• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

AMB. RICHARD BUTLER'S PRESENTATION TO THE UNSC, JUN 3

Iraq News, JUNE 11, 1998

The central focus of Iraq News is the tension between the considerable, proscribed WMD capabilities that Iraq is holding on to and its increasing stridency that it has complied with UNSCR 687 and it is time to lift sanctions. If you wish to receive Iraq News by email, a service which includes full-text of news reports not archived here, send your request to Laurie Mylroie .

I.   UNILATERAL DESTRUCTION
II.  MISSILE RELATED ISSUES
III. CHEMICAL WEAPONS
IV.  BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS RELATED ISSUES
V.   DOCUMENTS
VI.  CONCEALMENT
   Amb. Butler arrived in Baghdad today, for what looks to be rough 
talks.  AFP, Jun 9, quoted an unnamed Iraqi official, "This will be the 
last round in the negotiations between Butler and the Iraqis within the 
framework of the struggle to lift the sanctions."
   On Jun 3 and 4, Butler presented to the UNSC a review of Iraq's 
proscribed programs.  "Iraq News" has excerpted the bulk of that 
presentation and an informal, unofficial version follows.  It was 
UNSCOM's most comprehensive statement and detailed, in layman's 
language, the threat Iraq now poses, and the even more serious threat it 
will pose in the future, if/when sanctions are lifted.   
   Asked in an interview with the French paper, Liberation, Jun 8, about 
what degree of approximation regarding the destruction of Iraq's weapons 
might be acceptable to break the deadlock, given Iraq's position that it 
has no proscribed material, Butler replied, "It is true that in some 
cases 100 percent accounting could be impossible.  We told the Council 
this for the first time this week, and-which seems to me interesting- 
nobody demurred."  That is truly something, as the problem is not just 
some uncertainties on peripheral matters.  It is the knowledge that Iraq 
is holding on to vast quantities of the most dangerous substances known 
to man, or at least retains the capability to produce them quickly.  
UNILATERAL DESTRUCTION/CONCEALMENT
    As Butler explained to the UNSC, UNSCOM's fundamental problem is 
Iraq's claim to have unilaterally destroyed most of its proscribed 
weapons.  That, in fact, was Iraq's response to an early UNSCOM 
achievement.  Following the Gulf war, Iraq claimed to have had no 
nuclear program.  But on Jun 28, 1991, an UNSCOM/IAEA team discovered 
equipment from its nuclear program.  Two days later, as Iraq 
acknowledged in 1996, a special High Level Committee, chaired by Tariq 
Aziz, was formed.  On Jul 7, it decided on a program of unilateral 
destruction to hide the material Iraq wanted to retained.  The 
destruction was carried out that month, while UNSCOM was informed of it 
in Mar 92.  The program of unilateral destruction was a vast complicated 
shell game, in which some material was destroyed and some was not, 
making it difficult to prove that any given material Iraq claims to have 
destroyed was not destroyed.
   And as Butler told the UNSC, "It is important to note the order of 
magnitude of the weapons retained by Iraq: 2/3 of the operational 
missile force; more than half of the chemical weapons and all of the 
biological weapons. . . .  This unilateral destruction, in violation of 
resolution 687, has created a major problem . . . The unilateral 
destruction was conducted by Iraq in such a manner as to hide the 
existence of these weapons and to some extent to cover the level of 
achievement of its weapons programmes.  Iraq recognized this in a letter 
to the Security Council on 17 November 1997, which reads: 'The 
unilateral destruction was carried out entirely unrecorded, no written 
and no visual records were kept, as it was not foreseen that Iraq needed 
to prove the destruction to anybody.'"
MISSILES
  As Butler explained, Iraq is able to indigenously produce special 
[CBW] warheads.  It claims the unilateral destruction of 45 declared 
special warheads, even as some accounts of the purported destruction are 
contradicted by satellite imagery.  
    Iraq claims to have unilaterally destroyed SCUD missile propellant. 
The claim is undocumented and internally contradictory.
    Iraq is capable of indigenously producing all components of a SCUD 
missile, save for gyroscopes, which Iraq imported and which remain 
unaccounted for. Until Hussein Kamil's Aug 95 defection, Iraq "undertook 
efforts to conceal the extent of its success in the indigenous 
production of missiles.  This is another example of Iraq's attempt to 
protect its most advanced capabilities in the proscribed areas.  For 
these purposes, Iraq falsified declarations of its manufacture and 
testing of indigenously manufactured engines, misrepresented the purpose 
and use of production machinery in order to spare it from destruction, 
and under reported the quantities of imported components.  Additionally, 
Iraq stated that it chose the method of unilateral destruction to 
conceal specifically both the acquisition or manufacture of certain 
components and success that the programme had achieved.  Iraq has 
declared that additional efforts were taken, even after its declaration 
of the unilateral destruction in March of 1992, to secretly excavate and 
further destroy components to conceal these programmes.  Many critical 
components, tools and documents were diverted from the unilateral 
destruction and retained."
CHEMICAL WEAPONS--VX
   Until Aug 95, Iraq denied any VX production.  Afterwards, it 
acknowledged having producing 3.9 tons of VX, but claimed unilateral 
destruction.  This is so, even as Iraq imported precursors sufficient 
for the production of 200 tons of VX. 
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
   This is the "black hole" of which Butler has spoken.  "From 1991 to 
1995, Iraq categorically denied it had a biological weapons programme  
