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Iraq: Scientist Claims Baghdad Destroyed WMD Programs Shortly Before War Iraq destroyed most of its biological and chemical weapons equipment shortly before the war began, according to an Iraqi scientist cooperating with a U.S. military team searching for banned Iraqi weapons, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, April 18). Members of Mobile Exploration Team Alpha (MET Alpha), who located the scientist last week, would not identify him, fearing that he might be subject to reprisals. Military officials said the scientist told them that four days before U.S. President George W. Bush gave ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a 48-hour deadline to go into exile or face war, Iraqi officials destroyed a warehouse being used for biological weapons research. The scientist also said he had observed Iraqi officials burying chemical weapons precursors and other materials to preserve them for later use, the officials said. Over the past three days, the scientist has led MET Alpha to several sites where chemical precursors were buried, according to the Times. Military officials said the Iraqi scientist has told them that Iraq had begun destroying its biological and chemical stockpiles in the mid-1990s, had transported some materials to Syria, and had recently begun working on research and development programs that would have been difficult for U.N. inspectors to detect. The potential of MET Alpha’s work is “enormous,” said Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Army’s 101st Division. “What they’ve discovered could prove to be of incalculable value,” Petraeus said. “Though much work must still be done to validate the information MET Alpha has uncovered, if it proves out it will clearly be one of the major discoveries of this operation, and it may be the major discovery,” he added (Judith Miller, New York Times, April 21). Meanwhile, two Iraqi scientific experts have either recently surrendered or have been captured by coalition forces, according to reports. Coalition troops have arrested former Iraqi Higher Education and Scientific Research Minister Abd al-Khaliq Abd al-Ghafar, the U.S. Central Command said yesterday. A spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group, said al-Ghafar probably knows about Iraq’s nuclear weapons efforts. “We know about his background, and he is certainly involved with those banned programs,” INC spokesman Haider Ahmed said (Price/Knickmeyer, Associated Press, April 21). In addition, suspected VX expert Emad Husayn Abdullah al-Ani surrendered Friday (Andrew Gumbel, London Independent, April 20). Although U.S. officials have hoped that Iraqi scientists would provide assistance to U.S. personnel searching for banned weapons, many scientists and officials have refused to cooperate for fear of being prosecuted for war crimes, according to Time. One U.S. official described the responses of al-Ani and Iraqi Lt. Gen. Amir Saadi, formerly involved in Iraq’s chemical weapons program, during interrogations as: “Weapons of mass destruction? What weapons of mass destruction? We have no stinking weapons for you” (Nancy Gibbs, Time, April 20). U.N. Role Meanwhile, Russia plans to insist that U.N. inspectors make the final determination of Iraq’s disarmament before Moscow agrees to lift sanctions on Iraq, said a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official. Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei should be allowed to quickly resume their work in Iraq, the official said. “This could be done within a couple of weeks as it is obvious that there are no such weapons there,” ITAR-Tass quoted the official as saying (Reuters, April 21). A British Foreign Office official said today that any find of Iraqi WMD would need to be independently verified, which could possibly be done by U.N. inspectors. “We need to have some element of independent verification,” said British Foreign Office minister Mike O’Brien. “The U.N. inspectors are clearly a possibility for doing that,” he said (Jane Merrick, Press Association, April 21). Blair Rejects Parliamentary Inquiry Into Iraqi WMD Also in London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has rejected calls for an investigation into whether the British public was misled about the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to the London Independent. Members of the British Parliament have begun calling for an investigation into whether British intelligence misled officials. “We don’t believe any inquiry is needed, as we stand by our assessment that Saddam harbored an active WMD program,” a British spokesman said. “We have had a conflict to fight as well as getting humanitarian aid to the people, but we are confident of finding weapons of mass destruction in the longer term,” the spokesman said (Jo Dillon, London Independent, April 20).
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