Iraq:  Experts Reasonably Certain That Second Trailer Is a Mobile Weapons Facility

There is a “reasonable degree of certainty” that a second recovered Iraqi trailer is in fact a mobile biological laboratory, a U.S. Army general said yesterday (see GSN, May 13).

Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said he had been told by an expert that the trailer — recovered in Northern Iraq last week — was probably a mobile biological facility, as originally suspected.

“The expert I talked to this morning said that he had a reasonable degree of certainty that this is in fact a mobile biological agent production trailer,” Petraeus said during a press briefing in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

He said the layout of the second trailer was “nearly identical” to that of a suspected mobile biological laboratory that had been previously discovered.  The newly found trailer has a “5,000 PSI compressor, 2,000-liter reactor vessel, small feed tank, 3,000-liter water tank and a water chiller,” Petraeus said.

The second trailer also had a consecutive serial number from the first trailer, he said. 

The second trailer appeared to be incomplete when it was recovered, with several welds not finished and shipping plugs still in place, Petraeus said.  In addition, several pieces of equipment from the second trailer appeared to have been looted, he said.

Petraeus also said yesterday that Iraq might have destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles prior to the war.

“There’s no question that there were chemical weapons years ago,” Petraeus said.  I just don’t know whether it was all destroyed years ago,” he said (U.S. Defense Department release, May 13).

IISS Surprised at Lack of Success in WMD Hunt

Meanwhile, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank that issued a report last year describing Iraq’s WMD programs, has said he was surprised by the lack of discovered Iraqi chemical weapons (see GSN, Oct. 17, 2002).

Gary Samore, an IISS expert who helped prepare the institute’s report, acknowledged that no chemical weapons or chemical delivery systems have been found in Iraq and said that they probably would not be found in large numbers, contrary to the institute’s report.

“The absence of chemical weapons was a big surprise,” Samore said.

Samore also said that the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was still continuing and that some important discoveries had been found.  “They have found equipment and material which would have allowed Iraq to revive its programs,” he said.

The institute is neither “nervous nor embarrassed” about its Iraq report, said Director John Chipman.  He added that the report had been cautious in its analysis (Paul Reynolds, BBC News, May 13).

War Still Justified, British Official Says

The discovery of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is not needed to justify the recent war, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said today.  When asked if the failure to find such weapons was important, Straw replied, “It’s not crucially important” (Johannesburg Independent Online, May 14).

Sanctions

Meanwhile in Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met today with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to try to gain Russia’s support for a U.N. Security Council resolution to end U.N. sanctions against Iraq (see GSN, May 12).

Powell is expected to meet again with Ivanov later today before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Agence France-Presse.  The meetings are expected to include discussions on a U.S.-British-Spanish U.N. resolution to lift U.N. sanctions on Iraq.  Russia has opposed such a move, however, saying U.N. inspectors first needed to return to Iraq to verify that it no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Ivanov today did not comment on his meeting with Powell, but did say that the future of U.S.-Russian relations “belongs to cooperation.”

“Our common interest in the search for answers to global challenges brings us closer together.  No one can fight new threats alone,” Ivanov said.  “We are for a constructive and nonconfrontational dialogue,” he said (Henry Meyer, Agence France-Presse, May 14).

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Iraq:  U.S. Troops Find Second Suspect Mobile Biological Laboratory

U.S. troops last week found a second suspected mobile biological laboratory outside the Iraqi city of Mosul, U.S. Defense Department officials said yesterday (see GSN, May 12).

The recovered trailer — found either Friday night or Saturday morning — is similar to one captured last month that is also suspected of being a mobile biological facility, two officials said (see GSN, May 8).  It is unknown if the two trailers are connected, but they appear to have similar components, the officials said.  They noted that U.S. experts are examining the second trailer in Mosul before shipping it to the Baghdad airport, where the first recovered trailer is being stored (Matt Kelley, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 12).

A White House official yesterday said Iraq had developed a “just-in-time delivery of WMD” capability prior to the war, citing the existence of the suspected mobile biological weapons laboratories.

Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had developed the capability “to produce banned items just before the time you may need them,” the official said (Harding/Turner, Financial Times, May 13).

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Threat Assessment:  U.S. War Game Sees Enemy Forces Use WMD

A recently concluded U.S. military war game found that enemy forces would strike early in a conflict and would use weapons of mass destruction to counter an overwhelming U.S. conventional force, Defense News reported yesterday.

The exercise, Unified Quest 2003, was held April 27-May 1 and was the first major war game conducted since the end of the war in Iraq.  The exercise scenarios, which were set in 2015, had U.S. forces facing a nuclear-armed Middle Eastern nation and a militant group threatening an allied Southeast Asian government.  In each scenario, enemy forces (Red) attacked pre-emptively and used weapons of mass destruction against U.S. forces (Blue) and civilian populations, according to Defense News.

