Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Briefing Slides [PDF 2.4 Mb]

MR. YURECHKO: Good afternoon. My title is a rather lofty one. I am a defense intelligence officer for information operations and denial and deception at the Defense Intelligence Agency. And the briefing we are going to cover today is on Iraqi denial and deception. But before I plunge into the brief, I would like to briefly explain what I do and the analysts at my agency do. One of our missions is to identify, analyze and provide warning of threats and the capabilities of those threat nations and transnational groups, individuals and coalition. For example, we provide analysis to foreign decision- making processes, information technology, systems networks and, as we will do today, denial and deception programs.

       I wanted to point out, as was said earlier, I am not an expert on Iraq per se, and I am not an expert on weapons of mass destruction. I am an expert on the strategy and methods that various countries use to deceive and hide their WMD programs, as we call weapons of mass destruction.

       I am going to tease you in the sense that my job is very much like your job, like the job of a reporter. I try to find the answers to a lot of very difficult questions. I see and interpret a lot of information, and some of it is classified information. I don't rely on a single source to make a judgment.

       This presentation is unclassified, of course, and there will be areas that I just won't be able to address. I have to protect my sources just like you do.

       Like you, I have the rather tough job of telling my bosses what I know, what I think I know and what I don't know. And sometimes they don't like to hear any of those answers. As was pointed out, I am not a policymaker. I have to answer questions to help those who have to make the tough decisions.

       Our objective today is pretty simple: to describe for you the Iraqi denial and deception program for its WMD and ballistic missile programs. Denial and deception is not just a traditional military activity that seeks to confuse the tactical military commander on the battlefield. On the contrary, the case of Iraq, denial and deception, or D&D, as you will hear me use that phrase, is a deliberate, methodical, expensive and well organized national level strategic effort which aims at deceiving not just the United States, not just the United Nations, and not just even the public media, but in fact the entire world.

       Next slide please. Before we turn to Iraq, let me briefly kind of describe to you what we man when we talk about denial and deception, as this slide demonstrates. There is nothing arcane about D&D. The methods are as old as recorded history, and the Iraqis have repeatedly demonstrated that they are masters of D&D techniques. Briefly, denial refers to those methods used to conceal state and military secrets from foreign intelligence collection. Deception, on the other hand, is the manipulation of information and perceptions to induce the target of the deception to take or not take an action that would then benefit the deceiver.

       Denial and deception are interrelated. Denial is the basis for successful deception. You can't manipulate or blur the truth, or lie convincingly, unless the truth is first concealed.

       Iraq used all of the denial and deception methods listed on this chart against past U.N. inspections, and we expect them to do the same against future inspections.

       Next slide. In fact, after Desert Storm, as you all know, the Iraqis directed a massive, well organized denial and deception effort to defeat the UNSCOM inspection regime. A number of foreign former inspectors, senior UNSCOM officials and Iraqi defectors have described this effort in considerable detail. This body of testimony includes, for example, David Kay's famous article in the Washington Quarterly, 1995; the British inspector Tim Trevan and his 1999 book, Saddam's Secrets; several insightful articles and reports by the former U.S. inspector David Albright; former chairman of UNSCOM Richard Butler, in his valuable book published in 2000, The Greatest Threat. And if these Western sources don't suffice, there is now a small but growing body of accounts by knowledgeable Iraqi defectors; for example, the former Iraqi nuclear scientist, Dr. Khidhr Hamzah published Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda.

       Next slide. This chart highlights the key organizational components that direct Iraqi national level D&D efforts for WMD and their missile programs. It's not surprising to point out that the system is directed from the very highest political levels within the presidential office, and involves if not Saddam Hussein himself, his youngest son Qusai, who is in charge of the special security organization. This is a highly centralized effort. The program encompasses intelligence, security services, the special Republican Guard, the Military Industrial Commission, and the Ministry of Information.

       The Higher Security Committee under the president's office is in overall command of concealment and deception operations. The Special Security Organization, or SSO, under Qusai Hussein is responsible for supervising the so-called concealment mechanisms against the inspection program.