... Only in 1995 after pressed by UNSCOM with evidence that demonstrated 
that Iraq had a BW programme did Iraq reveal its offensive BW programme. 
Subsequently, after acknowledging this program, Iraq provided only the 
minimum amount of information required.  It continues to downplay and 
trivialize the programme.  Even since August 1995, Iraq has provided 
altered documents and taken other measures to mislead the Commission." 
   Like its VX production, Iraq has understated its BW production. Iraq 
has provided no coherent account of the growth media it imported; 
microorganisms involved in the program; the production of bulk BW 
agents; the production of munitions; the union of bulk biological agents 
with munitions to make BW weapons; the destruction of unused bulk agents 
and munitions; and ultimately the use or destruction of the weapons.  
  Also "production of other munitions, including drop tanks, aerosol 
disseminating devices developed for helicopters, pilotless aircraft 
(drones), or slow moving fixed wing aircraft are not adequately 
documented.  The information on the development and testing of the 
aerosol disseminating device was excluded from the September FFCD.  Iraq 
has recently stated that the activity related to this aerosol 
disseminating device was not mentioned in the 1997 declaration because 
the effort was primitive and inconsequential and that nothing has turned 
up to change that and no added credibility is gained by keeping the text 
in the 1997 FFCD.  These explanations provided by Iraq are not supported 
by documents.  The modified drop tanks and the aerosol disseminating 
devices are judged by the experts to be the most serious development of 
BW munitions by Iraq...  The significance of the modified drop tank, a 
device to spray weapons-grade biological warfare agent from fighter 
aircraft, is greatly underplayed, taking into account that the 
assessment of the TEM is that this weapon appears to be the most 
efficient for the delivery of biological warfare agents produced by 
Iraq."
DOCUMENTS
  "Iraq has undertaken systematic efforts to move around, reclassify, 
destroy or retain documents related to its past proscribed weapons 
programs.  Iraq has admitted such.  Iraq has declared to the Commission 
a program from April 1991 until February 1993 to hide documents from the 
Commission, destroy duplicate sets of documents, and microfiche 
documents.  Iraq claims that this effort was ordered by one man, Hussein 
Kamal, and that it was done in secret from the rest of the Iraqi 
leadership.  The Iraqis claim that the Chicken Farm cache is the 
products of this secret effort.  However, the Iraqi story does not stand 
up to close scrutiny. . .
   "The first slide shows an image of the Haidar farm, commonly known as 
the chicken farm.  You see on the picture, taken on 26 July 1995, that 
containers have been brought to this farm, which belongs to Hussein 
Kamal. . . These containers can be seen there, between two sheds.  There 
are about ten of them.  Iraq has since claimed that these containers 
were used to transport the annual potato harvest.  However, an 
examination of imagery for previous years, as well as the years since 
1995, revealed no indication that such containers or for that matter any 
like them, were present for this purpose at the Haidar farm.
   "On 8 August 1995, Hussein Kamal left the country.  On 9 August, as 
seen on the next slide, there are no more containers in front of the 
farms.  A lot of trucks were coming in and out.  Boxes and crates are 
stacked up in this location, near where the Commission eventually 
discovered boxes and crates of similar dimensions containing documents 
relating to Iraq's past proscribed weapons programs.
   "On the third slide, you see a picture taken on 19 August, a day 
before the arrival on the spot of the Executive Chairman and his team.  
You can see that there are no more trucks or containers.  In one of 
those containers present when UNSCOM inspected the site, documents on 
the biological program were found, along with documents pertaining to 
all areas of Iraq's proscribed weapons programs.  We have some concern 
that the Chicken farm might have been cleansed before the arrival of the 
team.  The Farm manager himself stated that he was taken into custody by 
the Special Security organization on 9 August, the same day that we see 
considerable activities on the farm.   . . .  The reality of the matter 
might be, as reported by the Farm manager, that the Farm was seized by 
Special Security on 9 August, and that material was brought to the site 
at that time.  The Farm had been used to store material earlier.  This 
material was probably contained in the containers observed in July 1995. 
Special Security, concerned about the revelations of data expected to be 
made by Hussein Kamal brought material back to the farm for the purpose 
of discovery by the Commission.  However, this material was not at the 
Haidar Farm on 8 August 1995.  High-level defectors have informed the 
Commission that this material was, on 8 August, stored at a number of 
locations through the Baghdad area to include residences associated with 
several high-ranking Iraqi Government officials.  The Special Security 
organization might have quickly acted to consolidate those caches, and 
from 9 August until 18 August, worked to sort the material into two 
categories: what was to be turned over to the Commission, and what was 
to be retained. . . .
   "An analysis of documents which could have been present in the 
Chicken Farm include: Integration drawings for the SCUD missile.  Of all 
technical drawings, this is the one needed if Iraq is to be able to 
resume production of the SCUD missile.  'Cookbooks' for chemical agent. 
These are the detailed recipes and manuals for producing the chemical 
precursors and agents.  None were found.  Any meaningful documentation 
concerning the biological weaponization programs."