A dossier on Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical warfare capabilities was drawn up in March by the United Kingdom’s joint intelligence committee after intense discussions within the intelligence community about what should be published and how much speculation it should contain.
Just days before British Prime Minister Tony Blair flew to Washington in early April to meet President George W Bush, the British government decided not to publish the dossier.
The dossier, which contained evidence about Baghdad’s development of biological weapons — including anthrax and botulinum toxin — was based on what United Nations Special Commission weapons inspectors (Unscom) found up to the point when they were pulled out of Iraq in 1998. Even the CIA admit that intelligence gathered after that date is far from reliable.
Last week a Whitehall (the UK civil service) source said the long-awaited dossier ”would no longer play a role”. There was ”very little new to put into it”, he said. A day later Blair announced that a dossier would be published in a matter of weeks.
UN weapons inspectors found that the Iraqis had turned anthrax, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin into weapon form. The Iraqis admitted hiding their material in caves and in tunnels.
They also carried out research and development work on other agents such as ricin (a highly potent toxin) and animal and plant agents. Iraq has also admitted working on Clostridium perfringens, a bacterial weapon that causes gas gangrene, a condition in which the flesh rots.
Examining Iraqi records, Unscom came to the conclusion that the amounts of anthrax, botulinum, gas gangrene and aflatoxin were much less than the capacity of its germ warfare laboratories. Iraq claimed it had run its weapons labs at less than full production capacity. The inspectors concluded that Iraq still has at least 157 bombs and 25 missile warheads filled with germ agents, although those warheads would have a limited shelf-life.
Baghdad has claimed that one of the products made at its newly rebuilt Fallujah complex, west of Baghdad, is castor oil for use in brake fluid. Castor beans can also be used to make ricin.
The Iraqis admitted manufacturing agents including the nerve agent sarin and mustard gas.
They had weapon-chemicals and had hundreds of tonnes of mustard agent in missiles, artillery and rockets. Much of this was found and destroyed.
But in its final assessment of the Iraqi chemical programme Unscom said Iraq had failed to account for at least 3,9 tonnes of VX nerve gas — one of the most deadly nerve agents — as well as 600 tonnes of ingredients to make it. Iraq said it had destroyed the materiel after the war but apart from a few fragments of warheads bearing VX traces, no hard evidence of this was found.
Last year August Hanning, the German intelligence chief, claimed that Iraq was developing new chemical weapons and that ”German companies apparently delivered important components for the production of poison gas” to an Iraqi weapons plant at Samarra.
In early 2001 the CIA reported that Iraq had rebuilt two chemical plants at Fallujah, which had been used to produce chemical and biological weapons before the Gulf War. Iraq has said the plants are being used solely to manufacture pesticides.
Germany’s intelligence agency, the BND, believes that President Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons programme is still in business. Hanning, said earlier this year: ”It is our estimate that Iraq will have an atomic bomb in three years.”
Most experts believe that Saddam’s lack of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium is the main obstacle to an Iraqi bomb and that the process of producing it is so laborious that the West could monitor his progress.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported at the end of 1998: ”There were no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons … or to suggest that Iraq had produced more than a few grammes of weapons-grade nuclear material.” But the Iraqi leader could short-circuit this process if he could acquire the material on the international black market, although there is no evidence that he has done so.
Saddam assembled a substantial team of nuclear weapons scientists before the Gulf War and the evidence suggests it remains together. The only significant defection was that of a senior engineer, Khidhir Hamza, who slipped out in 1994.
Former inspectors say the Iraqis could be working on warhead components and could even assemble some.
In 1999 it emerged that the Iraqi government had imported six ”lithotripter” machines (used to shatter kidney stones without surgery), which contain high-precision electronic switches that could also serve to trigger a nuclear device. Suspicions were raised further when Iraq ordered 120 extra switches as ”spares”.
The Iraqis possess the artillery and rockets to deliver chemical weapons and have engineers and scientists still in place to develop and produce more, according to former UN inspectors.
Under the 1991 ceasefire agreements, Iraq can develop and test missiles with a range less than 150km and it has actively pursued its tactical programme with the al-Ababil solid-fuel missile. However, US analysts suspect that Iraq has been underpowering its missiles to keep them within the rules, while designing them so they can easily be adapted for longer distances. — (c) Guardian Newspapers 2002