SADDAM'S WEAPONS
Iraq News, 1999
By
Laurie Mylroie
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 .
IRAQ NEWS, TUESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1999
I. JOHN PIKE, US STRIKES ON IRAQ, JUL 31
II. BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL, SADDAM'S WEAPONS, AUG 5
III. A. M. ROSENTHAL, SADDAM'S WEAPONS, NYT, AUG 6
IV. SADDAM'S WEAPONS, AP, AUG 7
The Wash Post editors, Aug 6, commenting on the INS' use of secret
evidence in the case of Nasser Ahmed [see "Iraq News," Aug 2] concluded,
"While it is possible to imagine immigration cases in which secrecy
might be necessary, the government has undermined confidence that it is
making responsible judgments about such occassions." The editorial is
posted at:
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/06/004l-080699-idx.html
On Jul 31, FAS' John Pike, sent a note observing, "Over the past week
or so things have really hotted up with OSW/ONW. This has been the most
intense and sustained Iraqi-initiated combat operation in many years."
Indeed, Pike cited seven US/UK strikes on Iraq, from Jul 26 through Jul
30. Subsequently, the US/UK also struck Iraq Aug 4 and 9.
The flurry of air strikes coincided with an "Arab Popular Forces
Conference," held in Baghdad Jul 28-30, under the slogan, "Popular
Forces' Unity and Escalation of their Struggle Are the True Path to
Defeat the Imperialist-Zionist Aggression Against the Arab Nation." The
previous such conference was held in Baghdad May 1-3, 98.
The Boston Globe editors, Aug 5, warned, "If Saddam Hussein obtains
nuclear weapons during the current absence of UN inspectors from Iraq,
then allowing him to end the inspecting and monitoring of Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction last December may become the most perilous failing
of US foreign policy in the 1990s--and the most unpardonable act of
appeasement by the UN Security Council."
A.M. Rosenthal, Aug 6, wrote of the "first anniversary of [Saddam's]
spectacular victory"--the effective end of UNSCOM inspections, known as
"Suspension Day" in Baghdad. And Rosenthal warned, "So by another
Aug.5, possibly the next, Iraq will be resurgent with the combination of
mass-death weaponry and Saddam's passionate commitment to control the
Mideast . . . The US should inform all its allies . . . that helping
Iraq to continue to refuse inspection . . . would be considered an act
hostile to America's high national interests . . . [But] I do not think
US leadership is wise or strong enough to adopt that strategy. Saddam
will be allowed to follow his own, with consequences we are afraid even
to consider, yet."
AP, Aug 7, reported that according to CSIS' Tony Cordesman,
"photographs by US spy satellites show that Iraq has rebuilt its
al-Kindi facility for conducting research on ballistic missiles. . . .
Cordesman said Iraq also is expanding its missile production facility at
Ibn al-Haytham, which has two new buildings large enough to manufacture
longer-range missiles than the Scuds Iraq fired in the Gulf war." DoD
spokesman Kenneth Bacon acknowledged, "We don't have evidence that he
has started work again on his weapons of mass destruction programs. . .
But it's very hard to monitor without inspectors."
Saddam spoke on the anniversary of the Aug 8 1988 cease-fire to the
Iran-Iraq war. The speech was three times the length of last year's
speech. It was also extremely hostile towards Iran, reflecting the
Saudi-Iranian alignment against Iraq that has emerged over the past
year.
The speech was also very opaque. At the end Saddam said, addressing
Iraqis, "Great people: We realize that we have burdened you with the
style of this address. [But] . . . the simplified style, dear people,
is not always capable of expressing the meaning of what we want to state
when discussing intellectual matters. . . . . A simplified speech . . .
might take a course that could fracture the foreheads and split the
hearts of your opponents. However, this is not our intention. Now,
they have come to know that you can, in the name of God, cleave
foreheads and tear livers in the battlefields. Instead, we try to cure
the sick souls and hearts, and open, in the best manner, the eyes to the
facts as they are . . .
"We are performing our national and human duty after seeking the
assistance of God. Based on the knowledge of more than 8,000 years of
civilization and the eternal heritage of our nation, we state: Go, both
of you to Pharaoh and speak gently to him."
"Iraq News" does not understand what Saddam means. But it is
ominous, perhaps meant for Iran, perhaps for some other party, like the
US. The language was graphic and violent. Who else speaks like that?