For example, in the Southeast Asian scenario, Red insurgent forces detonated a propane tanker in New York harbor in response to U.S. and Australian promises to aid the Southeast Asian nation, Defense News reported.  Red forces also released ricin in their capital city, causing both military and civilian casualties and helping to sap civilian support for Blue forces.

In each of three different versions of the Middle East scenario, Red forces used nuclear weapons when defeat became imminent, according to Defense News.  One scenario saw Red forces detonate a nuclear weapon near a U.S. stronghold in the country while a second Red team placed a nuclear weapon in its country’s oilfields to force international support.  A third Red force smuggled a nuclear weapon into a neighboring U.S. ally to force it to end its support of the United States.  Once that country complied, the Red team tried a similar tactic by shipping the weapon to Paris, where it was captured by French authorities.

The exercise saw only one Red team attempt to use a nuclear weapon to cause large numbers of casualties, according to Defense News.

“There may be an apocalyptic leader out there who wants to kill a lot of Blue in a last-gasp measure.  But that’s not what we did, and I don’t subscribe to that notion,” said retired Army officer Richard Hart Sinnreich, who commanded one of the Red forces during the exercise.  “What we did was use weapons of mass destruction materially to improve our position,” he said (Frank Tiboni, Defense News, May 12).

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Iraq I:  U.S. WMD Search Team to Leave Iraq in June; “Dr. Germ” Detained

The U.S. military’s 75th Exploitation Task Force, which has been deployed in Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, is expected to end operations next month without finding any evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, May 9).

Task force leaders no longer “think we’re going to find chemical rounds sitting next to a gun,” according to Army Col. Robert Smith, who leads the Defense Threat Reduction Agency site assessment teams.  “That’s what we came here for, but we’re past that,” he said.

The U.S. search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will now be conducted by the Iraq Survey Group, a larger unit of scientific experts and intelligence officials than the task force, according to the Post.  That effort, however, is shaping up to be smaller that originally planned, according to the Post.

For example, the site survey teams will reduce their number of WMD and missile experts from six to two.  The Direct Support team, a DTRA nuclear special operations group, has already sent home a third of its original complement and plans to further reduce its staff by half.

“We thought we would be much more gainfully employed, or intensively employed, than we were,” said Navy Cmdr. David Beckett, who directs special nuclear programs for the team.

Only two of the 19 top WMD sites identified by the U.S. Central Command prior to the war remain to be searched, the Post reported.  Out of 68 top “non-WMD sites,” which are believed to have important clues that could aid in the search, 45 had been searched by last week without any finds.

Task force members explained their lack of results, in part, because of their slow advance into Iraq.  U.S. ground commanders sometimes kept task force teams away from the military front, and the task force itself had no helicopters of its own, according to the Post.

“My personal feeling is we waited too long and stayed too far back,” said Christopher Kowal, a computer forensics expert who worked for Mobile Exploitation Team Charlie until last week.

Task force members also said that the looting of suspect sites by Iraqis severely hindered the WMD hunt.  As of last week, U.S. troops had only secured 44 of the 85 top weapons sites in Baghdad and 153 of the 372 sites considered to be the most essential in the reconstruction of the country, the Post reported (Barton Gellman, Washington Post, May 11).

WMD Search Continues

Meanwhile, one of the task force’s teams, Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, has discovered the strongest radiation source found so far in Iraq at an abandoned test range near the city of Amiriya, according to the New York Times.

On Friday, the team investigated the site and found eight poles connected to earth-covered concrete bunkers.  The team traveled to the site after receiving reports that coalition forces had found a large source of radiation in one of eight pits near the poles.  The initial report said that one of the pits was emitting radiation levels more than 1,000 times that of normal radiation levels, according to the Times.  When the team arrived at the site, it only found moderate levels of radiation at the bases of the poles.

After examining the poles, experts determined that they had been designed to raise and lower a radioactive source, believed to be cobalt 60, to expose troops and equipment to radiation, according to the Times.  According to international nuclear experts, the site had been used more than 10 years ago to expose troops to a simulated nuclear battlefield (Judith Miller, New York Times, May 12).

Dr. Germ in Custody

Two former Iraqi officials, including the infamous “Dr. Germ,” are now in U.S. custody, U.S. officials said today.

Rihab Taha, who has been dubbed Dr. Germ by the media, was the former head of Iraq’s biological weapons program.  U.S. officials believe Taha, who is No. 197 on the coalition’s most wanted list, may be able to assist the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. forces have also taken into custody Ibrahim Ahmad al-Sattar Muhammad al-Tikriti, former chief of staff of the Iraqi military and No. 11 on the U.S. list of 55 most wanted officials (CNN.com, May 12).

