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20 Iraqi Missile Engines Found in Jordan; U.N. Says Looted Weapons, Equipment Shipped Abroad
Twenty banned Iraqi missile engines and other equipment that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction were found in a Jordanian scrap yard, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, June 8). Acting Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Demetrius Perricos reported the discovery to the Security Council during a closed-door briefing. The findings raise questions as to the whereabouts of Iraqi equipment that could be used to produce biological and chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles. Perricos told the Security Council that U.N. inspectors do not know how much monitored military equipment has been removed from Iraq. Up to 1,000 tons of scrap metal is taken out of Iraq each day, he told reporters after the meeting (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 9). During his presentation, Perricos also showed satellite photos of a missile site near Baghdad that had been stripped since May 2003, the New York Times reported. A spokesman for Perricos later said fermenters, a freeze drier, distillation columns, missile parts and a reactor vessel were removed from the site. The items could be used for developing chemical or biological weapons, the Times reported. “It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for,” said spokesman Ewen Buchanan. He said a fermenter was a good example of a dual-use item. “You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter,” he said. “You can also use it to breed anthrax,” he added (Warren Hoge, New York Times, June 10).
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