       According to the former UNSCOM Chairman, Richard Butler, Saddam Hussein at one point even assigned Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz the responsibility for concealing some of Iraq's weapons program.

       We should point out that Iraq has learned some very useful lessons from previous inspection regimes, from unclassified UNSCOM reports on the Internet, and unauthorized disclosures, and is taking steps right now to conceal and disperse sensitive equipment and documentation in anticipation of another inspection regime.

       Iraq's denial and deception strategy has three key objectives. It's fairly simple. The first objective is to blur the truth about Iraqi compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and with the U.N. resolutions, in order to undermine the credibility of the UNSCOM findings, and undermine any further recommendations to the Security Council and thereby erode support for continued inspections.

       I can't emphasize sufficiently the importance of this first goal. Although crude at some times, Iraqi D&D measures have prevented UNSCOM and Western intelligence from producing the kinds of smoking gun -- photographs and other evidence, in particular juridical evidence -- demanded by those who are still kind of skeptical of Iraqi violations of U.N. resolutions.

       The second objective. The second objective is to ensure that UNSCOM could not uncover the true full scope of Iraq's WMD and missiles programs, including the number of personnel involved, the exact facilities, equipment, documentation and weaponization efforts.

       Finally, the last objective, and perhaps the most important one, the Iraqis sought to prevent UNSCOM from achieving the complete disarmament of Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs in accordance with the U.N. resolutions. As of 1998, when the inspectors left Iraq, the Iraqis had succeeded in achieving these three goals. Their strategy remains effective. Recent CIA reports released last Friday reaffirm that Baghdad is still hiding large portions of their WMD program.

       Next slide. What I would like to do through the main body of the briefing then is to look at each of these techniques that are listed on the slide here. These are the various D&D techniques that Iraq has employed since Desert Storm. Many of these activities were targeted against the U.N. and the UNSCOM inspectors. Some were, and are, directed against the United States and Western intelligence. Some in fact are aimed at influencing world opinion. I am going to give you illustrative examples of these activities. Some are historical in nature and some are quite current.

       So we are start off with concealment. This is a relatively simple technique. This is an example of a suspected Iraqi biological warfare facility. If you take a look at it, one of the interesting features is first of it it's concealed, if you will, within a large residential area, and most of the buildings are very nondescript in nature. There is really nothing there that leaps out of you that says this is something we want to inspect, this is something that is concealing a WMD activity.

       Placing WMD facilities in residential areas is a practiced method of concealment. There is a famous aphorism I can think of by the late Amron Katz -- he was a specialist in arms control. He said, quote, "We have never found anything that our that our enemies have successfully concealed," unquote.

       The issue for us today is how many undetected facilities exist. As the former British inspector Tim Trevan noted, if undeclared and undetected and concealed WMD sites exist, by definition they cannot be inspected or monitored, and the inspection regime cannot provide any level of assurance that the country is not conducting illicit activities.

       Next slide. Related to concealment is another well-practiced technique, sanitization. The system for hiding prescribed WMD material and sanitizing facilities relies on high mobility and good command and control. It often employs trucks to move items at short notice. Most sites appear to be located near good road and telecommunications links.

       On several occasions UNSCOM and the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, inspectors detected Iraqi officials removing documents and material from buildings, and even burning documents to prevent them from being evaluated. Inspectors have routinely found high interest facilities cleaned out after their entry was delayed for several hours. This a very famous example I am sure some of you recall from 1991. In this case the Iraqis remove calutrons by truck out of the back of the Fallujah facility while the inspectors were being held up at the front in a reception area. One inspector photographed these trucks leaving the facility -- climbed up a water tower very quickly and was able to capture them as the rest of the team was held up at the front gate.

