Iraq Weapons of Mass
Destruction
Programs
U.S. Government White Paper, released February 13, 1998
Overview
The Gulf War damaged Saddam Hussein's
biological, chemical, ballistic missile, and
nuclear weapons programs,
collectively referred to as weapons of mass destruction
(WMD). The U.N.
Special Commission (UNSCOM) was established by the Security
Council and
accepted by Iraq following the war to eliminate and verify the destruction
of
Iraq's biological, chemical, and ballistic missile programs. The
International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) assumed responsibility for
dismantling Iraq's nuclear program.
Further, the United Nations established
sanctions to prevent the purchase of equipment
and materials needed to
reconstitute Baghdad's WMD programs and inspections to
find remaining
elements of these programs and deter further research or production
related
to WMD.
On the basis of the last seven years' experience, the world's
experts conclude that
enough production components and data remain hidden and
enough expertise has
been retained or developed to enable Iraq to resume
development and production of
WMD. They believe Iraq maintains a small force
of Scud-type missiles, a small
stockpile of chemical and biological
munitions, and the capability to quickly resurrect
biological and chemical
weapons production.
This conclusion is borne out by gaps and
inconsistencies in Iraq's WMD declarations,
Iraq's continued obstruction of
UNSCOM inspections and monitoring activities,
Saddam's efforts to increase
the number of "sensitive" locations exempt from
inspection, and Saddam's
efforts to end inspections entirely. Collectively, the evidence
strongly
suggests that Baghdad has hidden remnants of its WMD programs and is
making
every effort to preserve them. Baghdad has also enhanced
indigenous
capabilities and infrastructure to design and produce WMD.
Saddam's strategy in
dealing with UNSCOM is unchanged: he is actively trying
to retain what remains of his
WMD programs while wearing down the will of the
Security Council to maintain
sanctions.
UNSCOM and IAEA inspections
and monitoring activities have severely curtailed Iraq's
WMD programs, but
even a small residual force of operational missiles armed with
biological or
chemical warheads would pose a serious threat to neighboring countries
and US
military forces in the region. Iraq has demonstrated its capability to
employ
other delivery systems. Saddam has used such weapons for tactical
military purposes
against Iran, and to suppress rebellious segments of his
population in Kurdish-held
areas.
Assessment of Cooperation With
UNSCOM and the IAEA
Baghdad has a long history of obstructing UNSCOM
inspections and has taken an
increasingly hard line since March 1996 when the
United Nations began inspecting
security facilities suspected of concealing
WMD-related documents and material.
UNSCOM is targeting these facilities
because Iraq admitted after Husayn Kamil --
Saddam's son-in-law and former
head of Iraqi military industries -- defected in August
1995 that security
organizations were involved in concealing material from the
United
Nations:
-- Resolution 687 demanded that Iraq provide
declarations on all aspects of its WMD
programs 15 days after the Security
Council enacted the resolution in 1991. Nearly
seven years later, gaps and
inconsistencies remain in each of Iraq's WMD declarations
covering chemical,
biological, nuclear, and missile programs.
-- Baghdad has modified each
declaration several times to accommodate data
uncovered by UNSCOM of the IAEA
and provides new information only when
confronted with direct evidence. For
example, Baghdad revised its nuclear declaration
to the IAEA four times
within 14 months of its initial submission in April 1991 and has
formally
submitted six different biological warfare declarations to date, each of
which
UNSCOM has rejected.
Baghdad has sought to constrain UNSCOM from
inspecting numerous facilities since
March 1996, mostly by declaring the
sites "sensitive" and the inspections a violation of
Iraqi sovereignty. Iraq
has applied the term "sensitive" to a variety of facilities -- on
one
occasion security officials declared a road sensitive. Most consistently,
Iraq has sought
to limit U.N. access to Special Republican Guard garrisons
that are responsible for
executing the highest priorities of Saddam's inner
circle:
-- Iraq is trying to keep the whole WMD story out of reach.
UNSCOM and the IAEA have
detected Iraqi officials removing documents and
material from buildings, and even
burning documents to prevent them from
being evaluated. Inspectors have routinely
found high-interest facilities
cleaned out after their entry was delayed for several hours.
-- Baghdad
is interested in debilitating UNSCOM's ability to monitor elements it
has
declared. Iraq disabled monitoring cameras and hid production equipment
after
expelling US inspectors from the country in November 1997.
--
Iraqi officials have interfered with inspection operations. Iraqi escort have
endangered
U.N. helicopter flights supporting inspections by harassing the
pilot and grabbing the
flight controls. Security guards have harassed
inspectors on the ground.