Rewards Offered

U.S. authorities in Iraq have issued a nationwide radio appeal for information that could help the search for Iraqi WMD efforts, according to the London Times.  The appeal offers a reward and anonymity for the informants.

“The reward you may get can improve your living standard,” the appeal said (Catherine Philp, London Times, May 12).

Sanctions

Experts among U.N. Security Council members are expected today to study a draft resolution introduced last week by the United States, United Kingdom and Spain to lift U.N. sanctions against Iraq.  Security Council ambassadors are expected to begin debating the resolution Wednesday.

After that meeting, “we will have a better assessment of where everybody is," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Saturday.  “Initial reaction from capitals is everybody wants to move forward, a great deal of pragmatism, no refighting of the past, no screaming and shouting, if I could put it that way, but a lot of questions,” he said.

Russia said Saturday that it has begun consulting with other council members on the draft resolution.  During the council discussions on the resolution, Russia will again “underscore the need for the United Nations’ central role in this process,” Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said (Russia Journal, May 11).

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Iraq II:  Former U.N. Inspector Calls for Improved Treatment of Iraqi Scientists

The United States should approach former Iraqi scientists and technicians as if they were “valuable witnesses,” instead of war criminals, to better obtain their cooperation in the U.S. search for evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts, a former U.N. weapons inspector wrote in a Washington Post commentary yesterday (see GSN, May 5).

“Why not treat them as war criminals?  Because when it comes to WMD, the top priority must be preventing proliferation — not punishing people,” wrote David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.  “Stopping the spread of these weapons is more important than putting scientists behind bars,” he added.

Many low- and mid-level Iraqi scientists want to help the United States and can provide information about Iraq’s past nuclear plans, efforts to deceive U.N. inspectors and illicit foreign procurement activities, according to Albright.  The scientists can also help U.S. forces gain control over any remaining unsecured Iraqi WMD assets, such as documents and equipment, he wrote.

In addition, the better the scientists and technicians are treated, the less likely it is that they will flee Iraq to possibly aid other states or terrorist groups in developing weapons of mass destruction, Albright wrote.  “If Pentagon teams use a confrontational approach, they could increase the risk that these scientists will go into hiding or leave Iraq,” he wrote (David Albright, Washington Post, May 11).

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Iraq:  Iraqi Intelligence Agent Apparently Reveals Chem-Bio Assassination Program

U.S. and British intelligence officials have interrogated a midlevel Iraqi intelligence agent who appears to have knowledge of an Iraqi assassination program that used chemical and biological agents, a senior British defense source said yesterday (see GSN, May 8).

The assassination program appears to have been established by ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s former regime, and not by any terrorist organization, the source said.  The program used only minute amounts of biological and chemical agents, such as ricin and sarin, according to the source.

U.S. and British intelligence agencies are focusing more on finding former Iraqi WMD scientists and technicians because they may possess intelligence that may prove to be more useful than that of former high-ranking regime officials, the British official said.

“These midlevel people may be a more promising route (to finding out the extent of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction) than us suddenly finding WMD equipment,” the official said.  “We would be amazingly lucky to find steaming vats of chemicals or rows and rows of WMD-tipped missiles,” the official added (Peter Almond, United Press International, May 8).

Sanctions

Meanwhile, the United States, United Kingdom and Spain today introduced a new U.N. Security Council resolution to end U.N. sanctions against Iraq, according to Reuters.

The resolution, which two senior Security Council diplomats described as “hard” and “in your face,” would phase out the existing oil-for-food program over the next four months and would give the United Nations and other international organizations only an advisory role in the Iraqi reconstruction, according to Reuters.  The three countries want a vote on the resolution by June 3, when the existing oil-for-food program would need to be renewed (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, May 9).

United States Warns Syria Not to Hide Iraqi Weapons

The United States would be forced to take action if it was learned that Syria had hidden Iraqi weapons of mass destruction during the recent war in Iraq, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in an interview published this week (see GSN, April 21).

“We have assurances from the Syrians that nothing crossed their borders,” Rice said in interviews Tuesday with four Spanish newspapers.  “Time will tell,” she  added.

If such promises were revealed to be false, however, the international community would be forced to act, Rice said, refusing to provide other details.

Syria’s Ambassador to Spain Mohsen Bilal has denied that his country helped to hide Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or fleeing Iraqi officials.

“We have no fear and no secrets,” Bilal said Wednesday (Associated Press/MSNBC.com, May 8).

