Iraq is developing a WMD-capable, long-range missile, developing and hiding biological and nuclear weapons and using front companies to buy materials to build weapons of mass destruction, according to an Iraqi who claims to be a former intelligence agent (see GSN, Feb. 28).

The defector’s account, detailed in the May issue of Vanity Fair magazine, provided new and credible information, said Charles Duelfer, former deputy chairman of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, the organization that inspected Iraqi weapons sites after the Gulf War until 1998 (see GSN, April 4).

Long-Range Missiles

The defector said he was involved with a secret program code-named Tammooz to develop long-range missiles that could carry weapons of mass destruction 600 to 700 miles (see GSN, March 12).  Such a missile would allow Iraq to hit Cairo, Tehran and Cyprus as well as the Turkish and Saudi Arabian capitals of Ankara and Riyadh.

Iraq might try to extend that range by 500 miles, which would allow it to target southern Europe, according to Vanity Fair.

In the summer of 2000, when the defector fled Iraq, the Tammooz project was about half complete.  Iraq had built and tested the missile’s first and second stages with steel and carbon fiber that the country imported illegally.  If Iraq had acquired the necessary materials, it might have been ready to test the missile by the middle of 2001, the defector said.

The defector said he was sent to Dubai in August 2001 to make arrangements to buy Tammooz components in China, but he used the trip to defect, he said.

Other Missile Capabilities

Under the U.N. cease-fire resolution after the Gulf War, Iraq may legally have missiles with a range up to 93 miles.  It is common knowledge that Iraq has up to 40 “Hussein” missiles, adapted from the Russian Scud-B system, that can strike up to 400 miles away, Vanity Fair reported.  Those missiles lie hidden around the country on mobile launchers, the defector said.

Prior to the Gulf War, most missile sites were near Baghdad, but now they are spread around the country, the defector said.  Scientists develop and test missiles in al-Falluja, develop missile fuel near al-Musayyib, work on electronic guidance systems at al-Harith, build missile bodies at Abu Ghraib, develop heat-resistant foils and coatings at Ur and develop warhead propellants and covers near Taji, according to the defector.

Duelfer said the list of locations is “highly credible” and corroborates much of the information that he already has.

Iraq has also built more than 500 miles of reinforced roads to allow the military to move mobile launchers and fire missiles from various locations, the defector said.

“The roads are reinforced with rocks under the asphalt and renewed three times in a 21-month cycle,” he said.

Mobile Biological Weapons

The missiles are not the only mobile items in the Iraqi arsenal.  Iraq has portable biological weapons production facilities, according to the defector.

In 1996, the defector and the head of Iraq’s biological weapons program, Rehab Taha, created a plan to convert vehicles into biological weapons production factories so they could avoid detection by the U.N. weapons inspectors, according to the defector.

He said he legally bought eight heavy Renault trucks from France and engineers converted them into biological factories.

“They look like meat cars, yogurt cars,” the defector said.  “And inside is a laboratory with incubators for bacteria, microscopes, air-conditioning.”

The defector also said Iraq has a biological laboratory at Waziriyya, a Baghdad suburb.

Plutonium Considered

Iraq has also been busy trying to restore the nuclear weapon capability it had nearly achieved before the Gulf War, Vanity Fair reported.  Scientists in Iraq, including Ukrainians and other foreigners, have studied the feasibility of building another 20-megawatt reactor similar to the “Isis” reactor the United States destroyed in 1991, the defector said.

Such a reactor could produce enough plutonium for a nuclear bomb in two years, said former Iraqi nuclear scientist Khidhir Hamza.  Iraq would probably opt for enriching uranium rather than building a plant to produce plutonium, however, because the country already has the know-how and equipment and only needs certain machinery, Hamza said.

Radioactive Material

The defector, other members of the Mukhabarat Iraqi intelligence service, and Iraqi scientists went in 1994 to Tanzania where they met five Russians — or possibly Ukrainians — who sold them what the defector believes was radioactive material.

The East Europeans “had a trunk made of heavy metal, about a meter long, so heavy they could barely lift it.  They had a sports bag and took out gloves, face masks that were like gas masks and a small electronic gadget.  They opened the trunk, and the scientist bent over it.  Inside were what looked like pieces of black rock, glittery,” the defector said.

Some of the rock-like items were the size and shape of fingers, and others like lumps of coal, he said.  The scientist examined the material with a device that bleeped when near the material, different from a Geiger counter.  The scientist said the trunk should be resealed, and he washed himself and the trunk with decontaminants.

Some nuclear experts expressed skepticism about some details in the defector’s story, but they said the finger-like black objects sound similar to spent nuclear reactor fuel rods cut into sections, Vanity Fair reported.

The defector said he heard later that the merchandise arrived safely in Iraq.

If the material was radioactive, it could be used to build a conventional bomb to spread radioactive material, a “dirty bomb.”

“Iraq has demonstrated it is interested in building dirty weapons of this kind,” said Duelfer.

Front Companies Smuggle WMD Materials

Iraq was able to obtain some missile components and other military goods by setting up front companies to import goods illegally under U.N. sanctions, the defector said, adding he was intricately involved with the companies.

“Why do you think televisions and refrigerators imported from Jordan go to Iraq via Dubai?” he said.  A front company in the United Arab Emirates stuffs casings with illegal items and moves them to Iraq.  The companies also bought military equipment and raw materials, the defector said.

The defector helped organize the process by communicating Iraqi military needs to the front companies.

“They’d say they needed missile covers, carbon fiber, supercomputers, missile ignition systems, electronic parts, thermal lenses for radar receivers, fuel for missiles,” and he would help the military acquire the items, he said.

Why Defect

After several years in the Mukhabarat, the defector helped a friend establish what he thought was a harmless Shiite Muslim newspaper.  Iraqi authorities believed the paper was part of an attempt to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and the man was arrested along with 28 others.

Iraqi agents tortured the defector for six months, including showing him videos of young children being tortured and threatening to do the same to his family.  He refused to confess to anything, and eventually the authorities released him and returned him to his job in the intelligence agency.

Hamza, the former nuclear scientist who also defected, said returning people to sensitive jobs after torturing them is common under the Iraqi regime.

Once freed, however, the defector decided to gather information and then defect.  He worked on the missile project and fled in August 2000.

The Iraqi National Congress, an opposition party working mostly outside Iraq, put the defector in contact with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and Vanity Fair.  The INC is trying to rescue his family from Iraq, according to Vanity Fair.

Credibility

“I haven’t found anything to make me disbelieve him,” Duelfer said after reviewing the defector’s testimony.  “What he describes is consistent with what we know about how Iraq operates … His evidence tells us that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program has only accelerated since UNSCOM was expelled from the country in 1998.”

The defector provided new and important information about Iraq’s front companies and biological weapons program, Duelfer said.

The defector’s information is similar to information from another defector, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, who had been a construction contractor to several WMD sites (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2001).

“Neither man knows what the other has told us,” said Nabeel Musawi, an INC agent.  “But they’re saying the same thing about weapons types and where they’re being made” (David Rose, Vanity Fair, May 2002).

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