The Iraqi Threat
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
3- Iraq built its own WMD technologies indigenously with some foreign help. Saddam
understood that his main assets were not the equipment but his scientists and engineers.
Thus Saddam’s government kept a tight lid on its science and engineering military teams
at the same time it allowed UNSCOM and the IAEA to demolish most of its weapons
production sites. That these science and engineering teams were capable was made
manifestly clear in the aftermath of the Gulf war. Within less than a year these teams
rebuilt successfully most of Iraq’s services infrastructure. These included rebuilding the
destroyed control rooms of the power stations, the major telephone exchanges and oil
refineries. Elated by their success Saddam kept these teams as contracting entities to the
government for the civilian sector with a much reduced load and assigned them the
rebuilding of the needed facilities for the WMD program. This provided them with a
cover of civilian contractors with actual work to prove it but at the same time their WMD
work continued unhindered. Thus the computer we used for the nuclear weapon design is
now located in a hospital in Saddam city at the outskirts of Baghdad. If an inspector
should arrive at the site he or she will be shown contracts for the civilian sector. The only
indication that things are not what they seem is that it is headed by a man who worked
extensively on the Iraqi NW design and that most of his staff are former workers in
Group Four the Iraqi nuclear weapon team. Legally and according to the current mandate
of UNMOVIC, the new UN inspection body, the burden is on the inspectors to prove
otherwise. Thus Saddam has managed from the experience of the last eleven years to
create the perfect cover. In effect it turns the whole Iraqi science and engineering
enterprise into a giant weapon making body. And since they do actually accomplish
civilian tasks, the economic burden on the government is minimized. Thus Saddam not
only used the international markets to import dual use items under false pretenses, he
created for the first time in the third world dual use engineering teams.
4- Unlike the UN, Saddam valued his people more than the equipment. And while
initially the UN teams concentrated on destroying equipment and facilities Saddam kept
tight control over his scientists and engineers. Thus defections were kept to a minimum.
This was helped by well publicized cases of defectors seeking help and were turned
down. One of them got killed in Jordan by Iraqi agents while waiting for the US Embassy
to grant him an entry visa. Not a single high level defector left the regime since the
botched defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son in law, to Jordan in 1995. This kept
the information flow out of Iraq to a minimum increasing the opacity of the WMD
programs.
5- German Intelligence (the BND) has been the only major Western intelligence service
to provide assessments of the Iraqi WMD programs openly. Though flowed in some
minor details it provides a broad outline of the clandestine Iraqi activities in the WMD
and missiles areas. As a minimum it generated a large database on Iraqi purchases from
Germany and other countries that when put together with defector and other information
can present a credible assessment of the current and future threats of the Iraqi programs.
These may be summarized as follows:
a) Iraq is well into CW production and may well be in the process of BW production.
b) With the more than 10 tons of uranium and more than one ton of slightly enriched
uranium in its possession Iraq has enough to generate the needed bomb grade uranium for
three nuclear weapons by 2005.
c) Iraq is using corporations in India and other countries to import the needed equipment
for its programs, then channel them through countries like Malaysia for shipment to Iraq.
Germany already blacklisted some of these corporations for violating the sanctions
imposed on Iraq.
d) Iraq is importing directional control instruments for its missiles of much higher
precision than those needed for the allowed 150km missiles under UN sanctions. Thus
Iraq is gearing to extend the range of its missiles to easily reach Israel.
e) The type of equipment imported indicate that Iraq is in the process of creating its own
foundation for the production of needed materials thus avoiding detection if these
materials are on the watch list of the exporting countries. Following this logic Iraq is or
will be able to produce its own growth media for the biological weapons program and
many of precursors for its CW program. The same can be said for local uranium
production from phosphates. This removes many limitations on production and allows
Iraq to accelerate its output.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
|