Iraqi Looters May Have Caused Own Radiation Poisoning

Iraqis who looted a nuclear power facility near the town of Zafaraniya earlier this month are believed to have stolen drums filled with radioactive uranium oxide concentrate, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

Iraqi troops guarded the facility until April 4, when they fled in advance of U.S. troops, according to the report.  Nearby residents looted the facility only days later, and are believed to have stolen 100 barrels of the radioactive material.  It is believed that the looters did not know what the material was or have any interest in it.

Officials believe that the looters inhaled large quantities of the uranium and might have ingested some after converting the barrels for use as water and cooking oil storage containers, according to the report.  One nearby resident who was involved in the looting was reported to have said that he tasted the uranium oxide concentrate because it looked pretty (Tsuyoshi Nojima, Asahi Shimbun, May 8).

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Iraq:  Extensive Testing Planned for Suspected Mobile Biological Laboratory

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States plans to conduct an intensive and thorough examination of a suspected mobile biological laboratory recently recovered in Iraq, a U.S. Defense Department official said yesterday (see GSN, May 7).

The suspect trailer, which resembles the mobile biological facilities Secretary of State Colin Powell described during a February U.N. Security Council presentation, was seized at a Kurdish checkpoint in mid-April, said Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.  A number of pieces of equipment onboard the recovered trailer are similar to the facilities described by Powell, such as a fermenter, gas cylinders and gas recovery systems, Cambone said.

“Interestingly enough, the gas recovery systems really are not necessary for, and not normally used for, legitimate biological processes,” Cambone said during a Pentagon press briefing. 

Initial analyses by U.S. and British technical experts have determined that the recovered trailer “does not appear to perform any function” other than to produce biological agents, Cambone said.  The trailer appears to have been cleaned, however, with a caustic solution before it was recovered, leading to a need for more intensive testing to determine its actual purpose, he said.

U.S. specialists will probably dismantle the trailer to enable them to test difficult-to-reach surfaces, Cambone said.  “So it will be another considerable period of time before the next round of testing comes back and we get some results,” he added.

The suspected mobile biological facility is the latest find in the ongoing U.S. search for evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.  So far, U.S. troops have investigated 70 of the 600 WMD-related suspect sites in Iraq that were identified before the war, Cambone said.  In addition, U.S. troops have also visited 40 sites that have been identified through new information and tips recovered after the war, he said.

Some of the information used to determine new suspect sites to investigate has come from voluntary cooperation by Iraqi citizens, Cambone said.  He added that it was expected that “the level of voluntary cooperation will come up as the security situation improves and as the people in the country are more and more confident that the elements of the old regime are not going to wreak retribution.”

Although the trailer appears to be similar to those described by Powell in his Security Council presentation, Cambone refused to say if the trailer represented conclusive proof of Iraqi WMD efforts.  He was confident, however, that U.S. forces would eventually find such evidence.

“As time goes by and the more we learn, I’m sure we’re going to discover that the WMD programs are as extensive and as varied as the secretary of state reported in his February address,” Cambone said.  “I think we’re going to find that they had a weapons of mass destruction program,” he said.

United States Drops Sanctions

Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday removed some U.S. sanctions against Iraq.

Bush announced the suspension of the 1990 Iraqi Sanctions Act during a White House press conference with visiting Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar.  Bush also said he had ordered U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow to relax sanctions on U.S. companies and citizens conducting business in Iraq related to humanitarian efforts and the country’s reconstruction. 

In addition, the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain plan to introduce “soon” a new Security Council resolution to lift U.N.-imposed sanctions against Iraq, Bush said.

“The regime that the sanctions were directed against no longer rules Iraq,” Bush said.  “No country in good conscience can support using sanctions to hold back the hopes of the Iraqi people.”

Bush said the Security Council appears to be receptive to the new resolution and is ready to work to improve the humanitarian situation in Iraq.

“We believe there is a mood to work together to achieve a resolution that will expedite the reconstruction of Iraq,” Bush said.  “The read from at least our diplomats at the United Nations is that the kind of atmosphere that existed prior to the war has changed, and that people now want to work together for the good of the Iraqi people,” he said.

Russia, however, has often indicated that U.N. sanctions cannot be lifted against Iraq until it is determined to be free of weapons of mass destruction as called for in previous U.N. resolutions.  According to reports, U.S Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov today in Moscow to discuss the U.S. proposal to end the sanctions.

Fedotov yesterday reiterated Russia’s position that U.N. inspectors should first verify Iraq’s WMD disarmament before sanctions can be lifted. 

“Russia wants the burden of the sanctions to be eased as soon as possible, which should be done in line with existing U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Fedotov was quoted by Interfax as saying.

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