New Zealand:  Terrorist Group Threatens Cyanide Attack on Yacht Race

A terrorist group in New Zealand calling itself September 11 has threatened that it possesses 55 pounds of cyanide and will use it against U.S. interests and the America’s Cup yacht race in the event of war with Iraq, New Zealand police said today (see GSN, Feb. 7).

The threat was contained in four letters sent to the Australian, British and U.S. embassies in Wellington and a newspaper in Auckland, according to the Associated Press.  One of the letters, which was intercepted by postal officials, contained cyanide crystals, said counterterrorism police chief Assistant Commissioner Jon White.  All the letters contained a still-unknown white powder, he added.

“September 11 waits at the Americas Cup for instruction if Iraq is attacked by the host of satan all interests and there supporters will be attacked by September 11,” the poorly written letters say.  “September has stockpiled 25 kilo (about 55 pounds) weapon grade cyanide and will use those against those interests wherever they are,” they add.

In response, New Zealand police have begun reviewing security at the America’s Cup and recommended people to be careful of food served in public, according to AP.  At the race venue in Auckland, restaurant operators removed open sugar bowls, salt-and-pepper containers and self-service water coolers yesterday (Ray Lilley, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Feb. 27).

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Russia:  Gorny Disposal Facility Destroys 190 Metric Tons of Mustard Gas

Since opening in December, Russia’s first chemical weapons disposal facility, located in Gorny, has destroyed 190 metric tons of mustard gas agent, Sergei Kiriyenko, chairman of the Russian state commission on chemical disarmament, said today (see GSN, Jan. 22).  Russia hopes to destroy 1 percent of its 40,000-metric-ton chemical weapons arsenal in the first half of this year, he said (Australian Associated Press/Melbourne Herald Sun, Feb. 27).

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Iraq: Top Iraqi Weapons Official Studied WMD Warfare in the United States

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON ð— An Iraqi officer described as the “father” of Iraq’s chemical weapon development program received offensive and defensive chemical, biological and radiological warfare tactics instruction from the U.S. Army in the early 1960s, according to U.S. sources (see GSN, Jan. 28).

Gen. Nizar Attar — who as late as the mid-1990s served as a key, senior Iraqi chemical and biological weapons official and was also a reputed adviser to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — received the instruction as a junior officer in 1961 through the U.S. military assistance program at the Army Chemical School in Fort McClellan, Ala., according to former senior U.N. weapons inspector Richard Spertzel.  Such training was then considered legal under international law, as there were no treaties banning the possession of such weapons.

Spertzel met with Attar in the mid-1990s, while conducting missions in Iraq as head of the U.N. inspectors’ biological weapons team from 1994 to 1998.

Another U.S. source knowledgeable about Attar’s history, also said the Iraqi officer attended the Army school.  Army and Pentagon spokespeople said they had no information available on the activities from that period.

Attar probably received more extensive instruction from the Soviet Union, as he later attended the Timoshenko Military Academy of Chemical Defense in Moscow in 1964, and apparently spent another 18 months in the Soviet Union in 1975 and 1976, according to Spertzel.

Former U.N. weapons inspectors believe Attar went on to direct Iraq’s chemical weapons development program and head its main research and production facility, the Muthanna State Establishment, from around 1979 until 1987, overlapping with the period when Iraq was aggressively producing and using chemicals against Iranian forces during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

As late as the mid-1990s, Attar was believed to be heading Iraq’s principal agency suspected of acquiring materials for biological weapons.  His current circumstances could not be ascertained.

Offensive and Defensive Tactics

Attar was one of as many as 19 Iraqi officers to receive the U.S. Army training from 1957 to 1967, and among hundreds of other non-U.S. military officials from around the globe.

The courses included defensive subjects described by the Army as “defense against biological attack” and “CBR [chemical, biological and radiological weapons] protective devices and equipment.”

They also included apparently offensive subjects as “unconventional warfare,” “principles of CBR employment” and “calculation of chemical munitions requirements.”

Indicating the courses were intended to provide information for dissemination back in the homeland, they also included instruction in “conducting CBR training.”

