Facts About Iraq's WMD Program

by Kerry Thomas

December 3, 2003

America's war against terrorists in Iraq was our long overdue response to the ongoing attacks on Americans, beginning with the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, fostered by dictators such as Saddam Hussein.

We know Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in the form of chemical weapons. He used these weapons against the Kurds on numerous occasions in the past. Under the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease fire agreement, Saddam Hussein was required to document stockpiles of these weapons, if he still possessed them, or to document their destruction if that is what happened to them. There was no such documentation disclosed by Iraq to the world.

So what happened to these weapons? Was Hussein a threat? Did he still have weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) in 2003?

Consider the interim report of the findings of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) as presented to Congress on October 2, 2003 by David Kay. Among other things, this report reveals "We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002."

Some of the things found by the ISG include a clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW [Chemical and Biological Weapons] research. They also found a prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW [Biological Weapons] agents.

Kay also revealed that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN; reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons; and new research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

They have found documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS); a line of UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit; continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN; and plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

David Kay testified that the ISG had discovered clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment. Said Kay "With regard to Iraq's nuclear program, the testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. They have told ISG that Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons."

Click Here for a copy of Kay's full report