British Government

“ Almost all components and supplies used in weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes are dual-use. For example, any major petrochemical or biotech industry, as well as public health organisations, will have legitimate need for most materials and equipment required to manufacture chemical and biological weapons. Without UN weapons inspectors it is very difficult therefore to be sure about the true nature of many of Iraq’s facilities. ”

“ Persecution of Iraq’s Kurds continues, although the protection provided by the northern No-Fly Zone has helped to curb the worst excesses. But outside this zone the Baghdad regime has continued a policy of persecution and intimidation. The regime has used chemical weapons against the Kurds, most notably in an attack on the town of Halabja in 1988 (see Part 1 Chapter 2 paragraph 9) . The implicit threat of the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds and others is an important part of Saddam’s attempt to keep the civilian population under control. ”

“ It shows that Saddam Hussein attaches great importance to possessing weapons of mass destruction which he regards as the basis for Iraq’s regional power. It shows that he does not regard them only as weapons of last resort. ”

“ Unless we face up to the threat, not only do we risk undermining the authority of the UN, whose resolutions he defies, but more importantly and in the longer term, we place at risk the lives and prosperity of our own people. ”

“ The Ba’ath Party is the only legal political party in Iraq. It pervades all aspects of Iraqi life. Membership, around 700,000, is necessary for self- advancement and confers benefits from the regime.
Saddam acts to ensure that there are no other centres of power in Iraq. He has crushed parties and ethnic groups, such as the communists and the Kurds, which might try to assert themselves. Members of the opposition abroad have been the targets of assassination attempts conducted by Iraqi security services. ”

“ Intelligence indicates that Iraq also retains the accompanying programme documentation and data. Intelligence shows that the present Iraqi programme is almost certainly seeking an indigenous ability to enrich uranium to the level needed for a nuclear weapon. It indicates that the approach is based on gas centrifuge uranium enrichment, one of the routes Iraq was following for producing fissile material before the Gulf War. But Iraq needs certain key equipment, including gas centrifuge components and components for the production of fissile material before a nuclear bomb could be developed. ”

“ Intelligence indicates that Saddam is determined to retain this capability and recognises that Iraqi political weight would be diminished if Iraq’s military power rested solely on its conventional military forces. Iraqi attempts to retain its existing banned weapons systems: Iraq is already taking steps to prevent UN weapons inspectors finding evidence of its chemical and biological weapons programme. Intelligence indicates that Saddam has learnt lessons from previous weapons inspections, has identified possible weak points in the inspections process and knows how to exploit them. ”

“ Opposition to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war
During the war Saddam’s security apparatus ensured that any internal dissent or opposition was quickly eliminated. In 1982 he quickly purged a group within Iraq’s ruling clique which had suggested that the war might be brought to an end more quickly if Saddam stood down.
It is estimated that the Iran-Iraq war cost the two sides a million casualties. Iraq used chemical weapons extensively from 1984. Some twenty thousand Iranians were killed by mustard gas and the nerve agents tabun and sarin, all of which Iraq still possesses. ”

“ UNSCR 707, August 1991, stated that Iraq must provide full, final and complete disclosure of all its programmes for weapons of mass destruction and provide unconditional and unrestricted access to UN inspectors. For over a decade Iraq has been in breach of this resolution. Iraq must also cease all nuclear activities of any kind other than civil use of isotopes. ”

“ In July 1998 Tariq Aziz personally intervened in the inspection process stating that the biological programme was more secret and more closed than other mass destruction weaponry programmes. He also played down the significance of the programme. Iraq has presented the biological weapons programme as the personal undertaking of a few misguided scientists. At the same time, Iraq tried to maintain its nuclear weapons programme via a concerted campaign to deceive IAEA inspectors. ”

“ Agricultural land owned by Kurds has been confiscated and redistributed to Iraqi Arabs. Arabs from southern Iraq have been offered incentives to move into the Kirkuk area. After the 1979 revolution that ousted the Shah in Iran, Saddam intensified a campaign against the Shia Muslim majority of Iraq, fearing that they might be encouraged by the new Shia regime in Iran.On 1 March 1991, in the wake of the Gulf War, riots broke out in the southern city of Basra, spreading quickly to other cities in Shia-dominated southern Iraq. The regime responded by killing thousands. ”

“ Iraq’s long-standing civil nuclear power programme is limited to small scale research. Activities that could be used for military purposes are prohibited by UNSCR 687 and 715. Iraq has no nuclear power plants and therefore no requirement for uranium as fuel. Iraq has a number of nuclear research programmes in the fields of agriculture, biology, chemistry, materials and pharmaceuticals. None of these activities requires more than tiny amounts of uranium which Iraq could supply from its own resources. ”

“ Many Shia tried to escape to Iran and Saudi Arabia. Some of the Shia hostile to the regime sought refuge in the marshland of southern Iraq. In order to subjugate the area, Saddam embarked on a large-scale programme to drain the marshes to allow Iraqi ground forces to eliminate all opposition there. The rural population of the area fled or were forced to move to southern cities or across the border into Iran. ”

“ But we know from intelligence that some items have found their way to the Iraqi ballistic missile programme. More will inevitably continue to do so. Intelligence makes it clear that Iraqi procurement agents and front companies in third countries are seeking illicitly to acquire propellant chemicals for Iraq’s ballistic missiles. This includes production level quantities of near complete sets of solid propellant rocket motor ingredients such as aluminium powder, ammonium perchlorate and hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene. ”

