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Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction - The Assessment of the British Government

• The 1925 Geneva Protocol which bans the use of chemical and biological weapons;
  
  
• the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention which bans the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or retention of biological weapons;
  
  
• the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which prohibits Iraq from manufacturing or otherwise acquiring nuclear weapons.

• to provide only a portion of extant weapons stocks, releasing for destruction only those that were least modern;
  
  
• to retain the production capability and documentation necessary to revive programmes when possible;
  
  
• to conceal the full extent of its chemical weapons programme, including the VX nerve agent project; to conceal the number and type of chemical and biological warheads for proscribed long-range missiles;
  
  
• and to conceal the existence of its biological weapons programme.

5. In December 1997 Richard Butler reported to the UN Security Council that Iraq had created a new category of sites, "Presidential" and "sovereign", from which it claimed that UNSCOM inspectors would henceforth be barred. The terms of the ceasefire in 1991 foresaw no such limitation. However, Iraq consistently refused to allow UNSCOM inspectors access to any of these eight Presidential sites. Many of these so-called "palaces" are in fact large compounds which are an integral part of Iraqi counter-measures designed to hide weapons material (see photograph on p35).
   
   
   A photograph of a "presidential site" or what have been called "palaces".
   
   

   Iraq's policy of deception Iraq has admitted to UNSCOM to having a large, effective, system for hiding proscribed material including documentation, components, production equipment and possibly biological and chemical agents and weapons from the UN. Shortly after the adoption of UNSCR 687 in April 1991, an Administrative Security Committee (ASC) was formed with responsibility for advising Saddam on the information which could be released to UNSCOM and the IAEA. The committe consisted of senior Military Industrial Commission (MIC) scientists from all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes. The Higher Security Committee (HSC) of the Presidential Office was in overall command of deception operations. The system was directed from the very highest political levels within the Presidential Office and involved, if not Saddam himself, his youngest son, Qusai. The system for hiding proscribed material relies on high mobility and good command and control. It uses lorries to move items at short notice and most hide sites appear to be located close to good road links and telecommunications. The Baghdad area was particularly favoured. In addition to active measures to hide material from the UN, Iraq has attempted to monitor, delay and collect intelligence on UN operations to aid its overall deception plan.

   
   Intimidation
   
   

   6. Once inspectors had arrived in Iraq, it quickly became apparent that the Iraqis would resort to a range of measures (including physical threats and psychological intimidation of inspectors) to prevent UNSCOM and the IAEA from fulfilling their mandate.
      
      
      7. In response to such incidents, the President of the Security Council issued frequent statements calling on Iraq to comply with its disarmament and monitoring obligations.
      
      

      Iraqi obstruction of UN weapons inspection teams firing warning shots in the air to prevent IAEA inspectors from intercepting nuclear related equipment (June 1991); keeping IAEA inspectors in a car park for 4 days and refusing to allow them to leave with incriminating documents on Iraq's nuclear weapons programme (September 1991); announcing that UN monitoring and verification plans were "unlawful" (October 1991); refusing UNSCOM inspectors access to the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture. Threats were made to inspectors who remained on watch outside the building. The inspection team had reliable evidence that the site contained archives related to proscribed activities; in 1991–2 Iraq objected to UNSCOM using its own helicopters and choosing its own flight plans. In January 1993 it refused to allow UNSCOM the use of its own aircraft to fly into Iraq; refusing to allow UNSCOM to install remote-controlled monitoring cameras at two key missile sites (June-July 1993); repeatedly denying access to inspection teams (1991- December 1998); interfering with UNSCOM's helicopter operations, threatening the safety of the aircraft and their crews (June 1997);

      
      
      

   Obstruction
   
   

   8. Iraq denied that it had pursued a biological weapons programme until July 1995. In July 1995, Iraq acknowledged that biological agents had been produced on an industrial scale at al-Hakam. Following the defection in August 1995 of Hussein Kamil, Saddam's son-in-law and former Director of the Military Industrialisation Commission, Iraq released over 2 million documents relating to its mass destruction weaponry programmes and acknowledged that it had pursued a biological programme that led to the deployment of actual weapons. Iraq admitted producing 183 biological weapons with a reserve of agent to fill considerably more.
      