Baghdad has tried to generate a public
impression of cooperation while working hard
to conceal essential information
on the scope and capabilities of its WMD programs. It
has allowed UNSCOM to
monitor dormant WMD production facilities and has provided
incomplete
documentary evidence to support its claims. For example, Iraq
dramatically
disclosed nearly 700,000 pages of WMD-related documents
following Husayn Kamil's
defection. Sparse relevant information was buried
within a massive volume of
extraneous data all of which was intended to
create the appearance of candor and to
overwhelm UNSCOM's analytic
resources:
-- For example, Iraq released detailed records of how many
ball-point pens it ordered in
the late 1980s, but it has not provided records
of how it procured biological precursors
or supported claims that it
destroyed missile warheads capable of delivering biological
and chemical
agents.
-- UNSCOM and the IAEA have examined much of the documentary
material and
concluded that, despite advertisements to the contrary, Iraq did
not release its most
important WMD-related documents.
Biological
Weapons
No concrete information on the scope of Iraq's biological warfare
program was
available until August 1995, when Iraq disclosed, after Husayn
Kamil's defection, the
existence of an offensive biological warfare (BW)
capability. Iraqi officials admitted that
they had produced the BW agents
anthrax/1 (8,500 liters), botulinum toxin/2 (19,000
liters), and aflatoxin/3
(2,200 liters) after years of claiming that they had conducted only
defensive
research. Baghdad also admitted preparing BW-filled munitions -- including
25
Scud missile warheads (five - anthrax, 16 - botulinum toxin, four - aflatoxin),
aerial
bombs (157), and aerial dispensers -- during the Gulf war, although it
did not use them.
Iraq acknowledged researching the use of 155mm artillery
shells, artillery rockets, a
MiG-21 drone, and aerosol generators to deliver
BW agents:
-- UNSCOM has destroyed a range of BW production equipment,
seed stocks, and
growth media claimed by Iraq for use in its BW
programs.
-- UNSCOM believes Iraq has greatly understated its production
of biological agents,
and could be holding back such agents which are easily
concealed.
Iraq resisted dismantling the Al Hakam BW production facility
for nearly one year after
disclosing in 1995 that it manufactured more than
500,000 liters of BW agents at the
facility between 1989 and 1990. UNSCOM
finally pressed Iraq to destroy Al Hakam in
the summer of 1996:
--
Baghdad claimed that Al Hakam was a legitimate civilian facility designed to
produce
single-cell proteins and biopesticides.
-- Al Hakam's remote
location (55 km southwest of Baghdad) and the security involved
in its
construction suggest that Al Hakam was intended to be a BW production
facility
from the outset.
Baghdad has provided no hard evidence to
support claims that it destroyed all of its
BW agents and munitions in 1991.
UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler stated that Iraq's
most recent BW declaration,
submitted in September 1997, "failed to give a remotely
credible account of
Iraq's biological weapons program:"
-- In late 1995, Iraq acknowledged
weapons testing on Ricin, but did not provide details
on the amount produced.
In early 1997, two years later, UNSCOM discovered
documents that showed Iraq
had produced the biological agent Ricin.
-- Iraq has the expertise to
quickly resume a small-scale BW program at known facilities
that currently
produce legitimate items such as vaccines and other pharmaceuticals.
Without
effective U.N. monitoring, Baghdad could probably begin production within
a
few days. For example, Iraq can convert production of biopesticides to
anthrax simply
by changing seed material.
Chemical Weapons
Iraq
had an advanced chemical warfare (CW) capability that it used extensively
against
Iran and against its own Kurdish population during the 1980s. Iraqi
forces delivered
chemical agents (including Mustard 5 agent and the nerve
agents Sarin and Tabun/6) in
aerial bombs, aerial spray dispensers, 120-mm
rockets, and several types of artillery
both for tactical military purposes
and to terrorize rebellious segments of the population.
Iraq maintained large
stockpiles of chemical munitions and had a major
production
capacity.
UNSCOM supervised the
destruction of more than 40,000 CW munitions (28,000 filled
and 12,000
empty), 480,000 liters of CW agents, 1,800,000 liters of chemical
precursors,
and eight different types of delivery systems -- including ballistic
missile
warheads -- in the past six years. Following Husayn Kamil's
defection, Iraq disclosed
that it:
-- Produced larger amounts of the
nerve agent VX/7 than it previously admitted. Iraq
acknowledged, despite
previous claims that it only conducted research, that it had
conducted pilot
production of about 4 tons of VX from 1988 to 1990.
