Today, the United Nations Security Council begins debate on a resolution threatening Iraq if it continues to thwart U.N. inspections. The United States is pushing to give inspectors even greater powers and wants authorization to use force if Iraq does not comply. The debate undoubtedly will be contentious, with the French and Russians most likely to resist some of the tougher language that the United States seeks.

If the goal is effective inspections, however, President Bush already has laid out the best course: Talk to the scientists who have worked for Saddam Hussein. Bush suggested last week that Iraqi scientists who have witnessed illegal weapons activities should be interviewed somewhere outside that country and be allowed to bring their families when they leave Iraq so they would be able to speak freely.

Critics of this approach say this is an unrealistically high demand to make of a sovereign state. But as the former director of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, I know that the best way -- in fact, the only way -- to undermine Saddam's program for weapons of mass destruction is to talk to the scientists who sustain it.

In June 1974, I was the head of the Iraqi delegation that went to France to purchase a nuclear reactor. The plan was to use the reactor in a clandestine program to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. (The Israelis, however, destroyed the reactor before it was operational.) This was our earliest experience on how to cheat the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors.

Then I was given the task in 1987 of setting up the nuclear weapons program, with headquarters in a former labor-union building and facilities at a site about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad that we later called Al-Atheer. That the inspectors had not even a hint of our intentions was underscored by the fact that they vouched for Iraq's good intentions until the 1991 Gulf War.

We had good reason not to offer the inspectors any hints: Heads would roll if we did. The jailing and torture of major figures in the program made this very clear. With my neck on the line, I avoided any contact with the inspectors and IAEA personnel.

Iraq managed to completely hide its biological weapons program despite four years of strenuous efforts by U.N. inspectors. It also shielded the scope of its nuclear program. It took the defection in August 1995 of Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, to force the Iraqi government to release a large number of documents detailing its vast biological and nuclear weapons programs.

Because Kamel was in charge of Iraq's military industry, his defection suggested to the Iraqi government that all secrets were out. To reduce the impact of his revelations, the Iraqi government tried to claim that Kamel was the mastermind behind the concealment effort that had thwarted inspections. To make a credible case, it planted about a half-million pages of documents about Iraq's weapons programs on Kamel's chicken farm, claiming he had hidden them. It turned out that what the panicked Iraqi government released was much more than what Kamel actually had revealed. After discovering that the Americans were not ready to provide him with a safe haven, Kamel stopped cooperating altogether.

It's absolutely essential that interviews with scientists occur on neutral ground. Like other scientists, I was watched all the time in Iraq. I was watched at work by a security officer, who moved into a house next to mine, and even by those who called themselves my friends. I knew that they were there to report on my every move. This made it impossible for a scientist to talk to inspectors about any aspect of the program that wasn't already cleared by the government. I was able to talk freely only after my escape, first to a safe haven in Iraq's north in 1994 and then to Europe in 1995, and after assurances from the U.S. government that my family would be safe (they were later smuggled out of Iraq with U.S. government help).

Saddam, I believe, is intent on the destruction of Iraq through his adventurism. If he achieves his goal of acquiring nuclear weapons, he will be more of a menace to the region and Iraq. Many of the Iraqi scientists I knew shared this opinion and would be glad to cooperate if given a second lease on life by being allowed to leave.

Given the mobility of today's Iraqi weapons, where to inspect is becoming less important. The more important questions are ''who is doing the work?'' and ''how is it managed?'' After the Gulf War, some equipment and workers were put on mobile units and shuttled around the country as needed to avoid the inspectors. After this successful experiment, a larger-scale program of mobile units was put into effect. Some units included the refrigeration needed by the biological-weapons program. Trucks and technicians were also ready to move incriminating evidence from any location in danger of being inspected.

A recent defector, a civil engineer, told of backup sites for every weapons work location -- another form of mobility intended to make it harder for the inspectors to find a smoking gun.

A successful inspection requires free access to core technical experts. As long as they have assurances that they and their families will be safe and have a future away from Saddam's clutches, I know that my former colleagues would cooperate. For most of the scientists, it would not be a hard decision to make; they now live in perpetual fear, with little pay and their families held hostage.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, wants to allow 500 Iraqi scientists to immigrate to the United States if they agree to cooperate. That would make it easier to offer the Iraqi experts an alternative to life in Saddam's state of terror. If Saddam is telling the truth, then he has nothing to fear by allowing his scientists outside Iraq -- except possibly losing them. If he refuses, then he is lying, no matter what his excuses.

My guess is that Saddam will refuse, even under the threat of war. His scientists, free from his retribution, would reveal his true weapons programs, giving the United States the evidence it needs to get rid of Saddam. With a new set of lies uncovered, even Saddam's friends would be hard-pressed to defend him.

This is the only way to use inspections to disarm Saddam. Not only would it tell us what he has now, but by taking away his main technical teams, it would make it harder for him to reconstitute his weapons facilities.

That would reduce the hurdle of monitoring Iraq in the future -- and make the world a safer place.

Khidhir Hamza is the author with Jeff Stein of Saddam's Bombmaker.