Iraq’s development of chemical and biological weapons
May 1988 Starts research on aflatoxin at a laboratory in al Salman. Its method was to grow fungus aspergilus in 5.3 quart flasks (The Center for Strategic and International Studies, “If We Fight Iraq: Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction,” revised 28 June 2002) .
Nov 1989 Develops 16 R-400 Aflatoxin bombs, and conducts trials in 122mm rockets.
April 1991 Iraq tells UN that it has never had any biological materials, weapons, research or
facilities.
Jan 1991 Tests run on crop spraying helicopters, to test their suitability for spraying biological weapons.
Aug 1991 Iraq admits to a biological weapons research programme
July 1995 Iraq admits to have made substantial progress in its biological weapons programme, making just under 30,000 litres of biological agents and filled munitions. This included 19,000 litres of Botulinium, 8,400 liters of antrax and 2,000 liters of aflatoxin and clostridium
Aug 1995 Iraq admits to having produced 191 biological bombs, of which 25 were missile warheads which had been loaded with anthrax, botulinum and aflatoxin for use in the Gulf war.
Sep 1995 Iraq admits two projects to testing the delivery of biological weapons through Mirage F-1 and MiG-21 aircraft.
Jul 1998 Iraq confiscated documents from UNSCOM weapons inspectors documents suggesting that it overstated by 6,000 the number of bombs it had used in its war with Iran. It allowed inspectors to make notes, but kept the original document, infuriating the UN and the US. This event triggered what was to become Operation Desert Fox.
Aug 2000 The CIA reports to US Congress that Iraq is converting an L-29 trainer jet into an unmanned aircraft which could spread chemical and biological weapons. Work was suspected to be carried out at the Al-Faris factory, where Iraq built drop tanks to deliver weapons before the Gulf War.
Jan 2001 Iraq is reported to have rebuilt two factories in the Falluja complex, which produced chemical and biological weapons before the Gulf War.
Mar 2001 Iraq writes to the United Nations giving notice of its plans to asking to reopen the Daura factory, which had been shut down by UNSCOM in 1996 after it was found to make biological weapons. Iraq said it needed to reopen Daura to produce vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease.
May 2001 Iraq takes over several crop-dusting helicopters from the United Nations, against US protest that they may be used for a biological weapons attack.
Sep 2001 Iranian reports say 20 Iraqi soldiers based in Zaafarniyah region had died and 200 suffered severe breathing problems after taking part in chemical weapons exercise around June.
Apr 2001 August Hanning, head of the BND (German’s Federal Intelligence service), gives an interview to a German Sunday newspaper. “New chemical weapons are being developed in Iraq. German companies apparently tried to deliver important components for the production of poison gas to Iraq’s Samara plant.” (Interview published by Welt am Sonntag, a German Sunday newspaper, on 22 April 2001, entitled: “The spy who came in from Westphalia”) This is compatible with Mr Saeed’s evidence.
Dec 2001 Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, an Iraqi defector, gives evidence saying that:-
• Biological weapons were being developed at the back of the Saddam Hussein hospital in Baghdad. (This was later corroborated by Khidhir Hamza, another defector, who told US congress that “the computer we used for nuclear weapon design is now located in a hospital at the outskirts of Baghdad.”)
• Biological and chemical weapons were tested on Kurdish and Shiite prisoners in 1989 and 1992.
Jul 2002 The Washington Post runs a detailed report (“Reality is uncertainty,” by Joby Warrick, Washington Post, 31 July 2002) suggesting that the CIA has found a laboratory called Tahhaddy, or “Challenge”, on the west bank of the Tigris river, employing a team of 85 scientists working on a viral strain code-named Blue Nile. Details sound similar to Ebola Virus, a lethal hemorrhagic disease.
Aug 2002 US satellites detect a convoy of 60 trucks at a one of main suspected biological weapons factories, called the Taji Cell Protection Plant. |