      

   Inspection of Iraq's biological weapons programme In the course of the first biological weapons inspection in August 1991, Iraq claimed that it had merely conducted a military biological research programme. At the site visited, al-Salman, Iraq had removed equipment, documents and even entire buildings. Later in the year, during a visit to the al-Hakam site, Iraq declared to UNSCOM inspectors that the facility was used as a factory to produce proteins derived from yeast to feed animals. Inspectors subsequently discovered that the plant was a central site for the production of anthrax spores and botulinum toxin for weapons. The factory had also been sanitised by Iraqi officials to deceive inspectors. Iraq continued to develop the al-Hakam site into the 1990s, misleading UNSCOM about its true purpose. Another key site, the Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Institute at al-Dawrah which produced botulinum toxin and probably anthrax was not divulged as part of the programme. Five years later, after intense pressure, Iraq acknowledged that tens of tonnes of bacteriological warfare agent had been produced there and at al-Hakam. As documents recovered in August 1995 were assessed, it became apparent that the full disclosure required by the UN was far from complete. Successive inspection teams went to Iraq to try to gain greater understanding of the programme and to obtain credible supporting evidence. In July 1996 Iraq refused to discuss its past programme and doctrine forcing the team to withdraw in protest. Monitoring teams were at the same time finding undisclosed equipment and materials associated with the past programme. In response, Iraq grudgingly provided successive disclosures of its programme which were judged by UNSCOM and specially convened international panels to be technically inadequate. In late 1995 Iraq acknowledged weapons testing the biological agent ricin, but did not provide production information. Two years later, in early 1997, UNSCOM discovered evidence that Iraq had produced ricin.

   
   
   

   9. Iraq tried to obstruct UNSCOM's efforts to investigate the scale of its biological weapons programme. It created forged documents to account for bacterial growth media, imported in the late 1980s, specifically for the production of anthrax, botulinum toxin and probably plague. The documents were created to indicate that the material had been imported by the State Company for Drugs and Medical Appliances Marketing for use in hospitals and distribution to local authorities. Iraq also censored documents and scientific papers provided to the first UN inspection team, removing all references to key individuals, weapons and industrial production of agents.
      
      
   10. Iraq has yet to provide any documents concerning production of agent and subsequent weaponisation. Iraq destroyed, unilaterally and illegally, some biological weapons in 1991 and 1992 making accounting for these weapons impossible. In addition, Iraq cleansed a key site at al-Muthanna, its main research and development, production and weaponisation facility for chemical warfare agents, of all evidence of a biological programme in the toxicology department, the animal-house and weapons filling station.
       
       
   11. Iraq refused to elaborate further on the programme during inspections in 1997 and 1998, confining discussion to previous topics. In July 1998 Tariq Aziz personally intervened in the inspection process stating that the biological programme was more secret and more closed than other mass destruction weaponry programmes. He also played down the significance of the programme. Iraq has presented the biological weapons programme as the personal undertaking of a few misguided scientists.
       
       
   12. At the same time, Iraq tried to maintain its nuclear weapons programme via a concerted campaign to deceive IAEA inspectors. In 1997 the IAEA Director General stated that the IAEA was "severely hampered by Iraq's persistence in a policy of concealment and understatement of the programme's scope".
       
       Inspection achievements
       
       
   13. Despite the conduct of the Iraqi authorities towards them, both UNSCOM and the IAEA Action Team have valuable records of achievement in discovering and exposing Iraq's biological weapons programme and destroying very large quantities of chemical weapons stocks and missiles as well as the infrastructure for Iraq's nuclear weapons programme.
       
       
   14. Despite UNSCOM's efforts, following the effective ejection of UN inspectors in December 1998 there remained a series of significant unresolved disarmament issues. In summarising the situation in a report to the UN Security Council, the UNSCOM Chairman, Richard Butler, indicated that:
       
       
   • contrary to the requirement that destruction be conducted under international supervision "Iraq undertook extensive, unilateral and secret destruction of large quantities of proscribed weapons and items";
   • and Iraq "also pursued a practice of concealment of proscribed items, including weapons, and a cover up of its activities in contravention of Council resolutions".
   
   
   
   Overall, Richard Butler declared that obstructive Iraqi activity had had "a significant impact upon the Commission's disarmament work".
    

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