IRAQ’S BIOLOGICAL & CHEMICAL WEAPONS
“Iraq is still building and expanding an infrastructure capable of producing weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad is expanding its civilian chemical industry in a way that could be quickly diverted into chemical weapon production.” - George Tenet, CIA director, Feb 2002
Iraq’s skill at hiding its weapons factories is demonstrated by the fact that the United Nations took four years of inspections to find out about its biological programme. Its scope is immense, UNSCOM found evidence of 38,500 chemical and biological munitions and 690 tonnes of chemical agents.
The anthrax found in US letters in late 2001 is not understood to come from Iraq. It was the Ames strain, discovered in Iowa in 1980, and is more likely to have come from within the US.
Potency of Iraq’s chemical and biological arsenal
Aflatoxin: Iraq studied how to induce liver cancer using aflatoxin. It has no direct military value as cancer, once contracted, takes years to develop.
Anthrax: One ounce in an air conditioning system in a sports stadium could infect 70,000 in an hour.
Botulinum: One of the most poisonous substances known. A fatal dose can be 70 billionths of a gram. It is estimated that 80 per cent of those who inhale it will die within three days.
Clostridium: A bacteria which can cause gas gangrene. It can result in acute lung distress, leaking blood vessels, breakdown of red blood cells and liver damage.
VX: A nerve agent, so advanced that the smallest concentration against the skin can kill
NB: Iraqi opposition groups claim Saddam has far more biological weapons including cholera, mycotoxins, Ricin, shigella, rotavirus and smallpox.
Mustard Gas
• Iraq is understood to have stockpiled 550 mustard gas bombs. It told UNSCOM it destroyed them, but provided no evidence – leading UNSCOM to dismiss this claim as a lie.
• In February 1998, UNSCOM tests on shells taken from Iraq produced in 1996 found 96 per cent pure mustard gas. This proved it had been freshly produced.
VX
• Iraq initially told the UN that it had not attempted to produce VX.
• By 1995, UNSCOM had produced enough circumstantial evidence to force Iraq into admitting 3.9 tonnes of it. None of it was ever accounted for.
• UN inspectors found documents suggesting that Iraq had imported 810 tonnes of chemicals needed to make VX. The UN vouched for the destruction of 191 tonnes, but no more (United Nations “Report of the Secretary General on the Activities of the Special Commisison”: S/1997/774, Oct 6, 1997). This leaves 619 tonnes of precursor chemicals unaccounted for.
• The Australian Government’s 1997 report argues that this is enough to make “200 tonnes of VX – which could theoretically obliterate the entire global population.” (“Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities: Australian analysis based on the UN Special Commisison”. Read it here)
• In November 1998, UNSCOM said that some unearthed missile warheads, tested in a US Army Lab, contained traces of VX.
• Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress, says his informants support fears that Saddam’s VX stockpiles is substantially larger than the 3.9 tonnes it admitted to the UN.
• Chalabi also says it has been converted to a dry salt for long-term storage. |
