66 during the Gulf war were filled with liquid agent." The NIE went on to note that, “... reporting on the procurement of dual-use drying and milling equipment suggest (sic) continued interest by Iraq in the capability to dry and size at least some of the agents in its arsenal." The IC provided the Committee with 14 HUMINT and reports to support the assessment that Iraq had the capability to dry BW agent. Six of the reports described existing Iraqi dual-use drying and milling equipment, while the other eight reports described Iraqi attempts to acquire such equipment. Nothing provided to the Committee indicated whether or not the Iraqis were successful in obtaining the equipment in any of these eight cases. Only one of the 14 reports described drying and milling equipment that is clearly linked to a BW effort. The report came from the HUMINT source codenamed CURVE BALL who reported on Iraq's alleged mobile BW program. The report stated that the alleged mobile BW trailers contained spray drying equipment. The other 13 reports described dual-use drying and milling equipment that would be useful in a BW program, but none of these reports showed any links to a BW program. Iraq declared to UNSCOM that prior to 1991 it produced only liquid biological weapons agents and dried only a small amount of anthrax for use in aerosol tests on animals. G. Iraq's Capability to Manufacture Equipment and Materials... and to Procure Other Necessary, Dual-use Materials... Makes Large-scale BW Agent Production Easily Attainable 1. Foreign Procurement The NIE stated that "Iraq continues to circumvent and undermine UN sanctions to enhance its biotechnical self-sufficiency, while advancing its BW program when possible." The NIE listed several examples of Iraqi attempts to procure dual-use biotechnology equipment abroad. The IC provided the Committee with 19 reports showing Iraqi attempts to procure dual-use biotechnology equipment abroad. While all of this equipment would be useful in a BW program, only one of these reports showed a BW-related end user in Iraq, and only one report indicated that Iraq had received the dual-use equipment as a result of its efforts. The NIE also described Iraqi efforts to obtain a "jet mill" capable of grinding hundreds of kilograms of biological material per hour to one to ten microns "the ideal particle size range for BW agents." Although it is not discussed in the NIE, IC BW analysts told Committee staff that the one to ten micron particle range is also the ideal particle size for some legitimate pharmaceutical applications such as inhalers. The NIE described the travel in 1999 of three Iraqi intelligence officers to obtain materials ". . . for use in the manufacture of biological weapons... A 2000 HUMINT report stated that three Iraqi Intelligence Service officers traveled 66 ... for coordinate the acquisition of quantities of materials for use in developing Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capability. Their plan was to obtain materials in use in the manufacture of biological weapons." The NIE also described, "a robust network of intermediary firms and elsewhere that assist with the procurement of dual-use and support equipment for Iraq's offensive BW program." The NIE stated that "Since the embargo was imposed in 1990, told Committee staff that after 1991 Iraq used front companies to import a wide range of goods, including consumer goods. None of the intelligence provided to the Committee showed that Iraq used front companies as a denial and deception technique to procure equipment for a BW program. The last example of BW-related procurement cited by the NIE is an Iraqi order for the antibiotic The NIE stated that the order was placed by "the same Iraqi company that recently procured CW nerve agent antidotes." The Iraqi company, which purchased the CW nerve agent antidotes is also responsible for acquiring a wide variety of goods associated with Iraq's legitimate public health needs. This suggests that the which is widely used to treat a variety of infections, was intended for legitimate public health needs in Iraq. The CIA noted in a written response to a question from Committee staff that "A majority of the dual-use equipment sought probably was for legitimate research because of the dual-use nature of the equipment and the much larger needs of Iraq's industrial infrastructure over its [BW] program. CIA and DIA BW analysts interviewed by Committee staff all agreed that in every case cited by the NIE of Iraqi attempts to obtain dual-use biotechnical equipment abroad, the Iraqis could have been seeking equipment for their legitimate needs. As a CIA BW analyst noted "There was nothing that was uniquely BW... ." A CIA BW analyst stated that none of the equipment and materials required for a BW program were exclusively BW in nature, and said that the IC did not have a specific case where it could provide intelligence that showed that a piece of dual-use biological equipment or material sought by Iraq was clearly intended to go to an Iraqi BW-related end user. The Deputy Director for Analysis at the DCI's Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control told Committee staff that ". if you look at every individual dual-use procurement, if your question is, are there any of these procurements that we saw that can't be explained by a potential legitimate application... I think the answer to that probably is no." 2. Indigenous Iraqi Efforts 66 ... The final part of the NIE's section concerning Iraq's ability to obtain dualuse biological equipment and production capabilities stated that "We assess that Iraq also maintains the capability to manufacture some BW-related equipment and materials indigenously." The IC provided the Committee with several reports and an abstract of a paper published in a European