-- Researched
in-flight mixing of binary CW weapons before the Gulf war -- an advance
in
the development of a CW capability that extends the shelf life of chemical
agents.
-- Perfected techniques for the large-scale production of a VX
precursor that is well
suited to long-term storage.
UNSCOM believes
Iraq continues to conceal a small stockpile of CW agents,
munitions, and
production equipment. Baghdad has not supplied adequate evidence to
support
its claims that it destroyed all of its CW agents and munitions. The
destruction
of as much as 200 metric tons of chemical precursors, 70 Scud
warheads, and tens of
thousands of smaller unfilled munitions has not been
verified.
-- Baghdad retains the expertise to quickly resume CW
production. In the absence of
UNSCOM inspectors, Iraq could restart limited
mustard agent production with a few
weeks, full-scale production of sarin
within a few months, and pre-Gulf war production
levels -- including-VX --
within two or three years.
-- Since the Gulf war, Iraq has rebuilt two
facilities it once used to produce chemical
agents and has the capability to
shift smaller civilian facilities to CW production.
Ballistic
Missiles
Iraq had an active missile force before the Gulf war that
included 819 operational Scud
B missiles (300-km range) purchased from the
Soviet Union, an advanced program to
extend the Scud's range and modify its
warhead (e.g., the Al-Husayn with a 650-km
range and the Al Abbas with a
950-km range), and an extensive effort to
reverse-engineer and indigenously
produce complete Scud missiles. Iraq also had
programs to indigenously
produce long-range missiles (e.g., the Condor) that never
entered the
production phase:
-- UNSCOM reports that it supervised the destruction of
48 Scud-type missiles, 10
mobile launchers, 30 chemical and 18 conventional
warheads, and related equipment.
-- UNSCOM has verified Iraq's unilateral
destruction of only 83 Scud-type missiles and
nine mobile launchers. Iraq has
tried to account for the remainder by claiming the
missiles were destroyed by
having fired in the Iran-Iraq and Gulf wars, or used in static
tests or for
training.
Unmonitored unilateral destruction and discrepancies in Iraqi
accounting suggest that
Baghdad could still have a small force of Scud-type
missiles and an undetermined
number of warheads and launchers. UNSCOM
believes it has accounted for all but two
of the original 819 Scud missiles
imported from the former Soviet Union. Iraq has not
adequately explained the
disposition of important missile components that it could not
produce on its
own and may have removed before destruction. There are still many
gaps on the
scope of Iraq's indigenous missile programs:
-- Iraq may have pieced
together a small inventory of missiles by integrating guidance
and control
systems it concealed with indigenously produced parts.
-- Iraq admitted
producing Scud engines, airframes, and warheads before the war, but
UNSCOM
has not verified claims that it destroyed all of these components.
--
Baghdad probably continues to receive some parts through clandestine
procurement
networks. In 1995, Jordan interdicted missile-guidance equipment
(gyroscopes) bound
for Iraq. Baghdad admitted under UNSCOM questioning that
it received a similar
shipment earlier in 1995.
-- In November 1995,
Iraq turned over a previously undeclared SS-21 short-range
ballistic missile
launcher it acquired from Yemen before the Gulf war, illustrating
Iraq's
ability to conceal major elements of missile systems from UNSCOM
inspectors.
Baghdad has not given up its plans to build larger,
longer-range missiles. UNSCOM
has uncovered numerous Iraqi design drawings,
including multistage systems and
clustered engine designs, that theoretically
could reach Western Europe. Inspectors
have uncovered evidence that Iraq has
continued missile research since the imposition
of sanctions. If sanctions
were lifted, Iraq could probably acquire enough material to
resume full-scale
production of Scud-type missiles, perhaps within one year.
-- Iraq's
Al-Samoud and Ababil-100 missile programs -- within the U.N.-allowed
150-km
range limit -- serve to maintain production expertise within the
constraints of sanctions.
Iraq has apparently flight-tested the Al-Samoud --
which UNSCOM describes as a
scaled down Scud -- successfully. Iraq probably
will begin converting these programs
into long-range production as soon as
sanctions are lifted.
-- Iraq continues to expand a missile production
facility at Ibn Al Haytham -- currently
used to support its authorized
missile programs. Two new fabrication buildings at the
facility are spacious
enough to house the construction of large ballistic missiles.
--
Baghdad's claim that the buildings at Ibn al Haytham are intended to be computer
and
administrative facilities is inconsistent with the facility's inherent
size and capacity.