       Next slide. Another category of D&D techniques: fraudulent declarations to the United Nations. U.N. Security resolutions 687 and related resolutions 707, 715 and 1051, stipulate that Iraq must provide full, final and complete disclosure of all aspects of its nuclear, chemical, biological and long-range missile weapons programs. Let's look at the record here. Prior to 1998, Iraq made seven so- called full and final declarations to the U.N. Iraq modified each full and final declarations to the U.N. several times to accommodate data uncovered by UNSCOM and the IAEA, and provided new information and explanations only when confronted with direct evidence. For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declaration to the IAEA four times within 14 months of its initial submission in April of '91. Iraq formally submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which UNSCOM rejected. And Iraq provided no hard evidence to support claims that it destroyed all of its BW agents and munitions in 1991. Richard Butler stated at that time that, in September 1997, that Iraq's BW declaration, biological warfare declaration, quote, "failed to give a remotely credible account of Iraq's biological weapons program."

       Often when confronted with evidence of deception, the Iraqis used the sacrifice technique. This is another classic case of how the Iraqis respond when their attempts at deception are exposed. Iraq has tried to generate a public impression of cooperation while working hard to conceal essential information on the scope and capability of its WMD programs. One technique for achieving this objective is the sacrifice of compromise of their obsolete WMD or missile elements. For example, Iraq dramatically disclosed nearly 700,000 pages of WMD related documents at a chicken farm following the 1995 defection of Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's former son-in-law. He headed the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization until 1990. And Kamel was a key player in Iraq's effort to procure WMD.

       Some spare but significant information was buried within this massive volume of extraneous data, all of which was again intended to create the appearance of candor, and to overwhelm UNSCOM's analytical resources.

       Another good example is Iraq released detailed records of how many ballpoint pens it ordered in the late 1980s; but it did not provide records of how it procured biological precursors or supported claimed that it had destroyed missile warheads capable of delivering BW or CW agents.

       The cover story -- this is another classic technique for covering up WMD related activities. These are two images of a BW facility at Abu Gharayub bombed during Operation Desert Storm. Many of you might remember this story. Let me tell -- draw your attention to some of the unique features of this facility which the Iraqis labeled as a baby milk plant of factory. First of all, it's got a double chain- link fence around the facility protecting it, and all road access is covered by guard towers and secured.

       I also want to draw your attention to the two dates on these pictures -- first, September 1990 and then 17 January 1991, during the outbreak of hostilities during Desert Storm. What's the difference between the two pictures, and we'll get a close-up of this. If you take a close look, you will see the baby infant formula plant has been camouflaged in the second picture. After the coalition struck this facility, the Iraqis claimed, "Hey, this was an infant formula plant; that is a non-military target," even though they had put clearly military camouflage on the target.

       Next picture.

       The Iraqis then quickly prepared a hand-painted sign in English and Arabic and dressed up plant personnel in uniforms that were labeled "Baby Milk Plant." They brought the foreign media representatives to the facility for a controlled tour, probably staged by the Iraqi ministry of information. During this tour, the Iraqis fed them disinformation about the baby milk factory. They paraded personnel around with a false logo on their uniforms to enhance this disinformation story.

       Regrettably, there were a lot of those in the West and Middle East who believed this story. Again, I'll draw your attention to the camouflage on the building. And just to orient you on the previous image, note this causeway up here, and I'll show you where this picture was actually taken.

       Next picture.

       It's a little hard to see, but right here is that same causeway. So, again, you can see the camouflage in the entrance way.

       Next slide.

       Here's another cover story -- the Fallujah III castor-oil facility. The coalition bombed this facility during Desert Storm in 1991 and during Operation Desert Fox in 1998. This picture shows that the Iraqis have rebuilt the facility in its entirety, and then it's active again.

       There are some interesting stories regarding this castor-oil production plant. It's situated on a large complex with a historical connection to Iraq's chemical weapons program. Iraq rebuilt major structures at the plant after they were destroyed, and the Iraqis now claim that the plant is making castor oil for brake fluid, a story that's a bit hard to swallow, if you'll allow me a pun. The residue, however, from castor-oil bean pulp can be used in the production of the biological agent ricin.

       In addition to questions about facilities at known complexes, there are compelling reasons to be concerned about BW activity at other sites and in mobile production lines and laboratories. These are very difficult to detect. In fact, we believe Iraq has now established a large-scale redundant and concealed BW agent production capability.

