Posted on 02/04/2003 4:17:51 PM PST by knighthawk
In 1971, Iraq began research into chemical weapons at a small site in Rashad, northeast of Baghdad. Through the 1970s, development continued at another site, known as al-Muthanna, where chemical agents were both produced and weaponized. These efforts bore fruit just in time for the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when chemical weapons were used on several occasions.
But there is no "smoking gun."
Biological warfare research was underway as long ago as the mid-1970s, at the Salman Pak site 35 kilometres south of Baghdad. It was the appointment of Dr. Rihab Taha as head of research in 1985, however, that marked the real launch of the program. Production began in 1988, with weaponization testing and arming of warheads carried out at the al-Muthanna site. In addition, research was carried out at several "civilian" facilities. All of this was admitted by Iraq in declarations to the United Nations after the Gulf War.
But there is no "smoking gun."
All told, by 1991 Iraq had produced -- again, by its own admission -- 19,000 litres of botulinum toxin, 8,500 litres of anthrax and 2,200 litres of aflatoxin, among other biological agents. In addition, it had produced 2,850 tonnes of mustard gas, 210 tonnes of tabun, 795 tonnes of sarin and cyclosarin, and 3.9 tonnes of VX, an especially deadly nerve agent.
But there is no "smoking gun."
Iraq has been conducting nuclear research since the 1960s, initially with the help of the Soviet Union. Swelling oil revenues in the mid-1970s gave fresh impetus to the program, allowing Iraq to purchase a nuclear reactor -- from the French, as it happens. (The co-signatories on the deal: Saddam Hussein and Jacques Chirac.) The reactor was to be powered by highly-enriched uranium, the kind that can be used as fissile material in a nuclear bomb. No one was in any doubt what the reactor's real purpose was, in a country with the world's second largest reserves of oil. Saddam even boasted to the Lebanese weekly Al Usbu al-Arabi, "the agreement with France is the first concrete step toward production of the Arab atomic bomb." The Osirak reactor was about to become operational in 1981 when it was destroyed in an Israeli bombing raid.
Undaunted, Iraq set about rebuilding its program. Attempts were made to enrich uranium, first by means of a technology known as electromagnetic isotope separation, later using gas centrifuge enrichment. By the time of the Gulf War, international inspectors were later to learn, Iraq was just months away from the bomb.
But there is no "smoking gun."
All of this is now admitted by the Iraqis. But such was not always the case. Even after the Gulf War, Iraq denied it had ever had a biological weapons program. It maintained this stance for four years, even as UN inspectors crawled about the country. It was not until 1995, and the defection of two of Saddam's sons-in-law, that the regime was forced to come clean. Likewise, Iraq initially denied having ever produced VX, until evidence from Saddam's turncoat relatives confirmed that it had. Other high-level Iraqi defectors, such as the scientist Khidir Hamza, have revealed that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued, right under the inspectors' noses.
But there is no "smoking gun."
The inspectors were successful in finding and destroying large quantities of chemical weapons, as well as the bulk of Iraq's nuclear weapons infrastructure. They did this, all the same, in the face of near-constant obstruction, harassment and deception. Saddam's refusal to co-operate, as he had promised to do under the terms of the ceasefire at the close of the Gulf War, prompted a series of resolutions of escalating severity from the UN Security Council. These were backed by comprehensive sanctions, plus the occasional show of force, culminating in the Clinton's administration decision to launch military strikes in 1998.
Yet nothing -- not resolutions, not inspections, not sanctions, not even the odd cruise missile -- nothing would persuade Saddam to disclose what he had done with his chemical and biological arsenals. By the time the UN inspectors were forced to leave, after seven years of trying, they were still unable to account for 360 tonnes of chemical weapons, including 1.5 tonnes of VX; nearly 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals; growth media for biological weapons, enough to produce 25,000 litres of anthrax spores -- or nearly three times as much as Iraq had earlier admitted to having. In addition, over 30,000 warheads fitted for delivery of chemical and biological weapons were still missing. That was four years ago.
What, then, do we know about Saddam's chemical and biological weapons? We know that he had them, he used them, he hid them, and he lied about them. We know, in addition, that he wants nuclear weapons, has spent many years trying to get them, and has the expertise to produce them, lacking only the fissile material. And we know that to this day he refuses to co-operate with inspections, or to provide even a single piece of evidence to back his claim that all of his vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed or lost -- when with a word he could lift the sanctions and end the threat of war.
But there is no "smoking gun."
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