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Iraq: Powell Details Chemical Weapons Accusations for Security Council Iraq has a chemical weapons stockpile and is hiding it from U.N. inspectors, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council yesterday. Powell showed a photograph of what he said were four chemical bunkers at Taji. The bunkers had specialty security facilities and decontamination trucks, he said (White House release, Feb. 5). Jonathan Tucker, a former weapons inspector and a chemical and biological expert, supported Powell’s assertions. “I have no doubt that those trucks are decontamination trucks,” Tucker said. The photographs also appear to be intentionally blurred to obscure the ability of U.S. satellites, he said (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, Feb. 6). Powell then showed a later picture of the alleged chemical bunkers. “The signature vehicles are gone, the tents are gone, it’s been cleaned up, and it was done on the 22nd of December, as the U.N. inspection team is arriving,” he said. Powell said that U.S. officials suspected Iraq was alerted to plans for the Taji visit. “We know that Iraq today is actively using its considerable intelligence capabilities to hide its illicit activities. From our sources, we know that inspectors are under constant surveillance by an army of Iraqi intelligence operatives. Iraq is relentlessly attempting to tap all of their communications, both voice and electronics,” he said. Powell then showed another facility that he said was used to transfer chemical weapons from production sites to field units. Human and photographic intelligence indicated that the site was chemical-related and Iraqi forces later removed a layer of topsoil to hide evidence, he said, showing another photograph. “The Iraqis literally removed the crust of the earth from large portions of this site in order to conceal chemical weapons evidence that would be there from years of chemical weapons activity,” Powell said. Iraq has also been illicitly importing equipment, according to Powell. “Iraq’s procurement efforts include equipment that can filter and separate microorganisms and toxins involved in biological weapons, equipment that can be used to concentrate the agent, growth media that can be used to continue producing anthrax and botulinum toxin, sterilization equipment for laboratories, glass-lined reactors and specialty pumps that can handle corrosive chemical weapons agents and precursors, large amounts of vinyl chloride, a precursor for nerve and blister agents, and other chemicals such as sodium sulfide, an important mustard agent precursor,” Powell said. Iraq’s claims that the equipment was for legitimate purposes falls apart, Powell said, because the imports were only learned of through communications intercepts. U.S. officials also claimed to intercept another message, in which two men are heard discussing nerve gas. One man tells the other to remove any mention of nerve agents from a “wireless communication.” “Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets,” Powell said (White House release, Feb. 5). Tucker said that amount of chemical weaponry would be militarily insignificant. “It would be at the margin of significance from a military point of view,” he said. “But obviously it would be of much greater concern for terrorism,” he added (Warrick, Washington Post).
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