Nuclear Weapons
Iraq had a comprehensive
nuclear weapons development program before the Gulf war
that was focused on
building an implosion-type weapon. The program was linked to a
ballistic
missile project that was the intended delivery system. After Husayn
Kamil's
defection in 1995, Iraq retreated from its longtime claim that its
nuclear program was
intended only to conduct research:
-- Iraq
admitted experimenting with seven uranium enrichment techniques and was
most
actively pursuing electromagnetic isotope separation, gas centrifuge,
and gas diffusion.
-- Baghdad planned to build a nuclear device in 1991
by using IAEA-safeguarded highly
enriched uranium from its Soviet-supplied
reactors.
UNSCOM and IAEA inspections have hindered Iraq's nuclear
program, but Baghdad's
interest in acquiring or developing nuclear weapons
has not diminished:
-- Iraq retains a large cadre of nuclear engineers,
scientists, and technicians who are
the foundation of its nuclear program. We
have concerns that scientists may be
pursuing theoretical nuclear research
that would reduce the time required to produce a
weapon should Iraq acquire
sufficient fissile material.
-- Iraq continues to withhold significant
information about enrichment techniques, foreign
procurement, weapons design,
and the role of Iraq's security and intelligence services
in obtaining
external assistance and coordinating postwar concealment. Iraq continues
to
withhold documentation on the technical achievements of its nuclear
program,
experimentation data, and accounting.
-- Baghdad has not
fully explained the interaction between its nuclear program and its
ballistic
missile program.
The Husayn Kamil Connection
Husayn Kamil Hasan
al-Majid, Saddam's son-in-law, was the pre-eminent military
industries
official and a fundamental player in Iraq's efforts to procure weapons of
mass
destruction before his defection to Jordan in August 1995. A strict and
capable
manager, Kamil took charge of Iraq's efforts to develop its WMD
program around 1987.
As the head of the Ministry of Industry and Military
Industrialization until 1990, he
oversaw Iraq's nuclear weapons research,
continued Iraq's development of biological
and chemical weapons, and
supervised the successful development of the Al-Husayn
missile -- an
indigenous modification of the Scud. During this time, it is possible
that
Kamil directed Iraq's testing of its chemical and biological weapons on
Iranian
prisoners of war.
-- After the Gulf war, Kamil -- first from
his position as Minister of Defense and then as
the director of the Ministry
of Industry and Minerals and the Organization of Military
Industrialization
-- led Iraq's efforts to conceal its WMD program from
international
inspectors.
-- Husayn Kamil's influence over the Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction program did not
end with his defection in 1995.
For instance, he is largely responsible for using
Saddam's security services
-- of which he was a member in the early 1980s -- to hide
proscribed
materials and documents from the United Nations.
Despite Kamil's
influence, the Iraqi WMD program did not die with his defection
and
subsequent murder, as Iraq claims it did. Qusay Husayn -- Saddam's second
son -- has
assumed many of the responsibilities for concealing the proscribed
programs. In
addition, many of the leading scientists in Iraq's WMD programs
during Husayn Kamil's
tenure are still associated with the regime:
--
Lt. Gen. Amir Hamud Sadi -- who serves officially as a presidential adviser and
is a
leading official in Iraqi relations with UNSCOM -- was one of the
principal engineers in
the WMD program and essentially served as Husayn
Kamil's deputy. With a doctorate
in chemical engineering, Sadi has dedicated
his entire career to conventional and
non-conventional weapons development.
In 1987, Sadi received rare public praise from
Saddam for his role in the
development of the Al-Husayn missile.
-- Humam Abd al-Khaliq Abd
al-Ghafur -- currently Minister of Culture and Information --
is Iraq's
leading nuclear official and the former head of its nuclear program.
Abd
al-Ghafur also was a close associate of Husayn Kamil, and he occasionally
serves as
an interlocutor with the IAEA, leading an Iraqi delegation to the
IAEA annual conference
in October 1997.
-- Jafar Dia Jafar is perhaps
Iraq's foremost nuclear scientist and served as Abd
al-Ghafur's deputy in the
Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization. Jafar now officially serves as
a
presidential adviser, but his position -- unlike that of Sadi -- appears to be
largely
nominal.
-- Dr. Rihab Taha is the leading official in charge
of Iraq's biological weapons program.
She has overseen Iraqi efforts to
develop anthrax and botulinum toxin and directed
testing on animal subjects.
Taha is also politically well-connected -- she is married to
the Minister of
Oil, Amir Rashid Ubaydi, who helps direct Iraqi relations with
UNSCOM.
February 13, 1998
(End text)