And Pharaoh is the symbol, par excellence, of illegitimate authority.
As Moses challenged illegitimate authority, so will Saddam, or rather,
that is what he is doing. And the phrase--Go both of you to Pharoah
and speak gently to him--is the first part of the Koranic verse that
began Iraq's May 1, 98 letter to the UNSC. That letter ferociously
protested sanctions and itself sounded like a declaration of war.
Quoting the verse, Taha 43, it began, "Go, both of you unto Pharaoh, for
he has indeed transgressed all bounds." [see "Iraq News, May 5, 98].
The verse that follows--not cited in the letter--is "And speak unto him
a gentle word that peradventure he may heed or fear."
It will be recalled that Iraq's May 1 98 warning was repeated several
times and issued for the last time on Aug 5, "Suspension Day." Two
days, later US embassies in Kenya/Tanzania were bombed simultaneously
[See "Iraq News," Jun 26, Jul 20, 21, and Aug 6 98]. Of course, that
was Osama b. Ladin, all by his lonesome. "Iraq News" can only reiterate
that Americans have died because of the sly way the Clinton
administration handled the question of state sponsorship in the first
major terrorist act to occur on its watch--the Feb 26, 93 World Trade
Center bombing--and that is why Hades will freeze before the
administration suggests Iraq is responsible for any of this terrorism,
which only leaves the US vulnerable to more. [see
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/956-tni.htm ]
Saddam began his speech by citing Iraq's glory, dating back to
antiquity, "Sumer, Babylon, Baghdad, Assyria, Nineveh, al-Hadar, and
Ur." He also took the Iran-Iraq conflict back into antiquity, when "the
Elamite Persian King Schuturk-Nachonettihad stole the obelisk on which
the codes of the Iraqi king Hammurabi were inscribed. The Persian king
tried to erase the name of Hammurabi on these codes out of his feelings
of rancor and envy. . . . Why and how did the Persian King Korosh [i.e.
Cyrus] destroy the city of Bablyon after almost six centuries? . . . .
The Persian king did this in collaboration with the Jews who were
brought in as detainees by King Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon. . .
Saddam then turned to Iraq's present grievances against Iraq. He
claimed "Iraq has released all Iranian prisoners . . . [but] in
contrast, Iran continues to hold thousands of Iraqi prisoners and
refuses to register some of them with the Red Cross. Our heroic
prisoners are subjected to all types of torture, pressure, and often
murder in their cells."
Also, "Iraq deposited civil and war planes in Iran. Some were sent
to Iran, before the 30-state aggression in the Mother of Battles, and
some during the fighting. This was done on the basis of a wrong concept
on our part . . . that Iran was no longer an enemy of Iraq, after God
had granted us victory over evil on 8 August 1988 when the two sides
agreed to stop fighting."
Saddam also complained that countries bordering Iraq "including Iran,
are carrying out the task of the field blockade, in a manner that
encourages and supports the aggressor Americans and Zionism to continue
to kill the people of Iraq by all means."
Saddam also charged that the Iranians were not proper Muslims, "The
behavior of Iranians toward Islamic history encouraged the Shah of Iran
to celebrate the passage of 2,500 years since the establishment of the
Persian state, ignoring Iran's history within the state of Islam. It
was the same characterization which made the Iranian ruler [i.e.
Khomeini] when the great principles of true Islam were absented seek to
destroy Baghdad in 1980 in order to occupy Iraq the way Korosh destroyed
Babylon in collaboration with the Jews in 539 BC. What I said explains
why the Iranian students are not taught the history of the Islamic state
and even why the religious schools there do not teach the history and
jurisprudence of the Islamic state."
Saddam then turned briefly to the US/Israel, "This also explains why
and how the US administrations, which claim to embrace the principles of
Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, are forging an alliance with the
hateful Zionism, which committed aggression against the lands and rights
of the Arabs and Palestinians. The US administrations support the Jews
to kill the women, elderly, and children in Palestine, the cradle of
Christ, peace be upon him, and in other Arab states. This explains why
and how the US administrations forged an alliance with others to kill
and starve the people of Iraq, destroy Iraq's pillars of civilization
and even archaeological monuments."
