Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
Iraq actively researched and later employed
In the early 2000s, U.S. President
Iraq signed the
History
Program development 1960s–1980s
Iraq | |
---|---|
1959 – August 17
1968 – a Soviet supplied IRT-2000 research reactor together with a number of other facilities that could be used for radioisotope production was built close to Baghdad.[10][11]
1975 – Saddam Hussein arrived in Moscow and asked about building an advanced model of an atomic power station. Moscow would approve only if the station was regulated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but Iraq refused. However, an agreement of co-operation was signed on April 15, which superseded the one of 1959.[12]
After 6 months France agreed to sell 72 kg of 93% uranium[13] and built a nuclear power plant without IAEA control at a price of $3 billion.
In the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein ordered the creation of a clandestine
Western help with Iraq's WMD program
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2011) |
United States
The United States supported Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war with over $500 million worth of dual-use equipment that were approved by the Commerce department. Among them were advanced computers, some of which were used in Iraq's nuclear program.
The United States government invited a delegation of Iraqi weapons scientists to an August 1989 "detonation conference" in Portland, Oregon. The
United Kingdom
In the late 1980s, the British government secretly gave the arms company
Iraq's nuclear weapons program suffered a serious setback in 1981 when the
Iran–Iraq War
This section needs additional citations for verification. (February 2016) |
In 1980, the
The Washington Post reported that in 1984 the CIA secretly started providing intelligence to the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq War. This included information to target chemical weapons strikes. The same year it was confirmed beyond doubt by European doctors and UN expert missions that Iraq was employing chemical weapons against the Iranians.
On March 23, 1988, western media sources reported from
Chemical weapon attacks
Location | Weapon Used | Date | Casualties |
---|---|---|---|
Haij Umran | Mustard | August 1983 | fewer than 100 Iranian/Kurdish |
Panjwin |
Mustard | October–November 1983 | 3,001 Iranian/Kurdish |
Majnoon Island | Mustard | February–March 1984 | 2,500 Iranians |
al-Basrah |
Tabun | March 1984 | 50–100 Iranians |
Hawizah Marsh |
Mustard & Tabun | March 1985 | 3,000 Iranians |
al-Faw |
Mustard & Tabun | February 1986 | 8,000 to 10,000 Iranians |
Um ar-Rasas | Mustard | December 1986 | 1,000s Iranians |
al-Basrah |
Mustard & Tabun | April 1987 | 5,000 Iranians |
Sumar/Mehran | Mustard & nerve agent | October 1987 | 3,000 Iranians |
Halabjah |
Mustard & nerve agent | March 1988 | 7,000s Kurdish/Iranian |
al-Faw | Mustard & nerve agent | April 1988 | 1,000s Iranians |
Fish Lake | Mustard & nerve agent | May 1988 | 100s or 1,000s Iranians |
Majnoon Islands | Mustard & nerve agent | June 1988 | 100s or 1,000s Iranians |
South-central border | Mustard & nerve agent | July 1988 | 100s or 1,000s Iranians |
an-Najaf – areaKarbala |
Nerve agent & CS | March 1991 | Unknown |
(Source:[18])
1991 Gulf War
On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and was widely condemned internationally.[43]
An international coalition of nations, led by the United States, liberated Kuwait in 1991.[44]
In the terms of the
UN inspections
UNSCOM inspections 1991–1998
The
In 1995, UNSCOM's principal weapons inspector, Rod Barton from Australia, showed Taha documents obtained by UNSCOM that showed the Iraqi government had just purchased 10 tons of
The inspectors feared that Taha's team had experimented on human beings. During one inspection, they discovered two primate-sized inhalation chambers, one measuring 5 cubic meters, though there was no evidence the Iraqis had used large primates in their experiments. According to former weapons inspector Scott Ritter in his 1999 book Endgame: Solving the Iraq Crisis, UNSCOM learned that, between 1 July and 15 August 1995, 50 prisoners from the Abu Ghraib prison were transferred to a military post in al-Haditha, in the northwest of Iraq.[50] Iraqi opposition groups say that scientists sprayed the prisoners with anthrax, though no evidence was produced to support these allegations. During one experiment, the inspectors were told, 12 prisoners were tied to posts while shells loaded with anthrax were blown up nearby. Ritter's team demanded to see documents from Abu Ghraib prison showing a prisoner count. Ritter writes that they discovered the records for July and August 1995 were missing. Asked to explain the missing documents, the Iraqi government charged that Ritter was working for the CIA and refused UNSCOM access to certain sites like Baath Party headquarters.[51] Although Ekéus has said that he resisted attempts at such espionage, many allegations have since been made against the agency commission under Butler, charges which Butler has denied.[52][53]
In April 1991 Iraq provided its first of what would be several declarations of its chemical weapons programs.[54] Subsequent declarations submitted by Iraq in June 1992, March 1995, June 1996 came only after pressure from UNSCOM.[54] In February 1998, UNSCOM unanimously determined that after seven years of attempts to establish the extent of Iraq's chemical weapons programs, that Iraq had still not given the Commission sufficient information for them to conclude that Iraq had undertaken all the disarmament steps required by the UNSC resolutions concerning chemical weapons.[54]
In August 1991 Iraq had declared to the UNSCOM biological inspection team that it did indeed have a biological weapons program but that it was for defensive purposes.
