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 DELETED 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 DELETED to obtain materials ". . . for use in the manufacture of biological weapons. . . " A 2000 HUMINT report stated that three Iraqi Intelligence Service officers traveled DELETED ". . . coordinate the acquisition of quantities of materials for use in developing Iraqs chemical and biological weapons capability. Their plan was to obtain materials in DELETED for use in the manufacture of biological weapons."
( ) The NIE also described, "a robust network of intermediary firms DELETED 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, DELETED" A CIA Iraq analyst DELETED 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 DELETED. The NIE stated that the order was placed by "the same Iraqi company that recently procured CW nerve agent antidotes." The Iraqi company, DELETED 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. SENTENCE DELETED . This suggests that the DELETED, 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. DELETED" 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
( ) The final part of the NIE's section concerning Iraq's ability to obtain dual-use 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 DELETED 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."
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