Saddam concluded by asserting that when Baghdad prospered, the Arabs
prospered, and when Baghdad stagnated, so did they, before explaining
why the Ottomans were also lousy rulers and bad Muslims. Did he leave
anyone out?
In response to Saddam's speech, as AP, Aug 9, reported, an Iranian
Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Saddam's "comments mean 'he is
still unwilling to abandon his unwise practices in his relations with
other nations.' The Iran Daily wrote, "In a century which has come to
symbolize appalling human tragedies, the name of Saddam tops a rather
long list of proverbial biblical curses which have fallen on the Islamic
world."
I. JOHN PIKE, US STRIKES ON IRAQ
Coalition aircraft respond to Iraqi ground fire
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/07/99jul30.htm
UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND (30 Jul 99) --Operation Northern Watch
(ONW) F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16C Fighting Falcons dropped GBU-12
laser-guided bombs on AAA sites north and northwest of Mosul.
Coalition responds to Iraqi provocation in southern no-fly zone
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/07/990730-osw.htm
UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND July 30, 1999 U.S. Air Force F-16
"Fighting Falcons," U.S. Navy FA-18 "Hornets" and F-14 "Tomcats," and
Royal Air Force GR-1 aircraft aircraft struck an Iraqi anti-aircraft
artillery site and an Iraqi military communications site. The coalition
strikes were conducted near Abu Sukhayr and Ad Darraji.
Coalition aircraft respond to Iraqi ground fire
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/07/99jul29.htm
UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND (29 Jul 99) --Operation Northern Watch
(ONW) F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16C Fighting Falcons dropped GBU-12
laser-guided bombs on AAA sites north of Mosul.
Coalition responds to Iraqi provocation in southern no-fly zone
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/07/990729-osw.htm
UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND July 29, 1999 U.S. Air Force F-16
"Fighting Falcons," U.S. Navy FA-18 "Hornets" and F-14 "Tomcats," and
Royal Air Force GR-1 aircraft using precision guided munitions struck
three Iraqi military communication sites and one Iraqi military radar
site. The strikes were conducted near the towns of Al Jarrah, Al Kut,
and Al Numinayah.
Coalition aircraft respond to Iraqi ground fire
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/07/99jul28.htm
UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND (28 Jul 99) Operation Northern Watch
(ONW) F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16C Fighting Falcons dropped GBU-10 and
GBU-12 laser-guided bombs on an AAA emplacement and a communication
site. The two different sites were both north of Mosul.
Coalition aircraft respond to Iraqi ground fire
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/07/99jul27.htm
UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND (27 July 1999) Operation Northern Watch
(ONW) F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16C Fighting Falcons dropped GBU-12
laser-guided bombs on command and control sites south of Mosul and
anti-aircraft artillery sites southeast of Mosul.
Coalition aircraft respond to Iraqi ground fire
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/07/99jul26.htm
UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND (26 July 1999) Operation Northern Watch
(ONW) F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16CJ Fighting Falcons dropped GBU-10 and
GBU-12 laser-guided bombs on a communication site north of Mosul.
II. BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL, SADDAM'S WEAPONS
August 5, 1999
Boston Globe Editorial
A warning about Iraq
If Saddam Hussein obtains nuclear weapons during the current absence
of UN inspectors from Iraq, then allowing him to end the inspecting and
monitoring of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction last December may
become the most perilous failing of US foreign policy in the 1990s - and
the most unpardonable act of appeasement by the UN Security Council.
Because the stakes are so high, it is crucial to understand how
Saddam was able to keep his prohibited weapons while bribing or bluffing
Security Council members into violating the terms of the UN resolutions
of 1991, which required him to declare all his weapons of mass
destruction within 15 days and destroy them within one year.
This is the desolating story told in the new magazine Talk by
Richard Butler, former head of Unscom, the UN Special Commission
established to carry out those unambiguous resolutions. Butler's account
has been publicized for its damning charges about the role that the UN
secretary general, Kofi Annan, played in permitting Saddam to break free
of the weapons inspectors. Annan does look foolish or disingenuous in
Butler's version of the UN capitulation to Saddam, and the secretary
general needs to respond more seriously than he has to Butler's
persuasive brief. But the import of Butler's indictment encompasses much
more than incompetence in the UN's top bureaucrat.
