misoft -- I read the BushBasher posts re lying -- never do they mention the following statements by Iraq itself (all this information is readily available -- therefore it is clear the motive for the attacks is purely political -- but hey its not beanball):
1. Iraq did not acknowledge its proscribed Biological Warfare (BW) weapons programme until July 1995. From the first UNSCOM inspections in 1991 until 1995 Iraq denied it had a BW programme and has taken active steps to conceal it from the Special Commission.
4. The TEM team reviewed the entire FFCD, and concluded it was deficient in all areas. In summary:
Weaponization There is considerable uncertainty regarding weaponization. The Iraqi account of the Al-Hussein BW warheads cannot be reconciled with the physical evidence. On R-400 bombs, there are inconsistencies in the account and the experts had no confidence in the number filled or how many were filled with particular agents. Production Bulk BW agent production appears to be consistently understated. There are discrepancies between production capacity and the amounts of bulk agent declared to have been produced. The lack of documentation contributes to a low level of confidence in the Iraqi account of agent production quantities.
10. The Commission has a degree of confidence in the accounting for some proscribed items which Iraq presented for verification and disposal. This includes, for example: the destruction of buildings, and equipment at Al-Hakam, the destruction of large quantities of growth media acquired for the programme; and evidence that R-400 aerial bombs and Al-Hussein warheads contained BW agents and consequently that Bacillus anthracis spores and Clostridium botulinum toxin were indeed weaponized.
11. The Commission has far less confidence in the accounting for proscribed items declared by Iraq as having been unilaterally destroyed. These include, for example: the number and fill of R-400 aerial bombs destroyed at Al-Azzizziyah; the number and fill of BW Al-Hussein warheads destroyed; and the fate of the biological warfare agent to be used with drop tanks.
17. Iraq's offensive BW programme was among the most secretive of its programmes of weapons of mass destruction. Its existence was not acknowledged until July 1995. During the period from 1991 to 1995 Iraq categorically denied it had a biological weapons programme and it took active steps to conceal the programme from the Special Commission. These included fraudulent statements, false and forged documents, misrepresentation of the roles of people and facilities and other specific acts of deception. For example, Iraq claims to have destroyed much of the documentation and overt evidence of the programme. At the same time Iraq maintained other aspects of the programme such as the equipment, supplies (e.g., bacterial growth media), and personnel as an intact entity and facilities of the programme such as the Al-Hakam facility that produced BW agents.
18. In 1995, when Iraq was confronted with evidence collected by the Commission of imports of bacterial growth media in quantities that had no civilian utility within Iraq's limited biotechnology industry, it eventually, on 1 July 1995, acknowledged that it used this growth media to produce two BW agents in bulk, botulinum toxin and Bacillus anthracis spores, between 1988 and 1991. It was not, until August of 1995, however, that Iraq acknowledged that it had weaponized BW agents, and had undertaken weapon tests from 1987 onwards. This admission only occurred after Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Hassan departed. Shortly afterwards, Iraq released a considerable quantity of documents concerned with its weapons of mass destruction programmes. The documents relating to biology represented just 200 documents with some pages out of a total of more than a million pages. Many of the biological documents were scientific reprints from foreign journals. Clearly, they represent only a minor portion of a BW programme that ran from 1973 until at least 1991.
2. In August 1995 Iraq declared that it had filled 25 Al-Hussein missile warheads with BW agents. This figure is not supported by conclusive evidence. In its FFCD Iraq has declared that five warheads were filled with Bacillus anthracis spores, 16 with botulinum toxin and four with aflatoxin. Ten warheads containing botulinum toxin were deployed to an abandoned railway tunnel at Al-Mansuriyah. The remainder was stored on the banks of the Tigris canal. No credible evidence has been presented to support this account of BW agent filling and subsequent weapon deployment.
33. Iraq claims that the Al-Hussein warheads were not specifically developed for BW; instead the Chemical Warfare (CW) warheads were filled with BW agents. Although static and dynamic trials were undertaken with CW agents, Iraq denies that there were any BW trials. Most of the CW warheads had aluminium containers. According to Iraq, later CW, and all BW, warheads had stainless steel containers to be filled with CBW agents. The substitution of aluminium containers with stainless steel containers is explained as a response to difficulties in welding aluminium. It is not attributed to the needs of the payload. Thus this BW weapon was filled and operationally deployed without any field tests.
34. Iraq asserts that all 25 BW warheads were unilaterally destroyed at specific locations at Al-Nibai desert in July 1991. To verify the FFCD, the Commission in 1998 took samples from the remnants of agent warhead containers excavated from various locations at Al-Nibai. The results of the analyses do not support the statements made in Iraq's FFCD. Traces of Bacillus anthracis spores have been identified on remnants of containers from at least seven distinct missile warheads as opposed to the five declared. There are discrepancies between the [Iraqi account of where groups of warheads containing particular BW agents were destroyed and the results of the analyses. This throws doubt on the accounts of weapons filling, deployment and subsequent destruction.
35. In response to this evidence, in July 1998, Iraq changed its account of BW warhead and other munitions filling. It stated to an Commission team that, instead of the declared five Bacillus anthracis spores and 16 botulinum toxin warheads, there had been in fact 16 Bacillus anthracis spores and five botulinum toxin missile warheads. Iraq insisted that this change in disclosure would not affect Iraq's declaration on the total quantity of BW agents produced and weaponized. These changes also included alterations to the numbers of R-400 aerial bombs filled with Bacillus anthracis spores and botulinum toxin. Iraq did not present any supporting documents or other specific evidence to substantiate the new statement. In the original account, Iraq emphatically asserted that all ten weapons in the Al-Mansuriyah railway tunnel were filled with Bacillus anthracis spores and only later was this adjusted to botulinum toxin.
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