The United Nations arms inspection system in Iraq is near death. Even if Saddam Hussein lifts his new bans on inspection imposed three months ago, Iraq and its friends at the U.N. have so eviscerated the system that there is no realistic hope it can be revived, with or without bombing, except as a thin facade.

These realities are held secret at the U.N. because so many bureaucrats and member nations share responsibility for what is happening. Some countries, like Russia and France, eviscerate quite openly; others, like the U.S., use the hidden knife of apathy. During election campaigns, we don't bother to talk about it.

But in the past days a few intimately informed U.N. people have been willing to reveal these truths about the fate of the hunt for Saddam's stockpiles of chemical, nuclear and biological weapons and his plans to build ever more.

They are not ready yet to go public, as have Scott Ritter and David Kay of the U.S. and David Kelly of Britain.

By daily harassment and trickery, Saddam tried to prevent arms inspection for the first six years after it was put in place by the victors in the gulf war, to contain his power and dreams.

But inspection worked anyway. Without it, his weapons would be in use by selected terrorists around the world.

The inspectorate found 21 nuclear facilities that Iraq denied existed. Warheads loaded with anthrax and botulinum, evidence of VX, 400,000 liters of chemical agents, missiles, two million liters of precursors used in making chemical weapons, lists of foreign suppliers of death, a whole inventory from hell.

Two years ago inspectors drew close to more weapons, and weapons programs, more foreign supply lines. So Saddam started his endgame.

First he limited inspectors to four to a site. Then he put a choke collar on inspectors -- where they could go with how much advance notice, where they could never go.

Then in October 1997 he banned inspection altogether, as if the U.N. did not exist; a reasonable attitude for a dictator with good friends abroad.

Secretary General Kofi Annan flew off to Baghdad in February 1998 to make a Saddam-appeasing deal, including allusions of lifting sanctions. The U.S. approved, and warned Saddam -- do it again, we clobber you.

Sanctions hurt Iraqi civilians. But everybody knew Saddam could end sanctions whenever he wished. All he had to do was reveal his weapons of mass destruction; the agreement in 1991 was that he do it within 15 days.

Mr. Annan and the Security Council pretended that lifting the sanctions was Iraq's major goal. That was world-class cynicism. Anthrax, VX, missiles -- those goals Saddam cherishes over all of Iraq's children.

"I can do business with him," said Mr. Annan. He did -- until Aug. 5, five months later, when Saddam ordered U.N. inspectors out, again.

The Clinton Administration did nothing for three months. Now there is serious talk of "using" Mr. Annan again! This would be one more evisceration -- of the major-power responsibility on which the U.N. was founded. Meanwhile Defense Secretary William Cohen tries to get support for possible bombing of Iraq.

Six years ago, even two years ago, bombing might have made Saddam permit real inspection again. Now, if bombing comes, he will let the inspectors back for awhile, in confidence of his controlling knowledge.

International arms inspection is not just snooping around a suspected site. It is a continuous complex of gathering information from intelligence and commercial sources everywhere, scientific analyses, laboratories, amassing data banks on Iraq's foreign suppliers and pipelines.

The information about U.N. inspection methods that Iraqi specialists have collected by harassing, disrupting and banning cannot be bombed out of their heads, or the new hiding places Saddam now has created at home these past few years and in very friendly nations abroad.

Journalists write as if what we report is the whole universe of the story. Generally we do not mention the existence of what we do not know, often the most important information.