Butler describes how Russian diplomats and ministers worked hand in
glove with Iraq to thwart Unscom. France and China played supporting
roles in the Security Council's rescue of Saddam. And although Butler
defends the Clinton administration against charges that it permitted
Unscom to be terminated, there is no doubting that Washington allowed
its ally France, a bankrupt Russia, and a China that benefits from a $70
billion trade surplus with the United States to help Saddam become the
most dangerous terrorist in the world.
Butler's Cassandra-like warning about Iraq had better be heeded soon.
Independent inspectors must return to locate and destroy all of Saddam's
weapons of mass destruction, whether chemical, biological, or nuclear.
III. A. M. ROSENTHAL, SADDAM'S WEAPONS
August 6, 1999
New York Times
ON MY MIND/ A.M. ROSENTHAL
Partying With Saddam
Often this week I found myself wondering how Saddam Hussein would
celebrate Aug. 5, the first anniversary of his spectacular victory.
In my mind's eye I saw magnificent stomping and feasting in the great
halls of his palaces, and in my ear is the contemptuous slapping of
thighs about the U.N. and its top bureaucrats who worked so hard to give
Iraq this wonderful victory.
Certainly no dictator has more reason to rejoice. Eight years ago he
was ground into the desert sands by a coalition of nations, American-
organized and -led. Parades were held in the U.S. Coalition leaders
drank toasts to each other.
None were so small-minded as to comment on Saddam's refusal to show
up to sign Iraq's surrender document. Nor, almost a decade later, do
they stoop to mention his failure to appear at any of the meetings where
Saddam's victory has taken place -- U.N.-Iraq meetings in Baghdad or the
elegant chamber of the U.N. Security Council, created half a century ago
in New York for the cause of peace and freedom, as it is still put with
a straight face.
The meetings last year were to try to find the exact words of
Chamberlainism that would persuade Saddam to permit the U.N. to carry
out inspections in Iraq for nuclear, bacteriological and chemical
weapons. When he lost the gulf war he promised the inspections would be
satisfactorily finished in 15 days.
Early last year, despite his relentless daily effort to block
inspection teams, they found that Iraq could become a nuclear power
within a year or two if inspection ceased, and could mount a chemical
and bacteriological war after three months.
But most Council members except America and Britain sabotaged the
inspection teams and their chief, Richard Butler, one of the most
staunch and skillful U.N. officials I have known in the U.N.'s lifetime.
In conspiracy with Saddam, Russia led the Council members who fought
inspection. Their goal was to lift the commercial sanctions against
Saddam, which prevented them from doing billions in business with Iraq.
Never do these nations speak the truth that sanctions, which hurt the
ordinary Iraqi, would be lifted almost instantly if Saddam lived up to
his inspection promises. Forbes magazine estimates he is the
sixth-richest man in the world, so we can assume he has plenty to eat.
When Mr. Butler's inspectors drew too close to Iraqi weaponry, last
Aug. 5 Saddam curtly told the U.N. no further inspection would be
allowed.
What the U.N. did about Saddam's tearing up of the gulf peace
agreement was exactly nothing. The U.S., acting outside the U.N. later,
did mount an air campaign against Iraq. It lasted just four days because
of the advent of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which apparently took
Washington by surprise. Iraq and other Muslim states attacked Israel in
1973 when Yom Kippur and Ramadan came together.
Mr. Butler's contract expired about two months ago. Neither he nor
the U.N.'s top bureaucracy wanted any further part of each other. Now he
is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writing.
In the first issue of Talk -- Tina Brown's loving gift of heartburn
to the magazine world -- the Australian Butler is a hard fast bowler, or
whatever they call it in cricket. He pays his respects to Secretary
General Kofi Annan, who had boasted that he could do business with
Saddam. He did, straight to bankruptcy. Mr. Butler accuses Mr. Annan of
handing Saddam the "greatest possible prize": destruction of the U.N.
inspection commission, the only barrier to Iraq's achievement of weapons
of mass destruction.
So by another Aug. 5, possibly the next, Iraq will be resurgent with
the combination of mass-death weaponry and Saddam's passionate
commitment to control the Mideast, including all Western roads to it.
One strategy, only, will block this. The U.S. should inform all its
allies -- real or pretended -- that helping Iraq continue to refuse
inspection, or in any other way, would be considered an act hostile to
America's high national interests and we will no longer regard them as
allies or true friends, real, pretend or would-be.
I do not think U.S. leadership is wise or strong enough to adopt that
strategy. Saddam will be allowed to follow his own, with consequences we
are afraid even to consider, yet.
IV. SADDAM'S WEAPONS, AP
Saturday August 7 11:27 AM ET
US: No Evidence of Iraq Rebuilding
By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - In the absence of U.N. inspectors, Iraq has
reconstructed some U.S.-bombed buildings associated with its weapons of
mass destruction program but there is no evidence weapons production has
resumed, the Clinton administration says.
While the Pentagon says the intelligence picture of Iraq is fuzzy,
many foreign policy analysts believe Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has
used the inspections respite since December to push a covert weapons
program.
"Given the determination that he showed" in defying the U.N.
inspectors since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, "I would assume
that is what he's doing," said Laurie Mylroie, an Iraq specialist and
vice president of Information for Democracy, a nonprofit Washington-
based research institute.
Washington contends that as long as U.S. economic sanctions remain in
place and U.S. and British aircraft enforce "no fly" zones over
northern and southern Iraq, Saddam has little room or opportunity to
resurrect his military in a major way.
Still, analysts believe Iraq is pursuing chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons as well as the missiles to deliver them.
"There's a real problem here," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East
expert at the Center for Stategic and International Studies. Late last
month, he wrote a report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
``Iraq retains the technology it acquired before the war and evidence
clearly indicates an ongoing research and development effort'' on
missiles, Cordesman wrote, adding that photographs by U.S. spy
satellites show Iraq has rebuilt its al-Kindi facility for conducting
research on ballistic missiles.
Defense Secretary William Cohen's spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, confirmed
that Iraq has rebuilt some buildings associated with its weapons
program. The buildings were destroyed by U.S. bombs in December -
attacks triggered by Iraq's refusal to cooperate with U.N. inspectors.
``The guy is a warrior,'' Bacon said, referring to Saddam. ``He's
always going to rebuild his war-making capability.''
``We don't have evidence that he has started work again on his weapons
of mass destruction programs,'' Bacon said. ``But it's very hard to
monitor without inspectors'' there on the ground. The administration is
expected to make a renewed push for a return of U.N. inspectors this
fall in the Security Council.
Besides satellite surveillance, the United States also uses
electronic eavesdropping and other means to monitor Iraqi military
developments. Still, the absence of U.N. inspectors is a major
limitation.
The inspectors made on-the-spot checks of military-related buildings
and maintained camera surveillance of key facilities, although their
access was not complete and sometimes cut off altogether.
The United States and Britain bombed Iraqi military and communications
buildings for four days in December after the inspectors released a
report saying Baghdad was blocking their work. Iraq has refused to
permit the arms inspectors to return.
Cordesman said Iraq also is expanding its missile production facility
at Ibn al-Haytham, which has two new buildings large enough to
manufacture longer-range missiles than the Scuds Iraq fired in the Gulf
War.
The U.S. government's statements about Iraq this year have focused on
the lack of evidence of illicit Iraqi weapons development. But both
Washington and London are convinced Saddam is pushing a covert effort on
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, plus long-range missiles,
Cordesman said. Even so, Cordesman said, Iraq's progress has been slow.
Missile development is particularly important because any chemical or
biological agents that Iraq already has - in violation of the U.N.
commitments it made at the end of the Gulf War to destroy them all - are
of little military value without a means of delivering them across
Iraq's own borders.
The administration thinks Saddam is deterred from using any chemical
or biological weapons he may have by a belief that the United States
would respond with overwhelming military power. Saddam did have chemical
weapons ready during the Gulf War but none were used, the Pentagon says.
``If he believed it in 1991 he has many more reasons to believe it
today,'' Bacon said, noting that U.S. warplanes have pounded Iraq with
impunity recently, chipping away at Saddam's air defenses.
For now the Iraqis appear to be intent on drawing attention to U.S.
and British attacks in the ``no fly'' zones, which were established
after the Gulf War to protect minority Shiites in the south and rebel
Kurds in the north. Iraq contends the flight bans are an illegal
infringement on its sovereignty.
On Aug. 4, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said the Iraqi
military will intensify its challenges to U.S. overflights until they
stop.
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