, is spent carrying out the inspection. At 5 p.m. they all reconvened to the headquarters again and debriefed their day onto paper, keeping intricate reports of all their activities, as an effort to help future inspectors. They had dinner at 7:30 p.m. and then their day was officially done.
Though the schedule Casagrande laid out seemed somewhat relaxed and predictable, the remainder of his presentation ensured that it indeed was not. He described the various types of inspections that were carried out, each with its own varying level of danger and difficulty. Among them were: declared visits, undeclared visits and destruction missions.
After completing those months in Iraq, Casagrande enjoys his home in Massachusetts, and wonders about the future of Iraq and UN inspections. “The biggest question here is, when you find the weapons, what do you do with them?” He continued to explain that after he left, more biological weapons were found, which affirms his own suspicion that Iraq is continuing its activities.
“All the inspectors with me, except for one, were sure of Iraq hiding something, no matter how much they cooperated with the inspections,” he said. “It makes me wonder, in the future, can we even have disarmament without war?” Casagrande, and the rest of the world, awaits that answer.