In August 1998, Ritter resigned his position as UN weapons inspector and sharply criticized the
Between inspections: 1998–2003
In August 1998 Scott Ritter remarked that, absent effective monitoring, Iraq could "reconstitute chemical biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program."[55]
In June 1999, Ritter responded to an interviewer, saying: "When you ask the question, 'Does Iraq possess militarily viable biological or chemical weapons?' the answer is no! It is a resounding NO. Can Iraq produce today chemical weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Can Iraq produce biological weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Ballistic missiles? No! It is 'no' across the board. So from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has been disarmed." Ritter later accused some UNSCOM personnel of spying, and he strongly criticized the Bill Clinton administration for misusing the commission's resources to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military.[56] According to Ritter: "Iraq today (1999) possesses no meaningful weapons of mass destruction capability."[57]
In June 2000, Ritter penned a piece for Arms Control Today entitled The Case for Iraq's Qualitative Disarmament.[58] 2001 saw the theatrical release of his documentary on the UNSCOM weapons inspections in Iraq, In Shifting Sands: The Truth About Unscom and the Disarming of Iraq. The film was funded by an Iraqi-American businessman who, unknown to Ritter, had received Oil-for-Food coupons from the Iraqi administration.[59]
In 2002, Scott Ritter stated that, by 1998, 90–95% of Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities, and long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering such weapons, had been verified as destroyed. Technical 100% verification was not possible, said Ritter, not because Iraq still had any hidden weapons, but because Iraq' had preemptively destroyed some stockpiles and claimed they had never existed. Many people were surprised by Ritter's turnaround in his view of Iraq during a period when no inspections were made.[60]
During the 2002–2003 build-up to war, Ritter criticized the
UNSCOM encountered various difficulties and a lack of cooperation from the Iraqi government. In 1998, UNSCOM was withdrawn at the request of the United States before
There is a dispute about whether Iraq still had WMD programs after 1998 and whether its cooperation with the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) was complete. Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said in January 2003 that "access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect" and Iraq had "cooperated rather well" in that regard, although "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance of the disarmament."[64] On March 7, in an address to the Security Council, Hans Blix stated: "Against this background, the question is now asked whether Iraq has cooperated "immediately, unconditionally and actively" with UNMOVIC, as is required under paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002)... while the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as "active", or even "proactive", these initiatives 3–4 months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute "immediate" cooperation. Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance." Some U.S. officials understood this contradictory statement as a declaration of noncompliance.
There were no weapon inspections in Iraq for nearly four years after the UN departed from Iraq in 1998, and Iraq asserted that they would never be invited back.[65] In addition, Saddam had issued a "secret order" that Iraq did not have to abide by any UN Resolution since in his view "the United States had broken international law".[66]
In 2001, Saddam stated: "we are not at all seeking to build up weapons or look for the most harmful weapons . . . however, we will never hesitate to possess the weapons to defend Iraq and the Arab nation".[67] The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in Britain published in September 2002 a review of Iraq's military capability, and concluded that Iraq could assemble nuclear weapons within months if fissile material from foreign sources were obtained.[68] However, IISS also concluded that without such foreign sources, it would take years at a bare minimum.
Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, who created Saddam's nuclear centrifuge program that had successfully enriched uranium to weapons grade before the 1991 Gulf War, stated in an op-ed in The New York Times that although Iraqi scientists possessed the knowledge to restart the nuclear program, by 2002 the idea had become "a vague dream from another era."[69]
Iraq War
Possession of WMDs was cited by the United States as the primary motivation instigating the Iraq War.
