Text 10142, 71 rader
Skriven 2009-03-13 08:22:16 av Earl Croasmun (1:124/311)
     Kommentar till en text av John Fitzgerald
Ärende: RE: MISSING WMD
=======================
~>     If the WMD were all destroyed by Saddam, you'd think he'd make a big
~> show if it, with credible witnesses around, even some footage, to confirm 
~> it.  All we haven are a few token examples of such in 1991, with the 
~> bulk of this material still unaccounted for.  Meanwhile Clinton's people
~> kept giving reports about Saddam's continued WMD pursuits all through 
~> the 90's.

Hans Blix made the same point to the United Nations in 2003.  Some excerpts:

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Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this biological
warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of
1991.  Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no
convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it
declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared
destruction date.  It might still exist.  Either it should be found and be
destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be
produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.

As I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare
a significant quantity, some 650 kg, of bacterial growth media, which was
acknowledged as imported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in
February 1999.  As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq
resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this
particular import of media was not included.  The absence of this table
would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were
renumbered.

In the letter of 24 January to the President of the Council, Iraq's Foreign
Minister stated that all imported quantities of growth media were declared.
 This is not evidence.  I note that the quantity of media involved would
suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax. 
. . .

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has
declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and
that the quality was poor and the product unstable.  Consequently, it was
said, that the agent was never weaponised.  Iraq said that the small
quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed
in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There
are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and
stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. 
Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the
purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than
declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponised.  In addition,
there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor
chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or
were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq. 
. . .

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at
a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized.  This was
a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved
there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such
munitions. 
. . .

I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a
laboratory quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor. 
. . .

 
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