Iraqi Dossier Missing Data on 6,000 Chemical Bombs
Mon December 23, 2002 05:44 PM ET
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - An Iraqi arms document turned over to the United Nations indicates Baghdad failed to account for 6,000 chemical warfare bombs in its recent weapons declaration, sources familiar with the dossier say.
The account of the missing bombs, contained in the so-called "Air Force document," first came to light in July 1998. A U.N. inspector saw the six-page document and took a few notes before it was snatched from her hands during a 16-hour inspection search and standoff at the Air Force headquarters.
After withholding the Air Force document since then, Iraqi officials handed it over to a U.N. inspector in Baghdad on Nov. 30. But Iraq gave no explanation for the missing weapons in its covering letter or in the 12,000-page weapons declaration submitted a week later, the sources said.
Chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix confirmed Iraq had turned over the document during a briefing to the U.N. Security Council last week.
The document includes an account of munitions used during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and listed four types of "khas" -- Arabic for "special" -- that denote bombs filled with chemical agents, which Iraq began to use in 1983.
Blix, in giving a preliminary assessment of Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration submitted on Dec. 7, said his office was still studying data in the Air Force document. He reports back to the council on Jan. 9.
But experts familiar with the dossier say the Air Force document shows that 6,000 fewer 550-pound and 1,100-pound chemical bombs were used in the Iran-Iraq war than Baghdad had claimed.
Iraq had declared to U.N. inspectors in the 1990s it had held over 200,000 special munitions, either filled or unfilled, specifically designed for chemical or biological weapons.
These included grenades, mortar shells, aerial bombs, artillery shells, rockets and missile warheads. Of those, Iraq claimed that it used or disposed of approximately 100,000 munitions filled with chemical weapons during its war with Iran. The rest, it, said were either destroyed during the Gulf War or by the former U.N. Special Commission, known as UNSCOM.
"But they have not come up with any story for the Air Force document," said one source who read the declaration.
"Since they dropped some 6,000 fewer bombs on the Iranians than claimed, people will ask what happened to those that still exist," the source said.
Experts believe some of the bombs could have been filled with mustard gas, which Iraq was able to deploy in chemical munitions by 1983. Iraq had produced a high grade of the poison gas that does not deteriorate quickly.
While mustard has a low death rate, it can cause cancer and blister the skin, eyes and lungs.
The snatching of the document was reported in July 1998 by then UNSCOM chairman, Richard Butler to the Security Council after the inspection team leader found the document in a safe at Iraq's Air Force headquarters.
Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack, a biological arms expert and a colonel in the German army, had led 44 inspectors to the Air Force headquarters, took several inside and then was told, after hours of haggling, she could not have the document. But while a minder was on the phone, she took notes quickly.
Butler, after a telephone talk with Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, was told he could have the document, put under seal, when he next came to Baghdad. But Aziz then refused.
Iraqi officials turned over the Air Force document to an arms inspector in Baghdad on Nov. 30, the sources said.
Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei, told council members last Thursday the 12,000-page declaration submitted on Dec. 7 was flawed, bolstering the Bush administration's contention it now had the right to use military force against Iraq.
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