The United States and the Soviet Union at the time, each with significant offensive chemical and biological weapons programs, were competing for influence in the Middle East and elsewhere, and officials viewed military assistance as an important tool in that competition.

Still, experts question the wisdom of providing instruction in offensive tactics.

“In no way, anyway, would we [the British military], under a foreign training program, have offered any information like that, for obvious reasons,” said John Eldridge, editor of Jane’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense.

He said the United Kingdom also trained Iraqi, Iranian and other foreign militaries in chemical and biological warfare during the 1960s, but only taught defensive tactics, reflecting the fact that the United Kingdom had renounced possessing such weapons in the 1950s. 

The U.S. Army viewed those weapons differently.  In 1958, it quietly reversed its policy to not use chemical or biological weapons first in a conflict, in existence since 1943.  The United States did not sign the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning the first use of such weapons until 1975.

Beginning particularly in the late 1950s, the Army also funded a public campaign to promote chemical and biological weapons as humane, useful and necessary weapons for deterrence.

Tactical Training

Because the U.S. training provided Attar was described as tactical, experts said it probably would not have aided him greatly in his roles running chemical and biological development programs.

The instruction was provided at a time, however, when Middle Eastern and other countries around the globe were beginning to develop an interest in chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and there was a concern at the time that U.S. technical assistance might encourage proliferation.

“You could argue that you were laying the seeds for interest in senior military officers in some particular weapons,” said Leitenberg.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to happen from the top down, it can happen from the bottom up,” said Harvard professor Matthew Meselson, who co-directs the Harvard-Sussex Program on chemical and biological arms control.

“If you send them to chemical defense school, these guys might see their careers in chemical weapons.  And, then it just depends on how good they might be in building a little bureaucracy, convincing their leadership,” he said.

Key Positions

Attar is not well known by many Western experts on Iraq, perhaps because of his government’s notorious efforts to conceal suspected illicit activities.  A number of former U.N. inspectors, however, say Attar was a key figure in the chemical weapons development program, some calling him the “father” of that program.

A 1999 U.N. inspectors report also attributed to Attar the resurgence of Iraq’s biological weapons program in the mid-1980s.

A February 1991 U.S. intelligence bulletin further identified Attar as a senior adviser to Hussein.  The declassified bulletin, produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency and containing “not finally evaluated” information, said Attar “had studied in both the United States and in the Soviet Union and had served as a chief adviser to the chief of staff and to Saddam Hussein.”

Attar was jailed sometime prior to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, but was released six months later, according to bulletin.

When Spertzel met with Attar between 1994 and 1998, the Iraqi official was believed to have headed the Iraq’s Technical and Scientific Materials Import Division, according to a 1999-published book by former weapons inspector Tim Trevan called Saddam’s Secrets, The Hunt for Iraq’s Hidden Weapons.  The division was suspected to have been the main procurement agency for Iraq’s biological weapons program.

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United States:  Army Creates New Demilitarization Agency

The U.S. Army announced last week the creation of the Chemical Materials Agency, which will take control of the formerly separate tasks of storing chemical weapons and destroying them, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Jan. 3). 

The Army is expected to take control of the new agency by October and Michael Parker, deputy commander of the Solider Biological and Chemical Command, which currently oversees chemical weapons storage, has been selected as the new agency’s acting director, AP reported.

“The CMA brings all the parties under one roof necessary to carry out the mission of the safe storage and elimination of obsolete and aging chemical weapons,” Parker said in a press statement.

The Chemical Weapons Working Group, a watchdog organization that has criticized the Army’s chemical weapons destruction efforts, praised the creation of the CMA and Parker’s appointment as its head.

“If it’s salvageable, this is the best shot we’ve had in 20 years to get it right,” said Craig Williams, director of the group.  “Mr. Parker’s record reflects a real sensitivity to shooting straight, meaningful community involvement, straight-forwardness with the Congress and all the attributes necessary,” he added (Jeffrey McMurray, Associated Press/Tuscaloosa News, Feb. 21).

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