Prelude
In late 2002 Saddam Hussein, in a letter to Hans Blix, invited UN weapons inspectors back into the country. Subsequently, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 was issued, authorizing new inspections in Iraq. The United States claimed that Iraq's latest weapons declaration left materials and munitions unaccounted for; the Iraqis claimed that all such material had been destroyed, something which had been stated years earlier by Iraq's highest-ranking defector, Hussein Kamel al-Majid. According to reports from the previous UN inspection agency, UNSCOM, Iraq produced 600 metric tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, VX and sarin; nearly 25,000 rockets and 15,000 artillery shells, with chemical agents, are still unaccounted for.
In January 2003, United Nations weapons inspectors reported that they had found no indication that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons or an active program. Some former UNSCOM inspectors disagree about whether the United States could know for certain whether or not Iraq had renewed production of weapons of mass destruction. Robert Gallucci said, "If Iraq had [uranium or plutonium], a fair assessment would be they could fabricate a nuclear weapon, and there is no reason for us to assume we would find out if they had." Similarly, former inspector Jonathan Tucker said, "Nobody really knows what Iraq has. You really can not tell from a satellite image what is going on inside a factory." However, Hans Blix said in late January 2003 that Iraq had "not genuinely accepted UN resolutions demanding that it disarm."[70] He claimed there were some materials which had not been accounted for. Since sites had been found which evidenced the destruction of chemical weaponry, UNSCOM was actively working with Iraq on methods to ascertain for certain whether the amounts destroyed matched up with the amounts that Iraq had produced.[71][72] In the next quarterly report, after the war, the total amount of proscribed items destroyed by UNMOVIC in Iraq can be gathered.[73] Those include:
- 50 deployed Al-Samoud 2 missiles
- Various equipment, including vehicles, engines and warheads, related to the AS2 missiles
- 2 large propellant casting chambers
- 14 155 mm shells filled with mustard gas, the mustard gas totaling approximately 49 litres and still at high purity
- Approximately 500 ml of thiodiglycol
- Some 122 mm chemical warheads
- Some chemical equipment
- 224.6 kg of expired growth media
In an attempt to counter the allegations that some WMD arsenals (or capability) were indeed hidden from inspectors, Scott Ritter would argue later:
There's no doubt Iraq hasn't fully complied with its disarmament obligations as set forth by the Security Council in its resolution. But on the other hand, since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90–95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capacity has been verifiably eliminated ... We have to remember that this missing 5–10% doesn't necessarily constitute a threat ... It constitutes bits and pieces of a weapons program which in its totality doesn't amount to much, but which is still prohibited ... We can't give Iraq a clean bill of health, therefore we can't close the book on their weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously, we can't reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de-facto retention of a prohibited capacity worthy of war.[74]
Ritter also argued that the WMDs Saddam had in his possession all those years ago, if retained, would have long since turned to harmless substances. He stated that Iraqi Sarin and tabun have a shelf life of approximately five years, VX lasts a bit longer (but not much longer), and finally he said botulinum toxin and liquid anthrax last about three years.[75][76]
Legal justification
On March 17, 2003, Lord Goldsmith, Attorney General of the UK, set out his government's legal justification for an invasion of Iraq. He said that Security Council resolution 678 authorised force against Iraq, which was suspended but not terminated by resolution 687, which imposed continuing obligations on Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction. A material breach of resolution 687 would revive the authority to use force under resolution 678. In resolution 1441 the Security Council determined that Iraq was in material breach of resolution 687 because it had not fully carried out its obligations to disarm. Although resolution 1441 had given Iraq a final chance to comply, UK Attorney General Goldsmith wrote "it is plain that Iraq has failed so to comply". Most member governments of the United Nations Security Council made clear that after resolution 1441 there still was no authorization for the use of force. Indeed, at the time 1441 was passed, both the U.S. and UK representatives stated explicitly that 1441 contained no provision for military action. Then-U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte was quoted as saying:
There's no "automaticity" and this is a two-stage process, and in that regard we have met the principal concerns that have been expressed for the resolution [...] Whatever violation there is, or is judged to exist, will be dealt with in the council, and the council will have an opportunity to consider the matter before any other action is taken.[78]
The British ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, concurred:
We heard loud and clear during the negotiations the concerns about "automaticity" and "hidden triggers" – the concern that on a decision so crucial we should not rush into military action; that on a decision so crucial any Iraqi violations should be discussed by the Council. Let me be equally clear in response, as one of the co-sponsors of the text we have adopted: there is no "automaticity" in this Resolution.[79]
The UN itself never had the chance to declare that Iraq had failed to take its "final opportunity" to comply as the U.S. invasion made it a moot point. American President George W. Bush stated that Saddam Hussein had 48 hours to step down and leave Iraq.[80]
Coalition expanded intelligence
On 30 May 2003,
In an interview with BBC in June 2004, David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, made the following comment: "Anyone out there holding – as I gather Prime Minister Blair has recently said – the prospect that, in fact, the Iraq Survey Group is going to unmask actual weapons of mass destruction, [is] really delusional."