       Next slide.

       Dual-use facilities. Again, here's another good example of the use of a dual-use facility to conceal WMD activity. Almost all components and supplies used in weapons of mass destruction and missile programs are dual-use. For example, any major petrochemical or biotech industry, as well as public health organizations, will have a legitimate need for the very materials and equipment that can also be used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons.

       For example, Iraq has built a large new chemical complex, Project Baiji, in the desert in northwest Iraq at al-Sharqat, as shown in this picture. The site is a former uranium enrichment facility which was damaged during the Gulf War and rendered harmless under the IAEA supervision before 1998. Part of this site has been rebuilt with work starting in '92 as a chemical production complex.

       Again, the interesting thing about this site is, despite of the fact that it's very far away from any populated area, once again it's surrounded by a high wall, and all road access into the facility is controlled by guard towers and security checkpoints.

       The recently-released British government report on Iraqi WMD indicates that this facility will produce nitric acid as well, which can be used in explosives, missile fuel and the purification of uranium by chemical methods.

       Next slide.

       I want to show you two examples of the problems we face with the sensitive-site issues, in particular presidential palaces. From 1996, Baghdad sought to constrain UNSCOM from inspecting numerous facilities, mostly by declaring these sites were sensitive. They characterized the inspections as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

       Until 1998, when the inspectors left, Iraq applied the term "sensitive" to a variety of facilities. For example, on one occasion Iraqi security officials declared a road as sensitive. For example, Iraq sought to limit U.N. access to special Republican Guard garrisons that are responsible for executing the highest priorities of Saddam's inner circle.

       In addition, Iraq declared a number of presidential-palace locations as sensitive sites. This particular site is more than a palace, as you can see from the imagery. Would a normal palace be equipped with hardened underground bunkers, hardened storage and command-and-control facilities and hardened bunkers of warehouse size?

       These facilities suggest that presidential sites performed other functions besides supporting the lifestyles of the rich and famous in Iraq. Look at a second example. This is the Radwaniyah (sp) presidential palace, located south of Baghdad. The size of this facility is about 18 square kilometers. The rough boundaries of the site, as you can see, are marked in red. And we have superimposed, in approximate scale, a graphic of the White House grounds in the middle of this facility, for comparison purposes.

       Radwaniyah (sp) is one of the eight sensitive sites declared by Iraq in 1997. Richard Butler, the chairman at the time, reported to the U.N. secretary general that Iraq had created a new category of sites, presidential and sovereign. Iraq then claimed that UNSCOM inspectors would henceforth be barred from these sites.

       The terms of the cease-fire in 1991 included no such provision. However, Iraq consistently refused to allow UNSCOM inspectors to any of these eight sensitive presidential sites.

       Next slide.

       Disinformation, one of the oldest techniques for D&D. During Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein soon lost the ability to shoot down coalition aircraft, but he did not abandon the effort to blunt the air campaign and discredit the United States targeting efforts.

       One technique was to stimulate damage to unacceptable targets in hopes that world public opinion would stop the air offensive. This image shows the al Basra mosque, its dome neatly sheered off. You can see there's no other damage around the dome. And the nearest bomb crater is actually some distance away from the main building on the facility.

       In this case, the Iraqis themselves damaged the mosque after the strike and again brought foreign news media to the site and falsely accused the coalition and the U.S. of destroying religious shrines.

       Next slide.

       The staged tour. This is a classic method of discrediting accusations of illicit activity at certain sites. And we expect to see more frequent use of this method if a new inspection regime is instituted.

       Briefly, what happens is usually there is a statement in the press identifying a suspect WMD facility, as we saw, say, in some of the examples we've pointed out today. Iraq checks on the picture and decides what the actual function of that facility. Is it a real WMD facility or does it have a legitimate civilian use?

       If it is a WMD facility, they go in and sanitize the facility and prepare facility personnel for a visit by either foreign inspectors or the foreign media. They invite a select core of representatives to tour the facility, conduct a scripted tour, and then they hold up the original evidence and say, "See, there's nothing illicit going on here."

       Next slide.

