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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United Kingdom:  More Charged in Chemical Investigation

British authorities yesterday charged three North African men with chemical weapons offenses, Reuters reported (see GSN, Jan. 27).

Kamel Bourgass, 27, Mouloud Bouhrama, 31, and Samir Asli, 29, were arrested last month in connection with the Jan. 5 discovery of ricin in a London apartment.  The three were charged with having “articles in circumstances which gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that their possession was for a purpose connected with the commission, instigation or preparation of an act of terrorism.”

The men did not apply for bail and were remanded in custody until early March  (Reuters, Feb. 5).

British police today detained six men and a woman in the latest sweep of antiterrorism raids linked to the chemical weapons investigation, the London Guardian reported.

Authorities arrested two men in Edinburgh, one man in Manchester, a man and a woman in Glasgow and two men in London, the Guardian reported.

“Although searches of the addresses are continuing it is important to stress that there has been no discovery of dangerous substances at this time,” said Tom Wood, deputy chief constable of the Lothian and Borders police force (London Guardian, Feb. 6).

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United States:  Rumsfeld Says Pentagon Wants Use of Nonlethal Gas

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — While senior Pentagon officials are fashioning rules of engagement that will allow the U.S. military to use nonlethal agents if the United States attacks Iraq, the effort has been made “very complex” by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 4, 2002).

“We are doing our best to live within the straitjacket that has been imposed on us on this subject,” Rumsfeld said at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.

Russian forces used a gas to subdue hostage-taking militants in a Moscow theater last year, but a large number of hostages were killed in the raid (see GSN, Oct. 31, 2002).

“I’m authorized to use lethal force and authorize troops to shoot somebody, but I’m not authorized in some instances, without a presidential waiver, under the treaty or under the agreements, to authorize the use of nonlethal riot agents,” Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld said that he has been trying to “fashion the rules of engagement in a way that we believe is appropriate.  Where we can’t, I go to the president and get a waiver.”

There have been no requests to alter U.S. law or modify any treaties, he said.

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U.S. Response:  FDA Approves Soman Nerve Agent Protection

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved use of pyridostigmine bromide to protect against soman nerve agent, which can kill by causing respiratory failure (see GSN, Feb.3). 

“Today’s action will help protect American troops and others from nerve agent attacks,” Commissioner Mark McClellan said in a press release.

Soldiers are instructed to take one 30-milligram tablet every eight hours prior to anticipated Soman exposure, according to the release.  The drug is not effective, however, during or after exposure to the nerve agent, when antidotes such as atropine must instead be used.  Pyridostigmine bromide also must be used in conjunction with other safety measures, such as gas masks, the release said.

The drug is the first to be approved under the FDA’s “animal efficacy rule,” which allows use of animal data to demonstrate a drug’s effectiveness when it cannot be ethically or feasibly tested on humans, according to the agency release (see GSN, June 4, 2002).  Evidence of the drug’s effectiveness against Soman was found through studies on monkeys and guinea pigs (FDA release, Feb. 5). 

The U.S. military used pyridostigmine bromide during the 1991 Gulf War on an experimental basis, which led to some suspicions that the drug was a cause of Gulf War syndrome, according to the New York Times.  Several postwar studies on the drug, however, “all assert that you can’t attribute any aspects of Gulf War syndrome to this drug,” an FDA spokesman said (Donald McNeil, New York Times, Feb. 6).

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Japan:  Cult Member Pleads Not Guilty to 1995 Sarin Subway Attack

Masami Tsuchiya, a former member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of murder and attempted murder stemming from a 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway that killed 12, according to the Japan Times (see GSN, Jan. 30).

Japanese prosecutors allege Tsuchiya was one of the main figures in Aum Shinrikyo’s production of sarin and other nerve agents and that he participated in the attack.  Tsuchiya has admitted to developing the nerve agents, but said he was not involved in their use and doubted that he produced the sarin used in the subway incident, according to the Times.  Tsuchiya’s entered his plea yesterday after refusing to do so since his trial began eight years ago (Japan Times, Feb. 4).

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