In 2002,
We seized the entire records of the Iraqi Nuclear program, especially the administrative records. We got a name of everybody, where they worked, what they did, and the top of the list, Saddam's "Bombmaker" [which was the title of Hamza's book, and earned the nickname afterwards] was a man named Jafar Dhia Jafar, not Khidir Hamza, and if you go down the list of the senior administrative personnel you will not find Hamza's name in there. In fact, we didn't find his name at all. Because in 1990, he didn't work for the Iraqi nuclear program. He had no knowledge of it because he worked as a kickback specialist for Hussein Kamel in the Presidential Palace.
He goes into northern Iraq and meets up with
Ahmad Chalabi. He walks in and says, I'm Saddam's "Bombmaker". So they call the CIA and they say, "We know who you are, you're not Saddam's 'Bombmaker', go sell your story to someone else." And he was released, he was rejected by all intelligence services at the time, he's a fraud.
And here we are, someone who the
CIA knows is a fraud, the US Government knows is a fraud, is allowed to sit in front of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and give testimony as an expert witness. I got a problem with that, I got a problem with the American media, and I've told them over and over and over again that this man is a documentable fraud, a fake, and yet they allow him to go on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and testify as if he actually knows what he is talking about.[82]
On June 4, 2003, U.S. Senator
On February 3, 2004,
In the buildup to the 2003 war,
Despite the intelligence lapse, Bush stood by his decision to invade Iraq, stating:
But what wasn't wrong was Saddam Hussein had invaded a country, he had used weapons of mass destruction, he had the capability of making weapons of mass destruction, he was firing at our pilots. He was a state sponsor of terror. Removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing for world peace and the security of our country.
In a speech before the World Affairs Council of Charlotte, NC, on April 7, 2006, President Bush stated that he "fully understood that the intelligence was wrong, and [he was] just as disappointed as everybody else" when U.S. troops failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.[90]
Intelligence shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq was heavily used as support arguments in favor of military intervention, with the October 2002 C.I.A. report on Iraqi WMDs considered to be the most reliable one available at that time.[91]
"According to the CIA's report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons. There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons." Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) – Congressional Record, October 9, 2002[92]
On May 29, 2003, Andrew Gilligan appeared on the BBC's Today program early in the morning. He reported that the government "ordered (the September Dossier, a British Government dossier on WMD) to be sexed up, to be made more exciting, and ordered more facts to be...discovered."[93]
On 27 May 2003, a secret US
A spokesman for the DIA asserted that the team's findings were neither ignored nor suppressed, but were incorporated in the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the official search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The survey group's final report in September 2004, 15 months after the technical report was written, noted the trailers were "impractical" for biological weapons production and were "almost certainly intended" for manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons.[94]
US General Tommy Franks was quoted as saying: "I think no one in this country probably was more surprised than I when weapons of mass destruction were not used against our troops as they moved toward Baghdad."[95]
On 6 February 2004, U.S. President
against the government of Saddam Hussein.Iraq Survey Group
On May 30, 2003, the U.S. Department of Defense briefed the media that it was ready to formally begin the work of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), a fact-finding mission from the coalition of the Iraq occupation into the WMD programs developed by Iraq, taking over from the British-American 75th Exploitation Task Force.
