later, the IC expanded this judgment in the August 1999 NIE, Worldwide BW program: Trends and Prospects (NIE 2000-12HCX), which stated that Iraq's "BW program has continued since the Gulf War, and we judge it is being revitalized now that the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) monitoring and inspection activities are suspended." This NIE was updated in December 2000 (Worldwide BW Programs: Trends and Prospects Update (NIE 9905CX/D)), when the IC adjusted upward its assessment of the BW threat posed by Iraq, citing new intelligence acquired in 2000. The IC's concern about Iraq's BW program began to grow in early 2000 when the Defense Human Intelligence Service (DHS) began reporting the debriefings of an Iraqi engineer, the human intelligence (HUMINT) source code named CURVE BALL, who claimed to have worked on a project in Iraq to construct seven mobile biological production units. The December 2000 Worldwide BW NIE stated in its key judgements that: (U) Despite a decade-long international effort to disarm Iraq, new information In December 2000, at the request of the National Security Council, the IC also produced an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Iraq's WMD programs that included an assessment of the state of Iraq's BW program. The paper assessed that Iraq had largely rebuilt declared facilities damaged during Operation Desert Fox and expanded WMDcapable infrastructure. Specific to BW, the paper assessed: We cannot confirm whether Iraq has produced... biological agents, although in the case of biological weapons, credible reporting from a single source suggests it has done so on a large scale and had developed a clandestine production capability. Our main judgment about what remains of Iraq's original WMD programs, agents stockpiles, and delivery systems have changed little: Iraq retains stockpiles of chemical and biological agents and munitions. IC analysts are increasingly concerned that Saddam has acquired a clandestine BW According to reporting from a single source, Iraq has constructed seven transportable - via trucks and rail cars - plants, some of which have produced BW agents. Although the information is unconfirmed, it tracks with UNSCOM evidence acquired in the mid-1990's that Iraq was considering such a program. Recent analysis suggests that Iraq has built and is operating a new castor oil plant. Castor oil has various civilian applications, but leftover bean pulp could easily be used to make the BW agent ricin. New construction at a few dual-use facilities formerly associated with the BW program has raised our concern about Iraqi intentions. Nevertheless, we are unable to determine because of the lack of intelligence information or observable signatures - whether Iraq is diverting these or other of its many pharmaceutical, vaccine, or pesticide plants to produce BW agents. According to multiple sources, Iraq is bolstering its BW research and that in 1999 that such research & development (R&D) was being carried out while UNSCOM was active in Iraq. Iraq could easily have intensified and expanded this work over the last two years. A limited body of reporting suggests that Iraq is seeking through its extensive (U) The 2000 ICA also discussed at length the significant uncertainties associated with Iraq's failure to satisfy UN inspectors that it had destroyed all of its biological weapons, agent and growth media. (U) The IC published, The BW Threat to the Global and US Agricultural Sectors (ICB 2001-09) in March 2001, and Smallpox: How Extensive a Threat? (ICB 2001-34HC) in December 2001, which stated for the first time that "we think chances are even that smallpox is part of Baghdad's offensive BW program, although credible evidence is limited." A chart included in the December 2001 assessment indicated the likelihood that smallpox is part of Iraq's "current offensive BW program" was medium, which was defined on the chart as "40-60%." The chart also indicated that the "quality of information" to support this assessment was "poor.” (U) While the Intelligence Community had adjusted upward its assessments of the BW threat posed by Iraq beginning with the 2000 Worldwide BW National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the October 2002 NIE represented a shift in the IC's judgments about Iraq's biological weapons program. Many of the uncertainties that were expressed in all previous IC assessments about what was known about the BW program were not contained in the NIE's text. The starkest shift was the judgment that "Baghdad has... biological weapons." All previous assessments had stated that Iraq could have biological weapons. The other significant change was the assessment that all key aspects -- R&D, production, and weaponization22- of Iraq's offensive BW program were active and that most elements were now larger and more advanced than they had been before the Gulf War. Given this shift in the IC's assessments, Committee staff focused their work on the analysis of Iraq's biological warfare program in the 2002 NIE. (U) The Committee examined each of the IC's assessments outlined in the NIE and the available intelligence that supported those assessments. Committee staff also interviewed analysts and officials from the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and every intelligence agency involved in the biological section of the NIE including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Imagery and Mapping