       This is a good example. We'll walk you through a staged tour, in this case of the Tuatheh nuclear facility. This is an image of the Iraqi nuclear facility at Tuatheh, located southeast of Baghdad. In 1981, some of you might recall the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor on this facility, located in the lower right-hand corner of the image.

       In January 1991, coalition aircraft inflicted heavy damage on the facility. After Desert Storm, UNSCOM inspected Tuatheh. The Iraqis had conducted extensive clearing operations before the inspections removed much of the equipment that had been there.

       Let me draw your attention to the size of this facility. You can see it's got four distinct parts. It's a fairly large-scale facility. And we'll come back to this picture.

       Next.

       On 11 September, 2002, the Washington Post confirmed that the Iraqis conducted a staged tour at Tuatheh to discredit images compiled by the IAEA regarding new construction at Tuatheh and several suspect nuclear facilities. We suspect probably after obtaining images of Tuatheh from the Internet, the Iraqis brought bus loads of journalists to Tuatheh and took them to one area inside the complex to show them what was identified inside the buildings that the IAEA had said were conducting suspect activity.

       The journalists were monitored by Iraqi officials and were not allowed to visit the other three areas within the installation complex, and they weren't allowed to wander about this location, according to the Post report.

       Needless, to say, the buildings in question contained no nuclear- related activities. The Iraqi minders told the journalists that Iraq had no nuclear facilities anymore and no intention to build nuclear weapons. Accompanying officials stated that the Tuatheh facility is now focusing on non-nuclear products.

       Next slide.

       This is the limited area that the visitors were allowed to view. You can see they were actually brought down this road into the facility and in here. They didn't go to any other of the portions of the facility.

       Next slide.

       Okay. What's the current situation, as we see it? This summarizes the current state of Iraq's D&D efforts concerning their WMD programs. And we're briefly going to walk through these, and then we'll have some time for some questions.

       Next slide.

       The chemical weapons program. This chart captures our state of knowledge as of 1998, when the UNSCOM inspections ended. There are obvious discrepancies between Iraq's official disclosures in the medium column and unaccounted-for agents and estimated stockpiles developed by the U.N. itself.

       Iraq has retained the expertise for chemical warfare research, agent production and weaponization. Most of the personnel previously involved in the program remain in country. As the British government report states, intelligence has shown that Iraq has continued to produce chemical agents. This, again, is the regime that used chemical weapons against its neighbors and its own people.

       Next slide.

       Delivery systems for chemical weapons. As this chart shows, Iraq still has not accounted for a large number of delivery systems for chemical weapons. These unaccounted-for delivery systems discredit Iraq's official denials about having an offensive chemical-weapons program. Today Iraq still retains a variety of delivery means available for both chemical and biological agents. Before Desert Storm, Iraq's intent was to develop and field delivery means capable of reaching targets well beyond Iraq's national borders.

       Biological weapons. Iraq's continued refusal to disclose fully the extent of its biological program is evidence that Baghdad retains a biological-warfare capability. As the British government report affirms, Iraq has continued to produce BW agents. It has its own engineering capability to design and construct BW agent-associated fermenters, centrifuges, sprayer-dryers and other equipment. This is an ongoing effort by Iraq to conceal this very activity.

       The nuclear program. This imagery shows the al Qaim phosphate plant and uranium extraction line located in northwest Iraq near the Syrian border. The coalition bombed this facility in Desert Storm, and Iraq rebuilt it. Before Desert Storm, Iraq recovered uranium yellow cake at al Qaim. They plan to use this yellow cake to produce the feed material needed for its multiple uranium enrichment effort and its secret nuclear weapons program.

       Al Qaim was part of Iraq's comprehensive nuclear weapons development effort. It focused on building an implosion-type weapon. The IAEA and UNSCOM uncovered evidence of this program. Is Al Qaim another dual-use facility? Is this deception? There are many unanswered questions regarding this and other facilities.

       Finally, the ballistic missile program. As you recall, Iraq used mobile Scud missiles against targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm. Today Iraq has a residual force of Scud-type mobile missiles and over 40 BW and conventional warheads, according to a State Department report. They are obviously well-hidden.