Various nuclear facilities, including the
On September 30, 2004, the U.S. Iraq Survey Group issued its Final Report.[97] Among its key findings were:
- "Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted."[98]
- "Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq's WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq's economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities;"[98]
- "Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of [Iraq's WMD] policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq's principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary."[98]
- "The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam. Instead, his lieutenants understood WMD revival was his goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm, verbal comments and directions to them."[98]
- "Saddam did not consider the United States a natural adversary, as he did Iran and Israel, and he hoped that Iraq might again enjoy improved relations with the United States, according to Tariq 'Aziz and the presidential secretary."[98]
- Evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq's ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date;
- Concealment of the nuclear program in its entirety, as with Iraq's BW program. Aggressive UN inspections after Desert Storm forced Saddam to admit the existence of the program and destroy or surrender components of the program;
- After Desert Storm, Iraq concealed key elements of its program and preserved what it could of the professional capabilities of its nuclear scientific community;
- "Saddam's primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with UN inspections—to gain support for lifting sanctions—with his intention to preserve Iraq's intellectual capital for WMD with a minimum of foreign intrusiveness and loss of face. Indeed, this remained the goal to the end of the Regime, as the starting of any WMD program, conspicuous or otherwise, risked undoing the progress achieved in eroding sanctions and jeopardizing a political end to the embargo and international monitoring;"[98]
- A limited number of post-1995 activities would have aided the reconstitution of the nuclear weapons program once sanctions were lifted.
The report found that "The ISG has not found evidence that Saddam possessed WMD stocks in 2003, but [there is] the possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq, although not of a militarily significant capability." It also concluded that there was a possible intent to restart all banned weapons programs as soon as multilateral sanctions against it had been dropped, with Hussein pursuing WMD proliferation in the future: "There is an extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial, body of evidence suggesting that Saddam pursued a strategy to maintain a capability to return to WMD after sanctions were lifted..."[99] No senior Iraqi official interviewed by the ISG believed that Saddam had forsaken WMD forever.
On October 6, 2004, the head of the
After he began cooperating with U.S. forces in Baghdad in 2003, Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, who ran Saddam's nuclear centrifuge program until 1997, handed over blueprints for a nuclear centrifuge along with some actual centrifuge components, stored at his home – buried in the front yard – awaiting orders from Baghdad to proceed. He said, "I had to maintain the program to the bitter end." In his book The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind, the Iraqi nuclear engineer explains that his nuclear stash was the key that could have unlocked and restarted Saddam's bombmaking program. However, it would require a massive investment and a re-creation of thousands of centrifuges in order to reconstitute a full centrifugal enrichment program.
In a January 26, 2004, interview with Tom Brokaw of NBC news, Kay described Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs as being in a "rudimentary" stage. He also stated that "What we did find, and as others are investigating it, we found a lot of terrorist groups and individuals that passed through Iraq."[101] In responding to a question by Brokaw as to whether Iraq was a "gathering threat" as President Bush had asserted before the invasion, Kay answered:
Tom, an imminent threat is a political judgment. It's not a technical judgment. I think Baghdad was actually becoming more dangerous in the last two years than even we realized. Saddam was not controlling the society any longer. In the marketplace of terrorism and of WMD, Iraq well could have been that supplier if the war had not intervened.
In June 2004, the United States removed 2 tons of low-enriched uranium from Iraq, sufficient raw material for a single nuclear weapon.[102]
Demetrius Perricos, then head of UNMOVIC, stated that the Kay report contained little information not already known by UNMOVIC.[103] Many organizations, such as the journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, have claimed that Kay's report is a "worst case analysis".[104]
Captured documents
Operation Iraqi Freedom documents refers to some 48,000 boxes of documents, audiotapes and videotapes that were captured by the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many of these documents seem to make clear that Saddam's regime had given up on seeking a WMD capability by the mid-1990s. Associated Press reported, "Repeatedly in the transcripts, Saddam and his lieutenants remind each other that Iraq destroyed its chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s, and shut down those programs and the nuclear-bomb program, which had never produced a weapon." At one 1996 presidential meeting, top weapons program official Amer Mohammed Rashid describes his conversation with UN weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus: "We don't have anything to hide, so we're giving you all the details." At another meeting, Saddam told his deputies, "We cooperated with the resolutions 100 percent and you all know that, and the 5 percent they claim we have not executed could take them 10 years to (verify). Don't think for a minute that we still have WMD. We have nothing."
Post-war discoveries and incidents
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, several reported finds of chemical weapons were announced, including half a dozen incidents during the invasion itself.
