The American journalist who exposed her government's exaggeration of Iraq's military threat to Saudi Arabia after invading Kuwait in 1990 defended her report against claims by the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur that it was 'false'.

"Let me state this as unequivocally as I can. The St Petersburg Times stands by the original story. As its author, I stand by it. And the two satellite imaging specialists who examined the Soviet satellite photos for us stand by it more strongly than ever," journalist Jean Heller wrote in an email message to malaysiakini today.

Heller and her newspaper, Florida's St Petersburg Times, purchased two photos from Soyuz-Karta, a Soviet commercial satellite agency, which showed that the US administration had overestimated Iraq's buildup along the Kuwait-Saudi border.

The US administration had argued, at the time when the photos were taken, that as many as 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks in Kuwait were poised for an invasion of neigbouring Saudi Arabia.

This was used as a justification for the massive deployment of US troops in the region.

According to Heller's Jan 8, 1991 report, the American satellite imaging experts who examined the photos could find no evidence of a massive Iraqi presence in Kuwait.

"The Pentagon kept saying the bad guys were there, but we don't see anything to indicate an Iraqi force in Kuwait of even 20 percent the size the administration claimed," Dr Peter Zimmerman, who served with the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Ronald Reagan administration, was quoted as saying in the report.

Accuracy disputed

In a letter published in malaysiakini o­n Feb 17, the US embassy had disputed the accuracy of Heller's 12-year report.

"The St Petersburg Times reporter and their imagery analyst have admitted since their first article was written that the commercial satellite imagery available to them was not of enough resolution to reveal the Iraqi forces there," said Frank J Whitaker, the embassy's press officer.

Whitaker added that Zimmerman, the physicist who helped analyse photos of the border area in August and September 1990, had changed his stand.

"...he (Zimmerman) now believes that as many as 100,000 Iraqi troops may have been in the area at the time but were not detected in the commercial imagery because they could have been housed in existing buildings or utilising camouflage," said Whitaker.

However, in another letter to malaysiakini published yesterday, the US embassy official apologised to Zimmerman for stating that the physicist had reversed his stand o­n the issue.

"Dr Zimmerman stands by his original statements, as reported in the St Petersburg Times article (Photos don't show buildup) and re-reported in the Guardian (No casus belli? Invent o­ne!). I apologise to him and to malaysiakini for any mischaracterisation of his remarks.

More certain

Heller said the she had no clue how the US embassy in Malaysia could have reached such a conclusion. "I don't know how in the world the US embassy in Malaysia came to believe otherwise," she said.

"But we have never recanted the story. We have never doubted the story. Indeed, we are more certain today than ever of the veracity of the information."

In Heller's controversial report, Zimmerman said that while he was unable to spot Iraqi troops in Kuwait, he could see the extensive American military presence at the Dhahran Airport in Saudi Arabia.

"We could see five C-141s, o­ne C-5A and four smaller transport aircraft, probably C-130s," Zimmerman said.

"There is also a long line of fighters, F-111s or F-15s, o­n the ground. In the middle of the airfield are what could be camouflaged staging areas.

"We didn't find anything of that sort anywhere in Kuwait. We don't see any tent cities, we don't see congregations of tanks, we don't see troop concentrations, and the main Kuwaiti air base appears deserted. It's five weeks after the invasion, and from what we can see, the Iraqi air force hasn't flown a single fighter to the most strategic air base in Kuwait."

Low resolution

Whitaker had argued that the five-metre resolution in the satellite photos were not sharp enough to show the massive Iraqi buildup.

However, Zimmerman dismissed the contention that the Iraqi troops were so well camouflaged that they were hidden from the Soviet cameras.

He said that would be a departure from Iraq's strategy during its war with Iran in the 1980s when virtually no effort was made to hide military positions.

"We're willing to concede, at least for purposes of argument, that it is not impossible that all Iraqi activity is below the level of resolution. But if there were tent cities, if there were bunkers, if there were staging, supply and maintenance areas, we find it really hard to believe that we missed them."