       Moreover, 11 years after the Gulf War, Iraq still refuses to account for propellant, air frames and components. This is not a clerical error. It's a deliberate concealment.

       In addition, Iraq has not abandoned its plans to build larger, longer-range missiles, in violation of U.N. resolutions. UNSCOM uncovered numerous design drawings, as well as evidence that Iraq continued missile research since the imposition of sanctions. Iraq also continues to expand the missile production facility at Ibn Al- Haythem, which the U.S. bombed in 1998 during Operation Desert Fox.

       Here's a good example of what's going on in the missile program. It's an image of an Iraqi ballistic missile test stand. This new stand will be capable of testing engines for medium-range ballistic missiles, with ranges over 1,000 kilometers. These are not permitted under U.N. Security Council Resolution 687.

       Let me describe some of the features of the site. Again, you can see it's a secured site. This is the new test stand. I draw your attention to the large size of the test stand. "B" is a test stand for testing engines for short-range ballistic missiles, which are permitted under the resolution. And this is a Scud test stand that was dismantled under the UNSCOM inspection regime.

       So you can do some comparative -- just visually compare the size of this to the other two test stands, and you can see that the intent of this facility is to develop a longer-range missile.

       I just want to close up with some, I think, kind of fascinating statements by Iraqi leadership, in this case from then-Foreign Minister Aziz from 1997 and 2002. Let's examine his assertions. If we accept what he says at face value, what are the implications? For example, Iraq finally declared that it produced 8,500 liters of liquid anthrax prior to the Gulf War. Assuming, as Aziz states, they eliminated 95 percent of this stock, Iraq would still have 425 liters of anthrax left. This is enough to fill nearly three Scud warheads. The viability of this 12-year-old anthrax is unknown. However, it still could be high if it were stored properly. Assuming it has a high viability, one anthrax-filled Scud launched at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, could, depending on the time of day and the weather conditions, result in over 100,000 casualties.

       Next slide. To conclude, the statement by Saddam Hussein and the previous stations by Tariq Aziz must serve to remind us that the Iraqi denial and deception campaign continues to this very day. Who are we to believe is telling the truth? What are we to believe is the truth? The president of the United States, the vice president, the secretary of Defense and the director of central intelligence fully understand that we face an immense challenge in exposing the full extent of this denial and deception effort. We will not be intimidated or fooled. We are going to employ a stubborn army of physicists, chemists, scholars of all types -- bleary-eyed analysts and well-armed librarians to fight this fight. We are going to find our way through any forest of deceit and fiction to the truth. If we stumble or fail, we are going to pick ourselves up and continue even stronger with a better knowledge gleaned from our mistake. We are not going to waver from this task.

       That concludes my prepared remarks for today, and I will entertain some questions. Thank you.

       Q Alex Brummer (ph) from the Daily Mail in London. You referred to the essential ability of the Scuds to deliver anthrax. But as I understood it they didn't have the capacity, the trigger capacity, to actually be able to do that. I mean, I've heard that from other briefings which I've been to. Can you talk about that at all, because you seem to be sort of taking us one step further than we were.

       MR. YURECHKO: No, there is still some debate on the actual technical capability of the warhead, and I am not a warhead expert, so I don't want to go into that. But they also have other delivery capabilities that they could use other than a Scud to deliver anthrax on a target -- some, you know, fairly simply technologies.

       Yes?

       Q I'm sorry, within the scope of what's being concealed or what's not being concealed, I mean how many Scuds do you think they actually have left?

       MR. YURECHKO: If we go back -- well, I don't know if we want to go back to the slide. Again, the number is debatable, anywhere from 10 to 40 I believe -- 7 to 20, excuse me, is the current accepted discrepancy on the Scuds, 7 to 20. And we are not sure about the actual launchers, the mobile launchers themselves. Ten launchers were destroyed under UNSCOM's supervision, 48 Scuds.