In April 2003, US Marines stumbled across a number of buildings which emitted unusual levels of radiation. Upon close inspection the troops uncovered "many, many drums" containing low-grade uranium, also known as yellowcake. According to an expert familiar with UN nuclear inspections, US troops had arrived at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center and the material under investigation had been documented, stored in sealed containers and subject to supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency since 1991.[107][108] The material was transported out of Iraq in July 2008 and sold to Canadian uranium producer Cameco Corp., in a transaction described as worth "tens of millions of dollars."[109][110]
A post-war case occurred on January 9, 2004, when Icelandic munitions experts and Danish military engineers discovered 36 120-mm mortar rounds containing liquid buried in Southern Iraq. While initial tests suggested that the rounds contained a blister agent, subsequent analysis by American and Danish experts showed that no chemical agent was present.[111]
On May 2, 2004, a shell containing mustard gas was found in the middle of a street west of Baghdad. The Iraq Survey Group investigation reported that it had been previously "stored improperly", and thus the gas was "ineffective" as a useful chemical agent. Officials from the Defense Department commented that they were not certain if use was to be made of the device as a bomb.[112]
On May 16, 2004, a 152 mm artillery shell was used as an improvised bomb.[113] The shell exploded and two U.S. soldiers were treated for minor exposure to a nerve agent (nausea and dilated pupils). On May 18 it was reported by U.S. Department of Defense intelligence officials that tests showed the two-chambered shell contained the chemical agent sarin, the shell being "likely" to have contained three to four liters of the substance (in the form of its two unmixed precursor chemicals prior to the aforementioned explosion that had not effectively mixed them).[112] Former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay told the Associated Press that "he doubted the shell or the nerve agent came from a hidden stockpile, although he didn't rule out that possibility." Kay also considered it possible that the shell was "an old relic overlooked when Saddam said he had destroyed such weapons in the mid-1990s."[114] It is likely that the insurgents who planted the bomb did not know it contained sarin, according to Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, and another U.S. official confirmed that the shell did not have the markings of a chemical agent.[114] The Iraq Survey Group later concluded that the shell "probably originated with a batch that was stored in a Al Muthanna CW complex basement during the late 1980s for the purpose of leakage testing."[113]
In a July 2, 2004, article published by
In 2004, hundreds of chemical warheads were recovered from the desert close to the Iran–Iraq border. According to The Washington Post, the munitions "had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran". Officials did not consider the discovery as evidence of an ongoing weapons program that was believed to be in existence before the invasion began.[117]
The Iraqi government informed the United Nations in 2014 that insurgents affiliated with the
2005: Operation Avarice
This section relies largely or entirely on a single source. (December 2020) |
In 2005, the CIA collaborated with the
It is unknown how the individual acquired their stockpile.[120] Many of the weapons were badly degraded and were empty or held nonlethal liquid, but some of the weapons analyzed indicated a concentration of nerve agents far higher than military intelligence had initially expected given their age, with the highest "agent purity of up to 25 percent for recovered unitary sarin weapons".[120] At least once the undisclosed seller attempted to sell weapons with fake chemical components. In addition, he once "called the intel guys to tell them he was going to turn them over to the insurgents unless they picked them up."[120]
2006: House Armed Services Committee Hearing
On June 21, 2006, the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released key points from a classified report provided to them by the National Ground Intelligence Center on the recovery of chemical weapons in Iraq.[121] The declassified summary stated that "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent", that chemical munitions "are assessed to still exist" and that they "could be sold on the black market".[122] All weapons were thought to be manufactured in the 1980s and date to Iraq's war with Iran.[121] The report prompted US Senator Rick Santorum to hold a press conference in which he declared "We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."[123]
During a
In September of the same year, the report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on Postwar Findings stated that such discoveries were consistent with the ISG assessment that "Iraq and Coalition Forces will continue to discover small numbers of degraded chemical weapons, which the former Regime mislaid or improperly destroyed prior to 1991. The ISG believes the bulk of these weapons were likely abandoned, forgotten and lost during the Iran-Iraq war because tens of thousands of CW munitions were forward deployed along the frequently and rapidly shifting battle front."[127]
The New York Times investigative report
In October 2014, The New York Times reported that the total number of munitions discovered since 2003 had climbed to 4,990, and that U.S. servicemen had been exposed and injured during the disposal and destruction process.[128][129] US soldiers reporting exposure to mustard gas and sarin allege they were required to keep their exposure secret, sometimes declined admission to hospital and evacuation home despite the request of their commanders. "We were absolutely told not to talk about it" by a colonel, a former sergeant said.[129] "All [munitions] had been manufactured before 1991, participants said. Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. Some were empty, though many of them still contained potent mustard agent or residual sarin. Most could not have been used as designed, and when they ruptured dispersed the chemical agents over a limited area."[129]
According to the investigative report, "many chemical weapons incidents clustered around the ruins of the Muthanna State Establishment, the center of Iraqi chemical agent production in the 1980s." The facility had fallen under the supervision of United Nations weapons inspectors after the first Gulf War and was known to house approximately 2,500 corroded chemical munitions, but the vast building complex was left unmanned once hostilities commenced in 2003 and was subject to looting.[129] Participants in the discoveries postulated another reason to conceal their exposure, as some of the chemical shells "appeared to have been designed in the United States, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies."[129]
2009 Declaration
Iraq became a member state of the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2009, declaring "two bunkers with filled and unfilled chemical weapons munitions, some precursors, as well as five former chemical weapons production facilities" according to OPCW Director General Rogelio Pfirter.[130] No plans were announced at that time for the destruction of the material, although it was noted that the bunkers were damaged in the 2003 war and even inspection of the site must be carefully planned.