“ IRAQ UNDER SADDAM HUSSEIN
Introduction
The Republic of Iraq is bounded by Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Syria and the Persian Gulf. Its population of around 23 million is ethnically and religiously diverse. Approximately 77% are Arabs. Sunni Muslims form around 17% of the Arab population and dominate the government. About 60% of Iraqis are Shias and 20% are Kurds. The remaining 3% of the population consists of Assyrians, Turkomans, Armenians, Christians and Yazidis. ”

“ Based on the UNSCOM report to the UN Security Council in January 1999 and earlier UNSCOM reports, we assess that when the UN inspectors left Iraq they were unable to account for: up to 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agent, including 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent; up to 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals, including approximately 300 tonnes which, in the Iraqi chemical warfare programme, were unique to the production of VX; growth media procured for biological agent production (enough to produce over three times the 8,500 litres of anthrax spores Iraq admits to having manufactured) ”

“ Iraq decided to concentrate on gas centrifuges as the means for producing the necessary fissile material. Centrifuge facilities were also under construction, but the centrifuge design was still being developed. In August 1990 Iraq instigated a crash programme to develop a single nuclear weapon within a year. This programme envisaged the rapid development of a small 50 machine gas centrifuge cascade to produce weapons-grade HEU using fuel from the Soviet research reactor, which was already substantially enriched, and unused fuel from the reactor bombed by the Israelis. ”

“ The system for hiding proscribed material relies on high mobility and good command and control. It uses lorries to move items at short notice and most hide sites appear to be located close to good road links and telecommunications. The Baghdad area was particularly favoured. In addition to active measures to hide material from the UN, Iraq has attempted to monitor, delay and collect intelligence on UN operations to aid its overall deception plan. ”

“ Operation Desert Fox targeted industrial facilities related to Iraq’s ballistic missile programme and a suspect biological warfare facility as well as military airfields and sites used by Iraq’s security organisations which are involved in its weapons of mass destruction programmes. Key facilities associated with Saddam Hussein’s ballistic missile programme were significantly degraded. ”

“ A person who is hungry can eat anything. Pieces of our bodies started falling off from the beatings and our skin was so dry that it began to fall off. I ate pieces of my own body. “No one, not Pushkin, not Mahfouz, can describe what happened to us. It is impossible to describe what living this day to day was like. ”

“ Saddam’s extensive security apparatus and Ba’ath Party network provides oversight of Iraqi society, with informants in social, government and military organisations. Saddam practises torture, execution and other forms of coercion against his enemies, real or suspected. His targets are not only those who have offended him, but also their families, friends or colleagues. ”

“ According to information, subsequently supplied by the Iraqis, the total production capacity in 1991 was 4,000 tonnes of agent per annum, but we assess it could have been higher. Al-Muthanna was supported by three separate storage and precursor production facilities known as Fallujah 1, 2 and 3 near Habbaniyah, north west of Baghdad, parts of which were not completed before they were heavily bombed in the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq started biological warfare research in the mid-1970s. ”

“ Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are in breach of international law. Under a series of UN Security Council Resolutions Iraq is obliged to destroy its holdings of these weapons under the supervision of UN inspectors. ”

“ The Higher Security Committee (HSC) of the Presidential Office was in overall command of deception operations. The system was directed from the very highest political levels within the Presidential Office and involved, if not Saddam himself, his youngest son, Qusai. ”

“ Prisoners at the Qurtiyya Prison in Baghdad and elsewhere are kept in metal boxes the size of tea chests. If they do not confess they are left to die. Saddam has issued a series of decrees establishing severe penalties for criminal offences. ”

“ Threats were made to inspectors who remained on watch outside the building. The inspection team had reliable evidence that the site contained archives related to proscribed activities; in 1991–2 Iraq objected to UNSCOM using its own helicopters and choosing its own flight plans. In January 1993 it refused to allow UNSCOM the use of its own aircraft to fly into Iraq; refusing to allow UNSCOM to install remote-controlled monitoring cameras at two key missile sites (June-July 1993) ; repeatedly denying access to inspection teams (1991- December 1998) ”

“ Human rights abuses continue within Iraq. People continue to be arrested and detained on suspicion of political or religious activities or often because they are related to members of the opposition. Executions are carried out without due process of law. Relatives are often prevented from burying the victims in accordance with Islamic practice. Thousands of prisoners have been executed.
Human rights: abuses under Saddam Hussein
4000 prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib Prison in 1984. ”

“ These explosives also require a complex arrangement of detonators, explosive charges to produce an even and rapid compression of the core; sophisticated electronics to fire the explosives; a neutron initiator to provide initial burst of neutrons to start the nuclear reactions. ”

“ I believe that faced with the information available to me, the UK Government has been right to support the demands that this issue be confronted and dealt with. We must ensure that he does not get to use the weapons he has, or get hold of the weapons he wants. ”

“ Women prisoners at Mahjar are routinely raped by their guards. Methods of torture used in Iraqi jails include using electric drills to mutilate hands, pulling out fingernails, knife cuts, sexual attacks and ‘official rape’. ”

“ However, they suspected that he was executed because of his friendship with a retired army general who had links with the Iraqi opposition outside the country and who was arrested just before his arrest and also executed. ”