Agency23 (NIMA), and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). The Committee also interviewed IC personnel responsible for intelligence collection regarding Iraq's BW capabilities and former UN inspectors. (U) The Deputy National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Science and Technology assembled the biological warfare section of the NIE from a compilation of previous IC publications concerning Iraq's BW program. The material in the BW section was drawn from the Iraqi BW section of a draft update to the December 2000 Worldwide BW NIE that was titled, Worldwide BW Programs: Trends and Prospects Update, a September 12, 2002 CIA paper that was provided in support of the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Iraqi BW section from the draft NIE, Nontraditional Threats to the US Homeland Through 2007, and the September 17, 2002 testimony and background material produced for the DCI for use with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Armed Services Committee. 22 Weaponization refers to taking biological warfare agent and placing it in an effective delivery system, such as a spray tank system or artillery shell. 23NIMA has recently been renamed the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) (U) The DIA analyst, who was a key player in producing the Iraqi section of the draft update to the December 2000 Worldwide Biological Weapons NIE, told Committee staff that the draft was revised in three successive rounds of electronic mail (e-mail) coordination with his IC counterparts. The DIA analyst told Committee staff that the comments he received from his IC counterparts in this e-mail coordination process did not significantly change any of the overall assessments, and only offered more detail and "refined our assessments." The DCI refused to provide the Committee with copies of draft revisions of the BW section of the October 2002 NIE. NIC officials and IC analysts told Committee staff that there was no significant dissent from any IC agencies concerning the October 2002 NIE's BW assessments. As the title of the October 2002 NIE's BW section, "Biological Warfare Program - Larger Than Before," indicates, the primary assessment of the BW section of the NIE was that, not only had Iraq continued its BW program since 1991 in defiance of international efforts to disarm Iraq, but the program had advanced beyond what it had achieved prior to the 1991 Gulf War. This overall assessment is stated clearly in both the key judgments and the first sentence of the body of the BW section: "we assess that all key aspects - R&D, production, and weaponization - of Iraq's offensive BW program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War." An important component of this overall assessment is a statement found in the second sentence of the NIE's key judgments section, "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons. ." This statement was not repeated in the body of the NIE's BW section. The CIA BW analyst noted during an interview with Committee staff that in retrospect, believes that the sentence should have carried the caveat that we assess that Baghdad has biological weapons, to better reflect the uncertainties associated with this judgment. (U) To support the assessment that Iraq's offensive BW program was larger and more advanced than it was before the Gulf War, and that Iraq had biological weapons, the NIE makes the following assessments: Baghdad has transportable facilities for producing bacterial and toxin BW agents. Baghdad has been able to renovate and expand its fixed dual-use BW agent production facilities. We assess that Iraq has some BW agents and maintains the capability to produce a variety of BW agents. In the absence of UN inspectors, Iraq probably has intensified and expanded research and development in support of Iraq's BW program. Baghdad probably has developed genetically engineered BW agents. We assess that Baghdad also has increased the effectiveness of its BW arsenal by Iraq's capability to manufacture equipment and materials... and to procure other The nature and amounts of Iraq's stored BW material remain unresolved by UNSCOM accounting. We judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq's WMD efforts, owing to Baghdad's vigorous denial and deception efforts. (U) The following sections outline the Committee's examination of the intelligence supporting the arguments behind the NIE's assessment that Iraq's offensive BW program was larger and more advanced than before the 1991 Gulf war. B. Baghdad Has Transportable Facilities for Producing Bacterial and Toxin BW Agents The NIE stated that "Baghdad has transportable facilities for producing bacterial and toxin BW agents and may have other mobile units for researching and filling agent into munitions or containers, according to multiple sources. Iraq has pursued mobile BW production options, largely to protect its BW capability from detection, according to a credible source." A large part of the NIE's discussion of the alleged mobile BW production units was based on information provided by a source described in the NIE as "a credible source" and "an Iraqi defector deemed credible by the IC." The source was an Iraqi defector who had been the subject of debriefings | since 2000. He was believed by the IC to have been a project engineer involved in the design and production biological production facilities in Iraq. of The source is hereafter |