- As the first progress report from the Iraq Survey Group
is released, Cambridge WMD expert Dr Glen Rangwala finds that even the
diluted claims made for Saddam Hussein's arsenal don't stand up...
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- Last week's progress report by American and British weapons
inspectors in Iraq has failed to supply evidence for the vast majority
of the claims made on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction by their governments
before the war.
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- David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), told
congressional committees in Washington that no official orders or plans
could be found to back up the allegation that a nuclear programme remained
active after 1991. Aluminium tubes have not been used for the enrichment
of uranium, in contrast to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's lengthy
exposition to the UN Security Council in February. No suspicious activities
or residues have been found at the seven sites within Iraq described in
the Prime Minister's dossier from September 2002.
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- The ISG even casts serious doubt on President Bush's
much-trumpeted claim that US forces had found three mobile biological laboratories
after the war: "technical limitations" would prevent the trailers
from being ideally suited to biological weapons production, it records.
In other words, they were for something else.
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- There have certainly been no signs of imported uranium,
or even battlefield munitions ready to fire within 45 minutes. Most significantly,
the claim to Parliament on the eve of conflict by Jack Straw, the Foreign
Secretary, that "we know that this man [Saddam Hussein] has got ...
chemical weapons, biological weapons, viruses, bacilli and ... 10,000 litres
of anthrax" has yet to find a single piece of supportive evidence.
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- Those who staked their career on the existence in Iraq
of at least chemical and biological weapons programmes have latched on
to three claims in the progress report.
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- First, there is the allegation that a biologist had a
"collection of reference strains" at his home, including "a
vial of live C botulinum Okra B from which a biological agent can be produced".
Mr Straw claimed the morning after the report's release that this agent
was "15,000 times more toxic than the nerve agent VX". That is
wrong: botulinum type A is one of the most poisonous substances known,
and was developed in weaponised form by Iraq before 1991. However, type
B - the form found at the biologist's home - is less lethal.
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- Even then, it would require an extensive process of fermentation,
the growing of the bug, the extraction of the toxin and the weaponisation
of the toxin before it could cause harm. That process would take weeks,
if not longer, but the ISG reported no sign of any of these activities.
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- Botulinum type B could also be used for making an antidote
to common botulinum poisoning. That is one of the reasons why many military
laboratories around the world keep reference strains of C botulinum Okra
B. The UK keeps such substances, for example, and calls them "seed
banks".
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- Second, a large part of the ISG report is taken up with
assertions that Iraq had been acquiring designs and under- taking research
programmes for missiles with a range that exceeded the UN limit of 150km.
The evidence here is more detailed than in the rest of the report. However,
it does not demonstrate that Iraq was violating the terms of any Security
Council resolution. The prohibition on Iraq acquiring technology relating
to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons was absolute: no agents, no
sub-systems and no research or support facilities.
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- By contrast, Iraq was simply prohibited from actually
having longer-range missiles, together with "major parts, and repair
and production facilities". The ISG does not claim proof that Iraq
had any such missiles or facilities, just the knowledge to produce them
in future. Indeed, it would have been entirely lawful for Iraq to develop
such systems if the restrictions implemented in 1991 were lifted, while
it would never have been legitimate for it to re-develop WMD.
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- Third, one sentence within the report has been much quoted:
Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses within
the Iraqi intelligence service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring
and suitable for continuing CBW research". Note what that sentence
does not say: these facilities were suitable for chemical and biological
weapons research (as almost any modern lab would be), not that they had
engaged in such research. The reference to UN monitoring is also spurious:
under the terms of UN resolutions, all of Iraq's chemical and biological
facilities are subject to monitoring. So all this tells us is that Iraq
had modern laboratories.
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=450121
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