By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Sep 24 2002 (IPS)

The long-awaited British government dossier on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s weapons capability signals a new collision course with Iraq.

Iraq sought to defuse the crisis with a declaration following publication of the dossier that United Nations (UN) inspectors will have “unfettered access” to Iraqi sites listed in the British dossier.

But the 55-page dossier makes a clear case that UN inspections will no more be good enough. Saddam has “identified possible weak points in the inspections process and knows how to exploit them,” the dossier says. “Sensitive equipment and papers are already being concealed.”

Iraq signalled immediate readiness to open the listed sites to inspection. Presidential adviser Amer Saadi said following publication of the dossier that “inspectors will have unfettered access” after practical arrangements are made for their visit likely next month but only “if there is no interference from outside parties.”

Saadi said: “His (Blair’s) allegations are long, his evidence is short.” The report, he said, is a “hodgepodge of half-truths, lies and short-sighted and naive allegations.”

But the British dossier follows the U.S. line closely in distancing possible action from an acceptance of UN inspections. “The history of UN weapons inspections was characterised by persistent obstruction,” the dossier says.

The dossier says that “Iraq has admitted to UNSCOM to having a large, effective system for hiding proscribed material including documentation, components, production equipment and possibly biological and chemical agents and weapons from the UN.” Iraqis had in the past resorted to physical threats and psychological intimidation of inspectors, the dossier says.

In the face of these allegations, the new Iraqi offer of access to UN inspectors will not be good enough, analysts say. The dossier speaks of alternative sites for weapons, and also of an alternative leadership to Saddam Hussein. The dossier says Saddam Hussein would have the final word on use of chemical and biological weapons but suggests that authority to use these weapons “could have delegated to his son Qusai.”

The document produces little hard evidence of Saddam’s access to nuclear weapons. It says only that he can use chemical and biological weapons at 45 minutes notice and can develop nuclear weapons within one or two years “if Iraq obtained fissile material and other essential components from foreign sources.”

The dossier seeks to place the burden of proof on Iraq to show that it does not have these weapons. Iraq claims that all biological weapons and agents have been destroyed but “no convincing proof of any kind has been produced to support this claim,” the dossier says.

The dossier has been prepared on the basis of the work of Britain’s Joint Intelligence comprising the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the Security Service and the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS).

It is “unprecedented for the government to publish this kind of document,” Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in a foreword to the report. Blair said: “I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that he has made progress on weapons of mass destruction, and that he has to be stopped.”

To ignore the threat “would be to place at risk the property and lives of our own people,” he says. “We must ensure that he does not get to use the weapons he has, or get hold of the weapons he wants.”

The report contains several assertions about Saddam Hussein’s programme but offers little detail other than satellite pictures of facilities alleged to be used for manufacture of chemical and biological weapons. “We cannot publish everything we know,” Blair says.

The report suggests that there is a lot of specific material that cannot be revealed. “Intelligence rarely offers a complete account of activities which are designed to remain concealed,” the dossier says. “Intelligence sources need to be protected and this limits the detail that can be made available.”

In one of few details offered, the dossier names an Indian firm as supplying equipment that could be used by Iraq to launch nuclear and chemical strikes.

The dossier says: “A new plant at al-Mamoun for indigenously producing ammonium perchlorate, which is a key component in the production of solid propellant rocket motors has also been constructed. This has been provided illicitly by NEC Engineers Private Limited, an Indian chemical engineering firm with extensive links in Iraq.”

The British government report says that this Indian company has also been supplying to “other suspect facilities such as the Fallujah 2 chlorine plant.”

The dossier says: “After an extensive investigation the Indian authorities have recently suspended its export licence.” But the dossier says that “other individuals and companies are still illicitly procuring for Iraq.”

A spokesman for the Indian High Commission in London told IPS Tuesday that charges had been brought against this firm, and that its export licence had been cancelled.

The dossier admits that Iraq lacks the equipment to make a nuclear bomb. It says “Iraq needs certain key equipment, including gas centrifuge components and components for the production of fissile material before a nuclear bomb could be developed.”

But it says Saddam is “almost certainly seeking an indigenous ability to enrich uranium to the level needed for a nuclear weapon.”

The dossier says Saddam Hussein has “sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power programme that could require it.” Iraq has been looking also for vacuum pumps, magnet production lines, anhydrous hydrogen fluoride and fluorine gas, and for 60,000 aluminium tubes – all components needed to build nuclear weapons, the dossier says.

The dossier says that after the Gulf War Saddam Hussein has refurbished weapons sites to manufacture chemical and biological weapons, and has the use of bombs, shells, artillery rockets and ballistic missiles to deliver them. Saddam Hussein has them, is prepared to use them, and in the meanwhile to conceal them from inspections, the dossier says.

Biological weapons are being developed in mobile laboratories, the report says. It names a woman Dr Rihab Taha as a leading figure in Iraq’s biological weapons programme.

The dossier says Iraq has “illegally obtained up to 20 al-Hussein missiles with a range of 650 kilometres.” These can carry chemical or biological warheads, the report says. Saddam is also deploying al-Samoud liquid propellant missiles with a range up to 200 km, instead of the 150 km limit set by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) team, it says.

The report says Iraq has constructed an engine stand to test missiles that could reach the British base in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, all of the Gulf region and Israel. All these programmes have been funded by an income of three billion dollars earned last year outside UN control, the dossier says.

The report says Iraq has huge quantities of mustard gas, and of the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX. These are being produced at new facilities at Salman Pak and are supported by storage and precursor facilities known as Fallujah 1, 2 and 3, the dossier says.

The dossier says Saddam “continues to attach great importance to the possession of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles which he regards as being the basis for Iraq’s regional power.”

The dossier says “new chemical facilities have been built, some with illegal foreign assistance, and are probably fully operational or ready for production.”

These are said to include Ibn Sina company at Tarmiyah, headed by Na’im al-Jalu and a facility at Al Qa’-Qa’. Other facilities of concern listed are the castor oil production at Fallujah, al-Dawrah foot and mouth disease vaccine institute, and a vaccine plant at Abu Ghraib.

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