4.2 |
Iraq WMD assessments, July to September 2002
•
A box on
the gas centrifuge uranium enrichment process which described
“Many
hundreds or
thousands of centrifuges …”
•
“Iraq
admitted to UNSCOM it had 50 chemical and 25 biological
warheads
[in 1991]
but did not use them.”
•
Iraq had
retained “up to 20”, Al Hussein missiles, rather than “more
than
a dozen”.
•
The new
facilities at al-Rafah “would not be needed for systems that fall
within
the UN
permitted range of 150km. The Iraqis have recently taken
measures
to conceal
activities at this site.”
•
“Some
aspects of this [the new missile-related infrastructure under
construction],
including
rocket propellant mixing and casting facilities at the Al Mamoun
Plant,
appear to
replicate those linked to the prohibited BADR-2000 programme
that
were
destroyed in the Gulf War or by UNSCOM.”
98.
The DIS
responded on 30 August, stating:
•
The UK did
not “know where CBW work was being conducted – by its nature
it
can be
conducted in small facilities or labs … Even if only a few litres
of agent
a day had
been manufactured in the 1,200 or so days since UNSCOM
left,
a considerable
stockpile could have been built up.”
•
Iraq had a
capability to produce biological “agents” as well as
weapons.
•
Iraq had
repeatedly claimed that the agents in “unaccounted for CW
weapons
would have
deteriorated sufficiently to render the weapons harmless. But
this
was found
not to be the case by UNSCOM when they examined Iraqi
weapons,
many years
after they and [sic] been filled (in fact the inclusion of
stabilisers in
the nerve
agent would prevent decomposition).”
•
Iraq had
admitted that it had 75 chemical warheads for SCUD type
missiles.
•
It had
“nothing else to offer” on Iraq’s ballistic missile
programmes.
•
Iraq had
started to take journalists to facilities to “demonstrate that
they
are benign”.
•
Dr Hans
Blix, the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, had recently stated
that
there were
“some 700 sites” in Iraq the inspectors would like to visit. None
were
“proven WMD
sites” and if specific facilities were mentioned in a public
dossier,
there was a
risk Iraq would target those facilities for visits by journalists
“in an
attempt to
undermine the impact of the dossier”.45
45
Minute [DIS
junior official] to [DIS junior official], 30 August 2002, ‘Iraq
Public Dossier’.
131