The behavior of the Iraqi regime contrasts
sharply with successful disarmament examples.
Instead of high-level commitment to disarm, highly organized concealment
efforts, staffed by thousands of Iraqis, are led from the very top of the Iraqi
regime.
Iraq’s concealment activities are run by the
Special Security Organization (SSO), under the control of Qusay Saddam Hussein,
Saddam Hussein’s son.
Instead of charging organizations to work with outside groups to disarm,
the regime tasks key institutions with thwarting the inspectors.
The National
Monitoring Directorate -- whose stated function is to facilitate inspections --
actually serves as an “anti-inspections” organization that:
Provides tip-offs to inspection sites; and
Uses “minders” to intimidate witnesses.
The
minders are often former engineers and scientists with direct WMD experience,
and first-hand knowledge of what needs to be protected from the inspectors when
they arrive at a facility.
Thousands
of personnel from Iraqi security agencies provide manpower for hiding documents
and materiel from inspectors, policing inspection sites, and monitoring the
inspectors’ activities.
Such
organizations include the Military Industrialization Organization, the SSO, the Special Division for Baghdad Security, the Iraqi
Intelligence Service (IIS), the Special Republican Guard, the Republican Guard,
and the Directorate of General Security.
These
“anti-inspectors” vastly outnumber the 200 UNMOVIC and the IAEA personnel on
the ground in Iraq.
Instead of cooperation and transparency Iraq has chosen to
conceal and to lie.
Iraq’s declaration is not “currently accurate,
full, and complete.” It is inaccurate
and incomplete.
Anthrax and Other Undeclared Biological Agents
The UN
Special Commission concluded that Iraq did not verifiably account for, at a minimum, 2160kg of
growth media. This is enough to produce
26,000 liters of anthrax -- 3 times the amount Iraq declared; 1200 liters of botulinum toxin; and, 2200 liters
of aflatoxin, a carcinogen.
Ballistic
Missiles
Iraq has declared its attempt to manufacture missile fuels
suited only to a type of missile which Iraq’s declaration does not admit to developing.
Iraq claims that its designs for a larger diameter missile fall
within the UN-mandated 150km limit. But
Dr. Blix has cited 13 recent Iraqi missile tests which exceed the 150km limit.
Nuclear Weapons
The
Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from abroad.
VX
In 1999,UN
Special Commission and international experts concluded that Iraq needed to provide additional, credible information about VX production. UNSCOM concluded that Iraq had not accounted for 1.5 tons of VX, a powerful nerve
agent. Former UNSCOM head Richard Butler
wrote that “a missile warhead of the type Iraq has made and used can hold some 140 liters of VX . . . A
single such warhead would contain enough of the chemical to kill up to 1
million people.”
The
declaration provides no information to address these concerns.
Chemical and Biological Weapons Munitions
In January
1999, the UN Special Commission reported that Iraq failed to provide credible evidence that 550 mustard
gas-filled artillery shells and 400 biological weapon-capable aerial bombs had
been lost or destroyed.
The Iraqi
regime has never adequately accounted for hundreds, possibly thousands, of tons
of chemical precursors.
Empty Chemical Munitions
There is no
adequate accounting for nearly 30,000 empty munitions that could be filled with
chemical agents.
If one of
those shells were filled with the nerve agent Sarin, which Iraq is known to have produced, it would contain over 40,000
lethal doses.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Programs
Iraq denies any connection between UAV programs and chemical or
biological agent dispersal. Yet, Iraq admitted in 1995 that a MIG-21 remote-piloted vehicle
tested in 1991 was intended to carry a biological weapon spray system.
Iraq already knows how to put these biological agents into bombs
and how to disperse biological agent using aircraft orunmanned aerial
vehicles.
Mobile Biological Weapons Agent Facilities
The Iraqi
declaration provides no information about its mobile biological weapon agent
facilities.
Iraq continues its tactics of “cheat and
retreat” that defeated prior inspections efforts, and Iraq continues its efforts to hide prohibited
WMD programs.
This fall, satellite photos revealed activity at
several suspected WMD facilities, apparently in anticipation of the resumption
of inspections.
We have multiple reports of the intensified efforts
to hide documents in spaces considered unlikely to be found, such as private
homes of low level officials and universities.
On January 16, 2003, a joint
UNMOVIC/IAEA team found a significant cache of documents related to Iraq’s uranium
enrichment program in the home of Iraqi scientist Faleh Hassan.
We have many reports of WMD material being buried,
concealed in lakes, relocated to agricultural areas and private homes, or
hidden beneath Mosques or hospitals. In
one report such material was buried in the banks of the Tigris river during a low water period. Furthermore, according to these reports, the
material is moved constantly, making it difficult to trace or to find without
absolutely fresh intelligence.
The regime routinely conducts well-organized
surveillance of inspectors.
The SSO tracks the number, expertise, equipment,
vehicles, location, and heading of inspectors.
Iraq has in the past used, and is likely again
to use, cyber attack methods in its efforts to collect intelligence.
Computer
systems used to store, process, or communicate UNMOVIC and IAEA inspection schedules,
methods, criteria, or findings will be particularly high-value targets.
At a
minimum, Iraq can apply tools and methods readily
available from publicly accessible Internet sources, many of which are quite
effective and require only moderate skill to implement.
According
to Iraqi defector Dr. Khidhir Hamza,
Iraq’s Babylon Software Company was developing
cyber warfare capabilities on behalf of the Iraqi Intelligence Service as early
as the 1990s. People assigned to Babylon initially worked on information security
technologies and techniques, but some of the programmers were segregated into a
“highly compartmented unit” and tasked with breaking into foreign computers in
order to download sensitive data or infect the computers with viruses. Some of the programmers reported that they
had accumulated enough expertise to break into moderately protected computer
systems.
Yet the Iraqis
accuse the inspectors of being spies – the gravest accusation that a
totalitarian government can make.
In
mid-January Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said “We know they [the
inspectors] are playing an intelligence role. The way they are conducting their
inspections and the sites they are visiting have nothing to do with weapons of
mass destruction. But we are cooperating
with inspection teams in a positive way in order to expose the lies of those
who have bad intentions.”
Iraq has not provided “immediate, unimpeded,
unrestricted and private access to witnesses.”
Instead inspectors have been expected to
interview Iraqis with minders under unsecure conditions.
The regime has resisted allowing interviews
outside the country.
Iraq’s list of WMD scientists together with
their associated work places and dates ends in 1991 although UNSCOM proved that
the programs did not.
Iraq refuses to provide key documents, some of
which have been demanded by inspectors for years.
Iraq has impeded the inspectors’ demand to begin
aerial surveillance.