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E. Although We Have Little Specific Information on Iraq's CW Stockpile, Saddam Probably Has Stocked at Least 100 Metric Tons and Possibly as Much as 500 Metric Tons of CW Agents Much of it Added in the Last Year

(U) The NIE assessment of Iraq's stocks of CW was outlined in a footnote in the report. It said,

Conservative estimates of Iraqi CW precursor stocks and production capacity, combined with Iraqi motivations and military requirements, suggest the stockpile is composed of at least 100 tons. We believe the Iraqis are capable of producing significantly larger quantities of CW agent in some scenarios; the 500 ton upperend estimate takes into account practical bounds, such as Iraq's limited delivery options, and approximates Iraq's stocks at the time of Operation Desert Storm.

(                ) The IC did not provide the Committee with any intelligence documentation which showed that Iraq had stockpiled between 100 and 500 metric tons of chemical agents, other than DELETED reports which showed that Iraq did not adequately account for its pre Gulf War stocks of chemical precursors and stocks. Previous intelligence assessments said that Iraq had a probable stockpile of 100 metric tons or less, based on estimates of CW and precursors for which Iraq had not been able to adequately account.

(                ) An intelligence analyst from the CIA told Committee staff that CIA analysts had estimated 500 metric tons as the upper end of range for the CW stockpile                      SENTENCE DELETED                      The IC increased the stockpile estimate and assessed that much of that 500 metric ton stockpile had been "added in the last year" largely because of the discovery of the suspected CW transshipment activity at al Musayyib DELETED in the spring of 2002 discussed previously in this report. The IC assessed that if Iraq had been moving chemical weapons in the spring of 2002, it must have recently produced those weapons, causing the Community to raise the stockpile estimate. There was no direct intelligence reporting of an increase in weapons stocks that caused the IC to raise the stockpile estimate.

(U) An INR CW analyst told Committee staff that he believed the 500 metric tons upper assessment was calculated "very poorly." He said he was dubious of the stockpile estimates, but said he did not footnote the NIE because the 100 metric tons lower estimate was a reasonable and longstanding IC assessment based on Iraq's accounting discrepancies and because the 500 metric tons upper limit was discussed in the NIE as "up to" 500 tons which he believed was plausible. The DIA concurred with the language in the NIE regarding the size of Iraq's CW stockpile because it believed the language, "was sufficiently caveated to indicate DIA's uncertainty in the size of the stockpile."

(U) The fact that the IC lacked specific information about Iraq's CW stockpile was noted in the body of the NIE, and the IC explained in a footnote how it arrived at the assessment that Iraq had stocked "possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agent." The key judgments of the NIE did not alert the reader to these explanatory notes.