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A. Background

(U) Prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's Continuing Programs of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Intelligence Community (IC) prepared several coordinated papers that contained assessments of Iraq's biological weapons (BW) program. Prior to the departure of inspectors in 1998, IC assessments focused largely on the United Nations Special Commission's (UNSCOM) findings in Iraq, outstanding compliance issues, and the IC's assessment of the difficulties UNSCOM would face as it attempted to gain full Iraqi compliance with United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions requiring its disarmament.

(U) In February 1999, the Intelligence Community reported in Iraq: WMD and Delivery Capabilities After Operation Desert Fox, that Iraq probably retained the personnel, documentation, and much of the critical equipment necessary to continue and advance its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and delivery programs. Iraq possessed biological agent²⁰ stockpiles that could be, or already were, weaponized and ready for use, but the paper did not state definitively that Iraq had biological weapons. The size of those agent stockpiles was said to be uncertain and subject to debate, and the location, nature, and condition of the stockpiles was also unknown. Iraq's production of biological weapons was assessed to be largely dormant, but the IC observed that Iraq could begin BW agent production within days of a decision to do so.

(  ) A July 1999 National Intelligence Council (NIC) Memorandum titled Iraq: Post Desert Fox Activities and Estimated Status of WMD Programs noted that in the wake of Operation Desert Fox, the "loss of United Nations (UN) inspectors on the ground and of airborne imagery from the UNSCOM U 2 flights make it difficult to determine whether activity detected at known dual-use²¹ sites is related to WMD production." It went on to note that Iraq may have already resumed some BW production but the IC had no reliable intelligence to indicate this, and assessed that in the absence of UN inspectors Iraq would expand its BW activities. A month 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 99-OSCX/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 row in early 2000 when the Defense Human Intelligence Service (DHS) began reporting the DELETED 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 suggests that Baghdad has continued and expanded its offensive BW program by establishing a large scale, redundant, and concealed BW agent production capability. We judge that Iraq maintains the capability to produce previously declared agents and probably is pursuing development of additional bacterial and toxin agents. Moreover, we judge that Iraq has BW delivery systems available that could be used to threaten US and Allied forces in the Persian Gulf region.

(  ) 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 WMD-capable 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 production capability which has the potential to turn out several hundred tons of unconcentrated BW agent per year.
• According to DELETED 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 LTNSCOM evidence acquired in the mid-1990's that Iraq was considering such a program.
• Recent DELETED 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 DELETED sources, Iraq is bolstering its BW research and development, DELETED that in 1999 that such research & development (R&D) was being carried out while LTNSCOM 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 procurement network dual use equipment and other materials for BW research.

(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 B W 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.

(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                      SENTENCE DELETED                      noted during an interview with Committee staff that in retrospect, DELETED 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 mastering the ability to produce dried agent.
• Iraq's capability to manufacture equipment and materials . . . and to procure other necessary, dual-use materials . . . makes large-scale BW agent production easily attainable.
• The nature and amounts of Iraq's stored BW material remain unresolved by LJNSCOM 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.

footnotes

²⁰ BW agent is a dangerous biological pathogen. The agent must still be disseminated or distributed effectively in a weapon or some other type of delivery mechanism to effect the intended target.

²¹ The term dual use, in a BW context, refers to technology that is useful both for biological warfare and legitimate biotechnical, agricultural and public health needs. An example would be a fermenter that is useful for both making vaccines and biological warfare agents.

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.

²³ NIMA has recently been renamed the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA)