Hussein Kamel Interview Disclosed After Being Hidden by UNSCOM
Media Coverage - Chronology and Stories
Newsweek (March 3 issue) - msnbc.com
"Kamel?s revelations about the destruction of Iraq?s WMD stocks were hushed up by the U.N. inspectors..."
February 24
ABC News - US, Britain Deny Newsweek Defector Report - abcnews.go.com
"U.S., Britain Deny Newsweek Defector Report"
March 1, 2003
The Guardian - guardian.co.uk
"Iraqi defector's testimony confuses case against Iraq"
Berliner Taz - taz.de
"Exklusiv: Was Saddams Schwiegersohn wusste: 'Alle Waffen wurden zerstört'"
("Exclusive: What Saddam's Son-in-Law Knew: 'All Weapons Became Destroyed.'")
Washington Post - washingtonpost.com
"Iraqi Defector Claimed Arms Were Destroyed by 1995"
Boston Globe - boston.com
"WEAPONS DESTRUCTION - UN, CIA don't accept Hussein kin's '95 claim"
Newsweek - msnbc.com
KAMEL WAS SADDAM Hussein?s son-in-law and had direct knowledge of what he claimed: for 10 years he had run Iraq?s nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs. Kamel told his Western interrogators that he hoped his revelations would trigger Saddam?s overthrow. But after six months in exile in Jordan, Kamel realized the United States would not support his dream of becoming Iraq?s ruler after Saddam?s demise. He chose to return to Iraq?where he was promptly killed.
Kamel?s revelations about the destruction of Iraq?s WMD stocks were hushed up by the U.N. inspectors, sources say, for two reasons. Saddam did not know how much Kamel had revealed, and the inspectors hoped to bluff Saddam into disclosing still more. And Iraq has never shown the documentation to support Kamel?s story. Still, the defector?s tale raises questions about whether the WMD stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist.
Kamel said Iraq had not abandoned its WMD ambitions. The stocks had been destroyed to hide the programs from the U.N. inspectors, but Iraq had retained the design and engineering details of these weapons. Kamel talked of hidden blueprints, computer disks, microfiches and even missile-warhead molds. ?People who work in MIC [Iraq?s Military Industrial Commission, which oversaw the country?s WMD programs] were asked to take documents to their houses,? he said. Why preserve this technical material? Said Kamel: ?It is the first step to return to production? after U.N. inspections wind down.
Kamel was interrogated in separate sessions by the CIA, Britain?s M.I.6 and a trio from the United Nations, led by the inspection team?s head, Rolf Ekeus. NEWSWEEK has obtained the notes of Kamel?s U.N. debrief, and verified that the document is authentic. NEWSWEEK has also learned that Kamel told the same story to the CIA and M.I.6. (The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.)
The notes of the U.N. interrogation?a three-hour stretch one August evening in 1995? show that Kamel was a gold mine of information. He had a good memory and, piece by piece, he laid out the main personnel, sites and progress of each WMD program. Kamel was a manager?not a scientist or engineer?and, sources say, some of his technical assertions were later found to be faulty. (A military aide who defected with Kamel was apparently a more reliable source of tech-nical data. This aide backed Kamel?s assertions about the destruction of WMD stocks.) But, overall, Kamel?s information was ?almost embarrass-ing, it was so extensive,? Ekeus recalled?including the fact that Ekeus?s own Arabic translator, a Syrian, was, according to Kamel, an Iraqi agent who had been reporting to Kamel himself all along.
ABCNEWS.com
abcnews.go.com
U.S., Britain Deny Newsweek Defector Report
Reuters, February 24
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA on Monday denied a Newsweek magazine report that Saddam Hussein's son-in-law told the U.S. intelligence agency in 1995 that Iraq after the Gulf War destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver them.
"It is incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue," CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said of the Newsweek report's allegations that Hussein Kamel told the CIA that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had destroyed all of his weapons of mass destruction.
Newsweek said Kamel, who headed Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs for 10 years, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that Iraq had destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stockpiles after the 1991 Gulf War.
"We've checked back and he didn't say this," a British government source told Reuters. "He said just the opposite, that the WMD program was alive and kicking."
Harlow of the CIA said: "Newsweek failed to ask us this question."
Newsweek said Kamel had hoped his revelations would trigger Saddam's overthrow, but when he realized the United States would not support his dream of becoming Iraq's ruler, he chose to return to Iraq where he was promptly killed.
The issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is extremely sensitive at the moment because the United States is building troops in the Gulf poised to invade Iraq on the premise that Saddam has not been forthcoming about his alleged biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.
Copyright 2003 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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