Friday October 08, 2004
by Bjørn Stærk
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Here's what the Duelfer report actually says about Saddam Hussein and his WMD intentions. From the key findings:
About UN sanctions:
Throughout the 1990s and up to OIF (March 2003), Saddam focused on one set of objectives: the survival of himself, his Regime, and his legacy. To secure those objectives, Saddam needed to exploit Iraqi oil assets, to portray a strong military capability to deter internal and external threats, and to foster his image as an Arab leader. Saddam recognized that the reconstitution of Iraqi WMD enhanced both his security and image. Consequently, Saddam needed to end UN-imposed sanctions to fulfill his goals.
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[Saddam's] initial belief that UN sanctions would not last, resulting in his country's economic decline, changed by 1998 when the UNSC did not lift sanctions after he believed resolutions were fulfilled. Although Saddam had reluctantly accepted the UN's Oil for Food (OFF) program by 1996, he recognized its economic value and additional opportunities for further manipulation and influence of the UNSC Iraq 661 Sanctions Committee member states. Therefore, he resigned himself to the continuation of UN sanctions understanding that they would become a "paper tiger" regardless of continued US resolve to maintain them.
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Saddam considered UN sanctions as a form of economic war and the UN's OFF program and the Northern and Southern Watch Operations as campaigns of that larger economic war orchestrated by the US and UK. His evolving strategy centered on breaking free of UN sanctions in order to liberate his economy from the strangle-hold so he could continue to pursue his political and personal objectives.
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The Regime financed these government-sanctioned programs by several illicit revenue streams that amassed more that $11 billion from the early 1990s to OIF outside the UN-approved methods. The most profitable stream concerned Protocols or government-to-government agreements that generated over $7.5 billion for Saddam. Iraq earned an additional $2b billion from kickbacks or surcharges associated with the UN's OFF program; $990 million from oil "cash sales" or smuggling; and another $230 million fro mother surcharge impositions.
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The Ministry of Oil (MoO) controlled the oil voucher distribution program that used oil to influence UN members to support Iraq's goals. Saddam personally approved and removed names of voucher recipients.
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By mid-2000 the exponential growth of Iraq's illicit revenue, increased international sympathy for Iraq's humanitarian plight, and increased complicity by Iraqi's neighbors led elements with Saddam's Regime to boast that the UN sanctions were slowly eroding.
Missiles:
The Iraqi Survey Group (ISG) has uncovered no evidence Iraq retained Scud-variant missiles, and debriefings of Iraqi officialis in addition to some documentation suggests that Iraq did not retain such missiles after 1991.
While other WMD programs were strictly prohibited, the UN permitted Iraq to develop and possess delivery systems provided their range did not exceed 150 km. This freedom allowed Iraq to keep its scientists and technicians employed and to keep its infrastructure and manufacturing base largely intact by pursuing programs nominally in compliance with the UN limitations. This positioned Iraq for a potential breakout capability.
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Iraq's decision in 1996 to accept the Oil-For-Food program (OFF) and later in 1998 to cease cooperation with UNSCOM and IAEA spurred a period of increased activity in delivery systems development. The pace of ongoing missile programs accelerated, and the Regime authorized its scientists to design missiles with ranges in excess of 150 km that, if developed, would have been clear violations of UNSCR 687.
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Given Iraq's investment in technology and infrastructure improvement, an effective procurement network, skilled scientists, and designs already on the books for longer ranging missiles, ISG assesses that Saddam clearly intended to reconstitute long-range delivery systems and that the systems potentially were for WMD.
Nuclear weapons:
Saddam Husay ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest efforts to restart the program.
Although Saddam clearly assigned a high value to the nuclear progress and talent that had been developed up to the 1991 war, the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years.
Nevertheless, after 1991, Saddam did express his intent to retain the intellectual capital developed during the Iraqi Nuclear Program. Senior Iraqis - several of them from the Regime's inner circle - told ISG they assumed Saddam would restart a nuclear program once UN sanctions ended.
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As with other WMD areas, Saddam's ambitions in the nuclear area were secondary to his prime objective of ending UN sanctions.
Chemical weapons:
Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a [Chemical Warfare] effort when sanctions where lifted and conditions were judged favorable: Saddam and many Iraqis regarded CW as a proven weapon against an enemy's superior numerical strength, a weapon that had saved the nation at least once already - during the Iran-Iraq war - and contributed to deterring the Coalition in 1991 from advancing to Baghdad.
While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stocpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumes production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad's desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.
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The way Iraq organized its chemical industry after the mid-1990s allowed it to conserve the knowledge-base needed to restart a CW program, conduct a modet amount of dual-use researach, and partially recover from the decline of its production capability caused by the effects of the Gulf war and UN-sponsored destruction and sanctions. Iraq implemented a rigorous and formalized system of nationwide research and production of chemicals, but ISG will not be able to resolve whether Iraq intended the system to underpine any CW-related efforts.
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ISG judges, based on available chemicals, infrastructure, and scientist debriefings, that Iraq at OIF probably had a capability to produce large quantities of sulfur mustard within three to six months.
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ISG found no credible evidence that any field elements knew about plans for CW use during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
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ISG investigated a series of key pre-OIF indictators, involving the possible movement and storage of chemical weapons, focusing on 11 major depots assessed to have possible links to CW. A review of documents, interviews, available reporting, and site exploitations revealed alternate, plausible explanations for activities noted prior to OIF whic, at the time, were believed to be CW-related.
Biological weapons:
At a meeting of the Iraqi leadership immediately prior to the Gulf war in 1991, Saddam Husayn personally authorized the use of BW weapons against Israel, Saudi Arabia and US forces. Although the exact nature of the circumstances that would trigger use was not spelled out, they would appear to be a threat to the leadership itself, or the US resorting to "unconventional harmful types of weapons.
Saddam envisaged all-out use. For example, all Israeli cities were to be struck and all the BW weapons at his disposal were to be used. Saddam specified that the "many years" agenst, presumably anthrax spores, were to be exmployed against his foes.
ISG judges that Iraq's actions between 1991 and 1996 demonstrate that the state intended to preserve its BW capability and return to a steady methodical progress toward a mature BW program when and if the opportunity arose.
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With the economy at rock bottom in late 1995, ISG judges that Baghdad abandoned its existing BW program in the belief that it constituted a potential embarrasment, whose discovery would undercut Baghdad's ability to reach its overarching goal of obtaining relief from UN sanctions.
In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambitions to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level.
Iraq would have faced great difficulty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability. Nevertheless, after 1996 Iraq still had a significant dual-use capability - some declared - readily useful for BW if the Regime chose to use it to pursue a BW program. Moreover, Iraq still possessed its most important BW asset, the scientific know-how of its BW cadre.
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