Iraq Survey Group Final Report

 

Equipment Restoration

Multiple sources have highlighted Iraq’s efforts to reconstitute equipment associated with past missile programs previously disabled or declared destroyed by UNSCOM. Accounts for the actual use of these restored items vary. ISG has been able to confirm the existence of some of this equipment, but not all of it.

Several sources with direct access have provided information about the successful repair of one of the 300-gallon solid-propellant mixers associated with the BADR-2000 missile project that were destroyed by UNSCOM in 1992 at Al Ma’mun. ISG has conducted site exploitation visits to the last reported locations of these mixers but has been unable to locate them.

• According to two high-level officials within the Iraqi missile program, one of the two 300-gallon mixers destroyed by the UN was repaired in 2002, but the other could not be repaired. The officials did not elaborate on what the mixer was used for.
  
• Husam Muhammad Amin Al Yasin, the former director of the NMD, stated that Huwaysh ordered the repair of the mixers around 2001 but later stated this order came in 2002. Amin claimed that the Iraqis used the one repaired mixer for about two months. Amin then convinced Huwaysh to allow him to destroy the mixer because it was a violation of UNSCR 687. According to Amin, this information was not disclosed to UNMOVIC.
  
• According to Huwaysh, in 2002 ?Abd-al-Baqi Rashid Shia’ Al Ta’i of the Al Rashid General Company was given permission to repair one of the two 300-gallon solid-propellant mixers. One of the mixers had been completely destroyed so ?Abd-al-Baqi restored the partially destroyed mixer.
  

A few sources have disclosed information about Iraq’s efforts to rebuild the BADR-2000 aging oven, which was declared, destroyed by UNSCOM. An ISG site exploitation mission has confirmed these claims.

• An Iraqi scientist claimed that Iraq had rebuilt the aging oven associated with the BADR-2000 program at the Al Amin factory. He added that, since the maximum temperature in the furnace could not reach the required temperature of 1,000 degrees, the Iraqis built an even bigger furnace.
  
• An ISG site exploitation visit to Al Amin confirmed this claim, and ISG was able to inspect the restored BADR-2000 aging oven and a larger, built-in annealing furnace. ISG judges that both furnaces could be used in the production of motor cases with diameters larger than one meter, which is beyond the requirements for any rocket or missile permitted by the UN.
  

In addition to the mixer and aging oven, ISG has identified two other areas where Iraq rebuilt or reused equipment that had been disabled, destroyed, or banned.

• According to a “certificate of machine repair” recovered by ISG, one of the three flow-forming machines at Al Karamah that had been destroyed by UNSCOM was rebuilt by February 2001. The document was signed by several department heads within the Al Samud program and included a statement that the machine’s intended use was for the production of Al Samud rocket engine covers. ISG has been unable to locate this piece of equipment.
  
• Coalition forces recovered a letter from ?Abd-al-Baqi Rashid Shia’, the director of the Al Rashid General Company, requesting a piece of steel one meter in diameter from a canceled project. The steel was a part of the Gerald Bull Supergun project, which Iraq was forced to terminate in order to comply with UNSCR 687. The letter from ?Abd-al-Baqi was in reference to the large diameter motor project. Iraq attempted to use a barrel-section from the Supergun Project to create a prototype 1 meter diameter motor case but the effort failed because of material incompatibilities. Iraqi technicians were unable to weld the motor end domes to the Supergun barrel.
  

Iraq’s restoration of prohibited equipment associated with past missile programs directly violated UN restrictions on Iraq’s missile programs. Iraq chose to deliberately ignore these restrictions to improve its missile production infrastructure.