The declaration contained no surprises, OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan indicated. The production facilities were "put out of commission" by airstrikes during the 1991 conflict, while United Nations personnel afterward secured the chemical munitions in the bunkers. Luhan stated at the time: "These are legacy weapons, remnants." He declined to discuss how many weapons were stored in the bunkers or what materials they contained. The weapons were not believed to be in a usable state.[130]
The destruction of these remnants was completed in 2018.[131]
Public perception
In a study published in 2005,[132] a group of researchers assessed the effects reports and retractions in the media had on people's memory regarding the search for WMD in Iraq during the 2003 Iraq War. The study focused on populations in two coalition countries (Australia and USA) and one opposed to the war (Germany). This led to three conclusions:
- The repetition of tentative news stories, even if they are subsequently disconfirmed, can assist in the creation of false memories in a substantial proportion of people.
- Once information is published, its subsequent correction does not alter people's beliefs unless they are suspicious about the motives underlying the events the news stories are about.
- When people ignore corrections, they do so irrespective of how certain they are that the corrections occurred.
A poll conducted between June and September 2003 asked people whether they thought evidence of WMD had been discovered in Iraq. They were also asked which media sources they relied upon. Those who obtained their news primarily from Fox News were three times as likely to believe that evidence of WMD had been discovered in Iraq than those who relied on PBS and NPR for their news, and one-third more likely than those who primarily watched CBS.
Media source | Respondents believing evidence of WMD had been found in Iraq |
Fox | 33% |
CBS | 23% |
NBC | 20% |
CNN | 20% |
ABC | 19% |
Print media | 17% |
NPR
|
11% |
Based on a series of polls taken from June–September 2003.[133]
See also
- At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
- Alexander Coker
- Curveball (informant)
- David Kelly
- Dodgy Dossier
- Corinne Heraud
- Iraqi aluminum tubes
- Office of Special Plans
- Operation Rockingham
- Demetrius Perricos
- Project Babylon, a project with unknown objectives commissioned by Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to build a series of "superguns"
- Syria and weapons of mass destruction
- Yellowcake forgery
- The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
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Further reading
- Coletta, Giovanni. "Politicising intelligence: what went wrong with the UK and US assessments on Iraqi WMD in 2002" Journal of Intelligence History (2018) 17#1 pp 65–78 is a scholarly analysis.
- Isikoff, Michael. and David Corn. Hubris: The inside story of spin, scandal, and the selling of the Iraq War (2006) is journalistic.
- Jervis, Robert. 2010. Why Intelligence Fails Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War. Cornell University Press.
- Lake, David A. "Two cheers for bargaining theory: Assessing rationalist explanations of the Iraq War." International Security 35.3 (2010): 7–52.
- Braut-Hegghammer, Målfrid. 2020. "Cheater's Dilemma: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Path to War." International Security.
External links
- Web site
- Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Iraq
- WMD theories and conspiracies Archived 2020-09-07 at the Prospect magazine
- LookSmart – Iraq WMD Controversy directory category
- Washington Post article by Arthur Keller a former CIA case worker who worked on trying to find WMDs in Iraq
- Richard S. Tracey, Trapped by a Mindset: The Iraq WMD Intelligence Failure, 23 January 2007, Air & Space Power Journal.
- Teaser of upcoming documentary film Land of Confusion featuring Pennsylvania Army National Guard Soldiers assigned to the Iraq Survey Group in 2004–05.
- Annotated bibliography for the Iraqi nuclear weapons program from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues