Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The interim report released last week by investigator David Kay says investigators have so far found no evidence of active Iraqi nuclear or chemical weapons programs, but a debate has ensued on whether the report indicates that Iraq was conducting a biological research and development program just before the U.S.-led invasion in March (see GSN, Oct. 3).

In a publicly released summary of his report, Kay says no biological weapons or evidence of biological weapons production has yet been found by the Iraq Survey Group, the U.S.-led team he coordinates.

Investigators did find, however, a number of biological weapons “activities,” including a vial containing a “reference strain” of botulinum, alleged research on biological weapons-“applicable” agents, and concealment efforts.

All of that, Kay said, suggested a “compartmentalized” version of Iraq’s former program that involved maintaining “smaller” capabilities that could be reactivated for quick production.

Statements by administration officials appeared to indicate a view that Kay’s evidence showed that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had recently pursued a biological weapons program.

“In other words, he’s hiding his programs,” President George W. Bush said Friday citing the Kay report.

“David Kay is finding programs, even specific ones like the ones to develop new biological agents,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said during a press briefing last Friday.

Boucher said the Iraqi botulinum was a “weapon of mass destruction.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell also appeared to support that view, asking reporters rhetorically on Friday whether “vials of botulinum should constitute a weapon of mass destruction?”

Evidence Suggested No ProgramAn independent expert and a senior senator, however, have argued that Kay’s evidence does not show that Iraq had an active biological weapons program in the run-up to this year’s war.

“There’s no evidence that the weapons program was restarted in the nuclear area, that it was restarted in the biological area, [or] that the units were ready for chemical warfare,” said Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich), in a comment broadcast on Fox News Sunday.

Former U.N. weapons inspector Raymond Zilinskas, currently with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Monterey Institute of International Studies, supported that view.

“My feeling was that they certainly had the potential in terms of human resources and dual-use equipment, and they also had the cultures in vials that could be opened any time and be propagated, but that they had no actual biological weapons at all,” he said.

“I would judge it at the level of keeping a basic capability that, should the need arise, could be activated in the future,” he said.

Kay’s statement said Iraq had been using substitute agents for biological weapons agents in research: “R&D work that paired overt work with nonpathogenic organisms serving as surrogates for prohibited investigation with pathogenic agents.”

Kay, for his part, appeared to discount the possibility that the discovered botulinum strain was part of an active biological weapons program. He said in a conference call with reporters Friday that an Iraqi scientist had been storing the vial in his refrigerator since 1993, the Associated Press reported.

Reference strains ostensibly are retained for use in identifying unidentified agents.

A Dormant ProgramMilton Leitenberg, a professor and arms control expert at the University of Maryland, on the other hand said the evidence Kay has produced did indicate a biological weapon program was underway, though a “little” one.

“I don’t think you can say those things [Kay described] aren’t part of a program. Every one of them is a material breach.  There shouldn’t have been a pathogen in a refrigerator. There shouldn’t have been any equipment in a mosque. There shouldn’t have been those two dozen or 20 laboratories in the Iraqi intelligence service,” Leitenberg said.

Leitenberg said, though, Kay’s statement should have provided greater detail about the contents of those laboratories.

David Franz, vice president of the Southern Research Institute’s Chemical and Biological Defense Division, said Iraq would not necessarily have needed extensive biological facilities to have a program that could pose a threat.

“What you need for a biological terrorism program, which was what I was more concerned about during the war, as opposed to a biological warfare program is quite different,” he said.

“They could have hurt us with what [Kay] has found so far, in biology,” he said.

Prior to this year’s U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bush administration officials had cited Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and programs as justification for the use of force. Kay’s report says no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons have been found yet, but indicates that more than 100 ammunition sites that might contain hidden unconventional weapons remained uninvestigated.

Kay’s statement, released by the Central Intelligence Agency following closed-door congressional testimony last Friday, said Iraqi capabilities could be used to quickly produce weapons.

“All of this suggests Iraq after 1996 further compartmentalized its program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production of BW agents,” Kay said.