science journal that showed dual-use biotechnical capabilities inherent in Iraqi industry that could potentially be converted for use in an offensive BW program. (U) While all of the examples in the NIE have potential application to the Iraqi BW program, and while some of the organizations involved were connected to the pre-1991 Iraqi BW program, only one of the reports has a clear link to a post-1991 BW program. The report came from the HUMINT source codenamed CURVE BALL who reported on Iraq's alleged mobile BW program. According to this report, CURVE BALL stated that fermenters and tanks in the mobile production units had been made in Iraq. (U) When asked by Committee staff whether the 2002 NIE did a good job of explaining the possibility that some, most or all of the examples cited in the NIE of dual use biological research and procurement could have been intended for legitimate, non-BW uses, a senior INR analyst stated, "I think, to answer your question, someone who is not an expert in weapons of mass destruction, if I were coming to the issue and they said here, read this Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, even if you have a discussion of dual-use applicability I think that I would come to the conclusion that, well, it must be really for WMD stuff because it's in this Estimate that talks about Iraq's WMD. So even if it has a legitimate application in civilian industry, the presumption that I would come to the document with as a lay reader in what was then the environment, I assume, of policymakers or Hill policymakers, my assumption would be that I would think it was for [chemical-biological weapons] use." H. The Nature and Amounts of Iraq's Stored BW Material Remain Unresolved by UNSCOM Accounting (U) The NIE stated that "The nature and amounts of Iraq's stored BW material remain unresolved by UNSCOM accounting." The NIE went on to state that "From the end of the Gulf war to mid-1995, Iraq denied that it had an offensive BW program, claiming that it had conducted only 'defensive research.' Only after UNSCOM confronted Baghdad with irrefutable evidence of excessive growth media procurement did Iraq admit that it had an offensive BW program and had made 30,000 liters of concentrated biological weapons agents. Even then, UNSCOM estimates that Iraq's production of anthrax spores and botulinum toxin could have been two to four times higher than claimed by Baghdad." (U) UNSCOM's final report noted that Iraq "categorically denied" it had a BW program from 1991 to 1995 and took "active steps to conceal the program" from UNSCOM. “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 with 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...." (U) The NIE described Iraq's inability to substantiate claims that a large amount of growth media was lost in failed production runs or stolen from the high security BW facility at Al-Hakam and other sites. UNSCOM's final report listed the growth media as an unresolved accounting issue, and IC analysts told Committee staff that they did not believe that it is possible that growth media could have been stolen from a facility like Al-Hakam. A former UN inspector told Committee staff, however, that he found it believable in light of the chaos and looting that followed immediately after the defeat of the Iraqi army in 1991. He noted that Iraqi guards abandoned their posts at many Iraqi government facilities. When asked why an Iraqi would want to steal growth media, he noted that there was not necessarily any logic to looting. The NIE also described Iraq's failure to provide adequate proof that it destroyed 157 aerial bombs it had filled with BW agent. The UNSCOM final report stated that inspectors were unable to verify both how many aerial bombs existed and how many were actually destroyed. The NIE noted that “Iraq claimed that it produced four aerosol spray tanks by modifying a While the UNSCOM report noted that inspectors were not satisfied that the prototype drop-tank was destroyed, "The remains of the other three drop-tanks were inspected by the Commission." The UNSCOM final report also noted that "There is no evidence to corroborate that only four were produced. Interviews indicate that 12 tanks were to be modified." 66 (U) The NIE stated that UNSCOM's final report indicated that about 20 mobile double-jacketed storage tanks, which we judge may contain previously produced agent, remain unaccounted for." UNSCOM's final report states that "20+ tanks remain unaccounted for." The report noted that these tanks "were used to transfer agent between production and filling or deployment site and for storage of agent. Owing to their properties, they can be used for longterm storage of agent under controlled conditions. . . . I. We Judge That We Are Seeing Only a Portion of Iraq's WMD Efforts, Owing to Baghdad's Vigorous Denial and Deception Efforts (U) One of the NIE's key judgments stated, "We judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq's WMD efforts, owing to Baghdad's vigorous denial and deception efforts." The NIE's BW section contained a text box titled "Iraq's Denial and Deception (D&D) Program for Biological Weapons." The first sentence of the box stated that "Iraq has a national-level BW D&D program." the intelligence provided to the Committee does not provide a clear link after 1991 between offensive BW related work and the dual-use research The NIE also states that "Iraq uses codewords to compartmentalize BW program elements, conceal acquisition of BW-related equipment, and impair Western attempts to monitor Iraqi technology acquisition." The NIE cited the use of the codeword "project 600" for BW activity at Iraq's Abu Ghurayb facility, which was in use before the 1991 Gulf War. The Committee was provided with six HUMINT reports concerning the use of codes: |