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Blair fetches the stick for Bush to beat
Iraq
By Sanjay Suri
LONDON -
The long-awaited British government dossier on Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein's weapons capability produces
little hard evidence of Saddam's access to nuclear
weapons. It says only that he can use chemical and
biological weapons at 45 minutes notice and can develop
nuclear weapons within one or two years "if Iraq
obtained fissile material and other essential components
from foreign sources".
But that is not the
importance of the dossier's release. The 55-page report
is, in fact, less an intelligence assessment that seeks
to describe than it is a political manifesto that seeks
to persuade. As such, it includes photos of Iranian
soldiers killed in the war with Iraq and civilian Kurds
killed by chemical weapons in Halabja in 1988. It lists
weapons that UN inspectors failed to find during
inspections in the early 1990s.
Most
importantly, the dossier seeks to shift the burden of
proof back onto Iraq to show that it, in fact, does not
have any such weapons. While Iraq claims that all
biological weapons and agents have been destroyed, the
dossier says that "no convincing proof of any kind has
been produced to support this claim".
In that
larger sense, therefore, the release of the document is
a clear signal of an impending collision between Iraq
and the US.
Iraq immediately sought to defuse
the crisis with a declaration following publication of
the dossier that United Nations inspectors will have
"unfettered access" to all Iraqi sites listed in the
British dossier.
But the 55-page dossier makes a
clear case that UN inspections will no longer be good
enough. Saddam has "identified possible weak points in
the inspections process and knows how to exploit them",
the dossier says. "Sensitive equipment and papers are
already being concealed."
Iraq signaled
immediate readiness to open the listed sites to
inspection. Presidential adviser Amer Saadi said
following publication of the dossier that "inspectors
will have unfettered access" after practical
arrangements are made for their visit likely next month
but only "if there is no interference from outside
parties".
Saadi said, "His [Blair's] allegations
are long, his evidence is short." The report, he said,
is a "hodgepodge of half-truths, lies and short-sighted
and naive allegations".
But the British dossier
follows the US line closely in distancing possible
action from an acceptance of UN inspections. "The
history of UN weapons inspections was characterized by
persistent obstruction," the dossier says.
The
dossier says that "Iraq has admitted to UNSCOM [United
Nations Special Commission] 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". Iraqis had in the past resorted to physical
threats and psychological intimidation of inspectors,
the dossier says.
In the face of these
allegations, the new Iraqi offer of access to UN
inspectors will not be good enough, analysts say. The
dossier speaks of alternative sites for weapons, and
also of an alternative leadership to Saddam Hussein. The
dossier says Saddam would have the final word on use of
chemical and biological weapons, but suggests that
authority to use these weapons "could have delegated to
his son Qusai".
The dossier has been prepared on
the basis of the work of Britain's Joint Intelligence
comprising the Secret Intelligence Service, Government
Communications Headquarters, the Security Service and
the Defense Intelligence Staff.
It is
"unprecedented for the government to publish this kind
of document", Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in a
foreword to the report. Blair said, "I am in no doubt
that the threat is serious and current, that he has made
progress on weapons of mass destruction, and that he has
to be stopped." To ignore the threat "would be to place
at risk the property and lives of our own people", he
says. "We must ensure that he does not get to use the
weapons he has, or get hold of the weapons he wants."
The report contains several assertions about
Saddam Hussein's program but offers little detail other
than satellite pictures of facilities alleged to be used
for manufacture of chemical and biological weapons. "We
cannot publish everything we know," Blair says. The
report suggests that there is a lot of specific material
that cannot be revealed. "Intelligence rarely offers a
complete account of activities which are designed to
remain concealed," the dossier says. "Intelligence
sources need to be protected and this limits the detail
that can be made available."
In one of few
details offered, the dossier names an Indian firm as
supplying equipment that could be used by Iraq to launch
nuclear and chemical strikes. The dossier says, "A new
plant at al-Mamoun for indigenously producing ammonium
perchlorate, which is a key component in the production
of solid propellant rocket motors has also been
constructed. This has been provided illicitly by NEC
Engineers Private Limited, an Indian chemical
engineering firm with extensive links in Iraq." The
British government report says that this Indian company
has also been supplying to "other suspect facilities
such as the Fallujah 2 chlorine plant".
Rajiv
Dhir, the general manager of NEC Engineers, was arrested
by Indian authorities in June and charged with violation
of India's export controls. Dhir faces seven years'
imprisonment if convicted. Navdeep Suri, spokesman for
the Indian High Commission, confirmed that the company's
export license had been revoked and stated that "such
actions are in violation of India's export control laws
and whenever such a violation comes to the government's
attention, firm action is taken".
Although the
dossier notes that "other [Indian] individuals and
companies are still illicitly procuring for Iraq", Suri
declined to comment on what he characterized as these
"speculative statements".
In an interview with
London's Guardian newspaper, C P Ahuja, current NEC
Engineers manager, said that the dossier's allegations
against his firm were "absolutely wrong". While Ahuja
admitted that the firm did business in Iraq, he said it
did so "under UN auspices". "We are just an engineering
company," he said on Tuesday. "We don't make chemicals."
The dossier says that Iraq currently lacks the
equipment to make a nuclear bomb. "Iraq needs certain
key equipment, including gas centrifuge components and
components for the production of fissile material before
a nuclear bomb could be developed." But it says Saddam
is "almost certainly seeking an indigenous ability to
enrich uranium to the level needed for a nuclear
weapon".
The dossier says that Saddam has
"sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,
despite having no active civil nuclear power program
that could require it". Iraq, it says, also has been
looking for vacuum pumps, magnet production lines,
anhydrous hydrogen fluoride and fluorine gas and 60,000
aluminum tubes - all components needed to build nuclear
weapons.
The dossier alleges that after the Gulf
War in 1991, Saddam refurbished his weapons sites to
manufacture chemical and biological weapons, and still
possesses the bombs, shells, artillery rockets and
ballistic missiles he would need to deliver them. Saddam
has them and is prepared to conceal them from
inspections and, in the end, to use them, the dossier
says.
Biological weapons are being developed in
mobile laboratories, the report says. It names a woman,
Dr Rihab Taha, as a leading figure in Iraq's biological
weapons program. The dossier says Iraq has "illegally
obtained up to 20 al-Hussein missiles with a range of
650 kilometers". These can carry chemical or biological
warheads, the report says. Saddam is also deploying
al-Samoud liquid propellant missiles with a range up to
200 kilometers, instead of the 150 kilometer limit set
by the UNSCOM team.
The report says that Iraq
has constructed an engine stand to test missiles that
could reach British bases in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey,
all of the Gulf region and Israel. All these programs
have been funded by an income of US$3 billion earned
last year outside UN control.
Iraq also has huge
quantities of mustard gas, and of the nerve agents
tabun, sarin and VX, according to the report. These are
being produced at new facilities at Salman Pak and are
supported by storage and precursor facilities known as
Fallujah 1, 2 and 3.
Saddam "continues to attach
great importance to the possession of weapons of mass
destruction and ballistic missiles which he regards as
being the basis for Iraq's regional power". The dossier
adds that "new chemical facilities have been built, some
with illegal foreign assistance, and are probably fully
operational or ready for production".
These are
said to include Ibn Sina company at Tarmiyah, headed by
Hikmat Na'im al-Jalu and a facility at Al Qa'Qa. Other
facilities of concern listed are the castor oil
production plant at Fallujah, al-Dawrah foot and mouth
disease vaccine institute, and a vaccine plant at Abu
Ghraib.
(Inter Press Service)
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