In August 1995 two of Hussein's sons-in-law from the al-Majid clan--Lieut. Gen. Hussein Kamal and his brother, Col. Saddam Kamal--fled to Jordan. The defections changed UNSCOM and US policy forever. The simple story is that Hussein Kamal, the Minister of Technical Industry and the head of Iraq's proscribed weapons program, provided long-sought-after proof of the existence of biological weapons. The more complex reality is that terrific forensic work by UNSCOM scientists had already proven this.

More important, the two Kamals and their entourage of bodyguards and insiders provided a look into what Ritter calls "Saddam Hussein's hellish netherworld." In short, they provided new hope. Four years of disarmament battles were transformed overnight when the defectors provided the CIA and UNSCOM with a complete wiringdiagram of the secret-police apparatus and inner circle, including names, units and procedures. They told war stories of how the special security organizations had spirited away evidence under UNSCOM's nose, shuttled proscribed matériel around the country, used private residences, conducted experimentation and met in secret committees, all to preserve weapons of mass destruction for the day that the international consensus on Iraq cracked.

Well, almost all. The procedures and organizations had been perfected over some two decades to protect Saddam Hussein and the regime. Not only was the protection system now compromised at its very heart to enemy intelligence debriefers but UNSCOM--led by the abrasive Ritter as chief inspector--would soon assert the right to open it all up for inspection. And in that, two worlds collided.

The defections also convinced Ekéus to accede to pressure from Britain and the United States to establish a signals-monitoring capability on the ground in Iraq. The Kamal brothers and their entourage pinpointed communications procedures and special telephone networks that would allow monitoring of specific deception efforts. Like all covert operations, the risky introduction of equipment to monitor the Iraqis started with great care and under tight control. But also like most covert ops, the monitoring effort soon mushroomed out of control. The camera system used for monitoring disarmed facilities was used as a cover for eavesdropping antennae; special black boxes exclusively under US control were brought into Baghdad to conduct communications intercepts.

The results were impressive: The look inside the security organizations and inner circle justified better equipment and faster processing. And then, at its peak in July 1998, the rules changed. Britain withdrew its intelligence monitors, Israel was stiff-armed out of the picture and the United States took over the operation. Ritter merely explains that his method was "too controversial" and that the Clinton Administration was "afraid to provoke" Iraq into noncompliance with Security Council resolutions. "The Clinton team instead decided on an uninspired, no-endgame strategy of containment through economic sanctions of indefinite duration," he writes.

That's all Ritter has to say on the matter. No real proof, no nuance, no self-reflection, no explanation.

The concealment inspections drove the Iraqis wild, and led to the very confrontations that in Ritter's mind confirmed the value of the approach. Did they ever produce anything other than more potential targets for further concealment inspections? Ritter utterly fails to justify the intentionally confrontational method. He instead blames Washington and the UN for undermining his method. The accusations made Ritter a Republican Party poster boy and a darling of the media. Who couldn't envisage the Clinton Administration prevaricating and hesitating on Iraq? Meanwhile, liberal arms controllers and proliferation junkies have been alarmed about the seeming political concession jeopardizing 100 percent disarmament. Lost in all the posturing is the gloomy truth that the inspections themselves were unproductive and ill conceived.

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