       Q Nadia Chow (ph), Liberty Times. As you said that Iraq is actually not the only country conducting denial and deception in the past. Why Iraq is so successful actually, facing the pressure from the U.N. or from the U.S., and they have gone all these without really showing their facility or the nuclear power to the inspections from the outside world? Because they are not the only country that has that kind of pressure or inspections.

       MR. YURECHKO: Well, first of all, they have significant historical experience. I mean, the denial and deception efforts started long before Desert Storm. They used it in their war with Iran, both on the battlefield and on a strategic level. So they have a great deal of experience in working this program. It's a relatively closed society and they have, as I pointed out early in the brief, a dedicated program. This involves not just a specific government organization that runs around and does this by themselves; it involves inculcating down to the lowest worker level the whole concept of denial and deception. What's the denial and deception aspect of your particular job? Your job is to move this piece of equipment, hide it under this tarp. So the whole military industrial portion of society has been trained in the techniques, and there is top-level supervision. So they are fairly sophisticated in that regard. It may not be a highly technical effort as you saw from some of the pictures as with the camouflage, but some of their other techniques, concealment techniques, are fairly sophisticated, and getting better day by day.

       Q (Off mike) -- Le Monde. Could you be more specific about the sources from which you got your information? What is coming from the inspections, I mean the former U.N. inspections? How much is coming from defectors, and how much from other sources? And could you be more accurate about those sources?

       MR. YURECHKO: No. We have used a blend of sources here, that's why I mentioned some in the beginning from, you know, some of the books by former U.N. inspectors, Trevan, Albright, et cetera, by Iraqi defectors. Obviously we have included some imagery here to strengthen our case. That's about as far as I can go in terms of describing some of the evidence. And some of the recent publications that have appeared -- CIA report that came out last week, the British government report and other open-source materials.

       Q So would you believe that even Saddam Hussein agrees to open to U.N. inspections now without any precondition, all the measures you just mentioned -- do you believe that the U.S. or the U.N. could really penetrate all this deception and denial?

       MR. YURECHKO: I think we face a continuing challenge. Yeah, I think they'll continue to use these techniques. They will continue to try and avoid the inspection, the objectives of the inspection regime. So we need to be diligent in looking at what exactly is happening there, if we do have another inspection regime. They have learned from their past mistakes. The Iraqis have learned from their past mistakes. They, as you read some of the, again, excellent books by the inspectors, they learned how to send out warning when inspection was imminent. So they developed a warning capability to alert certain facilities that an inspection was incoming. They learned how to deal with cameras -- conduct activities out of view of some of the cameras. They learned how to bury some of their paperwork in innocuous terminology, so you couldn't clearly identify what paperwork was associated with WMD type requests. So, you know, they learned from their successes and their failures, and I think they also now have an additional four years to prepare without a regime present. So I think we face a formidable challenge.

       Q Actually the U.S. does not have any confidence --any Saddam Hussein agreed to open to inspections without preconditions?

       MR. YURECHKO: That's a policy judgment that is outside my -- I have to be honest -- outside my area of expertise. What I know about is their D&D program. And if I were asked to make a statement, I would just say we face a continued formidable challenge from Iraqi denial and deception.

       Q It would seem though, from what we have seen from the new U.N. resolution, or the draft of that resolution, that it would be much tougher -- the inspections have much more protection, they may have military escorts and so on -- they would be much more mobile. Do you think some of these methods which the new inspection team will have will be able to make -- enable them to make a more honest inspection?

       MR. YURECHKO: I think so, but I think we are also going to face other techniques we have not anticipated. As I said in the course of the brief, you need information in order to identify what facility you want to inspect. And if the facility is completely concealed and we are not knowledgeable of it, you can't identify it for inspection. So there are going to be continued challenges. I am sure -- (audio break) --

       Okay. Any other questions? Please.

       Q Do you have any sense of timing in terms of how long it might take, given the four years which elapsed since the last inspection, to complete a successful new inspection or review of what there is and what there isn't there?

       MR. YURECHKO: You are way outside my area of expertise. I really couldn't tell you.

       MODERATOR: Thanks again for coming.

       MR. YURECHKO: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.