Canada's case against Saddam
Politicians skeptical despite evidence amassed by CSIS
Stewart Bell
National Post
Friday, September 27, 2002
The Associated Press
Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham, right, greets Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri at United Nations headquarters this month.
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Canadian intelligence officials have been warning the federal government for more than two years that Iraq has been working to build weapons of mass destruction that threaten Canada and its allies, unclassified documents show.
The publicly available reports prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service caution that Saddam Hussein seems to be developing nuclear and biological weapons as well as the long-range missiles needed to target his enemies.
While George W. Bush, the U.S. President, and Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, have used their intelligence files to make the case against Iraq, Canadian political leaders have not done so and have instead expressed skepticism about the U.S. and U.K. dossiers.
Canadian celebrities such as Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton and David Suzuki have also spoken out against a war with Iraq, arguing it would be immoral and there is scant proof Saddam is stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
But when put together, Canada's own intelligence reports form a "Canadian dossier" on Iraq's weapons program that closely matches the conclusions of those put forward in the past few weeks by Washington and London.
The reports conclude not only that Saddam is developing weapons of mass destruction but that Canada could soon be within striking range of his missiles, and that his arms program is a threat to Canadian peacekeepers, allies and foreign policy aims.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The most recent CSIS report on Iraq deals with nuclear weapons, concluding: "Iraq, with its demonstrated history of a large-scale program, appears determined to acquire a nuclear weapons capability at the earliest opportunity."
The February, 2002, report says that in the past Iraq had engaged in "a broad-based and massive, multi-billion-dollar program to acquire nuclear weapons." At the same time, it was developing its own methods for making weapons-grade uranium "including the electromagnetic isotope separation process, gas centrifuges, lasers and chemical methods.
"In 1995 it was learned that Iraq, after its invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990, had begun a crash program to divert safeguarded highly enriched uranium fuel (originally supplied by France and Russia along with civil research reactors) into a nuclear weapon within six months. IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors have estimated that Iraq, in this way, could have completed a nuclear explosive device by the end of 1991."
The Iraqi nuclear weapons program was interrupted in 1991 by the Allied bombing campaign during the Gulf War and subsequent United Nations inspections. But the CSIS report cites Khidir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected in 1994, as saying that, "since the war, Iraq is suspected of having made progress on a number of bottlenecks in its weapon program," including "design work, laboratory efforts, sub-component production, and the operation of test machines."
The CSIS report noted that in February, 1999, the IAEA "had charged Iraq with denying its inspectors documents and material they had sought, including documentary evidence that Iraq had terminated its nuclear weapon program.
"It had added that it was prudent to assume that Iraq 'has retained documents of its clandestine nuclear program, specimens of important components and possibly amounts of non-enriched uranium.' "
By last year, Pentagon officials were reporting that Iraq had retained the core of its nuclear weapons program and could build its own bomb within five years, CSIS said.
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
In a June, 2000, report on biological weapons, CSIS said Iraq had admitted in August, 1995, that it produced 19,000 litres of botulinum toxin (BTX), 8,500 litres of anthrax and 2,400 litres of the cancer-producing agent aflatoxin.
The Iraqis also confessed they had loaded BTX and anthrax onto Scud missile warheads and aerial bombs and that they had been researching mycotoxins and infectious viruses.
While Iraq said it destroyed the biological agents after the Gulf War, it has "failed to produce evidence to support such a claim," CSIS said, adding that UN inspectors had noted in 1996 that Iraq still possessed between six and 16 missiles with biological warheads.
In 1999, the UN inspection team told the Security Council it had "no confidence that all bulk agents have been destroyed," CSIS said.
"Although biological weapons have not been used extensively in the recent past, a number of Third World states [including Iraq] are believed to possess such weapons or to be developing them, and they could possibly be used in future conflicts involving Canadian personnel or affecting areas of Canadian interest."
BALLISTIC MISSILES
A CSIS report published in March, 2001, warned that Canada could be within striking range of Iraqi intercontinental ballistic missiles within 10 years.
Before the Gulf War, Iraq had a large-scale ballistic missile program that included the Al Hussein, a version of the Soviet Scud-B, with a range of 650 kilometres and capable of striking Jerusalem.
The longer-range Al Abbas could travel 900 kilometres while the Badr 2000 had a 1,000-kilometre range and the Tammouz I could reach Italy, Greece and Russia.
Iraq launched 96 Soviet Scuds at Israel and Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm but its program was severely damaged in the war.
Since then, however, it has been rebuilding its arsenal, and its ambitions for an intercontinental missile could be realized by 2010, the report said.
"That Iraq continues to plan for much longer-range missiles was suggested by the interception by Jordan in late 1995 of a shipment of sophisticated Russian-produced guidance instruments, suitable for 1,200-kilometre-range missiles, bound for Iraq," CSIS said.
TERRORISM
Aside from missiles, the other way of delivering weapons of mass destruction is by making use of like-minded terrorist groups. CSIS warned in a December, 1999, report that there were increasing fears that terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda were showing an interest in acquiring chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
CSIS also said there was concern that a state sponsor of terrorism with an active weapons program might be willing to supply terrorists with the materials necessary to conduct a mass casualty attack.
Such an attack was "a case not of 'if' but of 'when,' " the report said. "And, in the end, Canada remains as vulnerable as any of the other Western ... states to the kind of nightmarish, mass-casualty chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear terrorist attack that until recently was confined to fiction."
CSIS is believed to have more up-to-date intelligence reports on Iraq that it has supplied to the government in secrecy. The agency is also working on a new analysis of weapons of mass destruction to be released to the public.
A CSIS spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday on whether the service felt its public reports on Iraqi weapons were still accurate. "These are the most recent reports," said Nicole Currier.
The Canadian analysis parallels the findings of a 50-page summary released on Tuesday by Mr. Blair, who warned that Saddam could deploy chemical and biological weapons on just 45 minutes' notice.
The report concluded that Iraq has military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, has tried to acquire "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa and has extended the range of its ballistic missiles.
British intelligence experts say Iraq has significant quantities of chemical and biological weapons and has continued to produce them since Iraq expelled international weapons inspectors in 1998.
Bill Graham, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, responded to the British report by telling reporters it showed why UN inspectors must return to Iraq but he added it did not provide enough evidence to warrant a military strike.
The British report followed a UN address by Mr. Bush warning that war with Iraq was a likely option unless the UN enforces resolutions requiring Baghdad to demonstrate that it does not possess weapons of mass destruction.
Yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. Defence Secretary, said the White House had solid information on top-level contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq going back a decade, including possible chemical weapons training. The Defence Secretary said the reports of contacts had been increasing since 1998.
sbell@nationalpost.com |
