Barring U.S. military action, Iraq appears unlikely to launch an attack against the United States with weapons of mass destruction, CIA Director George Tenet said Monday in a letter accompanying declassified materials sent to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (see GSN, Oct. 8).

“Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW (chemical and biological weapons) against the United States,” Tenet wrote in the letter to committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.).

The letter makes public a previously classified section of testimony given by an unnamed senior intelligence witness during an Oct. 2 closed hearing, in which the witness said that the likelihood of an unprovoked attack by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is “low.”

“My judgment would be that the probability of him initiating an attack — let me put a time frame on it — in the foreseeable future, given the conditions we understand now, the likelihood I think would be low,” the witness said in response to questioning by Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

If Hussein believed the United States planned to attack Iraq, however, he would probably be less constrained from launching attacks that might include chemical and biological weapons, Tenet wrote.

“Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him,” he wrote.

During the Oct. 2 closed hearing, Levin asked the witness to gauge the possibility that Iraq would use chemical or biological weapons in response to U.S. military action, according to the Tenet letter.  “Pretty high, in my view,” the witness answered.

The CIA has had “solid reporting” of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda over the past 10 years, Tenet wrote in the letter.  The contacts have discussed safe haven arrangements and reciprocal nonaggresssion, he wrote.  Since the war on terrorism began last year, there has been evidence that al-Qaeda members have been in Iraq, including Baghdad, he wrote.

“We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities,” Tenet wrote.  “The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs” (New York Times, Oct. 8).

The comments and information in the letter do not damage the case that U.S. President George W. Bush made against Iraq in a speech Monday night, Tenet said in a statement released yesterday.

“There is no inconsistency between our view of Saddam’s growing threat and the view as expressed by the president in his speech,” Tenet said.  “Although we think the chances of Saddam initiating a WMD attack at this moment are low —in part because it would constitute an admission that he possesses WMD — there is no question that the likelihood of Saddam using WMD against the United States or our allies in the region for blackmail, deterrence, or otherwise grows as his arsenal continues to build” (Dana Priest, Washington Post, Oct. 9).

New Evidence

U.S. officials have said that Iraq has rebuilt several sites that were associated in the past with the country’s nuclear weapons program, possibly indicating increased efforts to develop a weapon, the Associated Press reported today.

New structures have been built at al-Furat centrifuge development center, the Nassr/Taji Steel Fabrication and Military Production Facility, al-Qa’im uranium ore refinery and the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, the AP reported.  All four sites were damaged during the 1991 Gulf War and U.S. and British airstrikes conducted in 1998.

A recently released CIA report said that Iraq has attempted several times to obtain aluminum tubes for use in a uranium-enrichment centrifuge, placing special importance on al-Furat, according to the AP (see GSN, Oct. 7).  The Nassr/Taji facility contains much of the precision manufacturing equipment that would be needed in a nuclear program, a U.S. defense official said (Matt Kelley, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Oct. 9).

Inspection Rules

Meanwhile, in a letter sent yesterday to Iraqi presidential adviser Gen. Amir al-Saadi, U.N. weapons inspectors outlined the rules by which Iraq would be expected to abide during inspections (see GSN, Oct. 8).

The letter, written by Hans Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, details the agreements made by U.N. inspectors and Iraqi officials during recent meetings in Vienna (see GSN, Oct. 2).

At the Vienna meetings, Iraq agreed to grant inspectors “immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites,” including those that had been classified as sensitive during past inspections, according to Reuters.  Hussein’s eight presidential palaces would still be subjected to protections outlined in a 1998 U.N. Security Council memorandum (see GSN, Oct. 2).

According to the letter, UNMOVIC and the IAEA will have the right to determine the number of inspectors that will be used at each inspection site.  Iraq will be informed of new sites once inspectors arrive at a location and will safeguard aircraft in the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.  Iraq must also allow inspectors to interview anyone they wish, it must not interfere with any data transmissions and it must provide inspectors with accommodations and offices, including a northern office in Mosul and a southern office in Basra (Reuters/MSNBC, Oct. 9).

Iraq has already begun preparations to conceal equipment and documents related to its WMD program, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency official John Yurechko said during a Pentagon briefing yesterday.

“We think they’re fairly accomplished masters,” said Yurechko, a specialist in what intelligence officials call “denial and deception” techniques.

Iraqi officials have become particularly proficient in adjusting to inspection methods by, for example, disabling surveillance cameras or conducting activities outside of camera range, Yurechko said.  Iraq has begun training “large numbers” of officials in concealment techniques and has developed “alert and warning” procedures to have maximum time to remove materials before inspectors arrive at a site, he said.

“They’re improving on a daily basis,” Yurechko said (Graham/Lynch, Washington Post, Oct. 9).

Security Council

In New York, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council met for two hours yesterday to continue negotiations on a new U.N. resolution on Iraq, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Oct. 4).  The 10 other members of the council, which are each elected to two-year terms, have yet to see a draft resolution, AP reported.

“We are making progress,” a U.S. official said after the meeting.

“There is no piece of paper being put down in the council at this moment and I would suggest to you there may not be for a few days yet,” said British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Oct. 9).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

U.N. Resolution 687 (Sanctions Regime)

U.N. Resolution 1409 (“Smart Sanctions”)

U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Iraqi Sanctions Revisions

IAEA Iraq Action Team

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