[casi] CIA Kay Report on the Search for WMD

["as-ilas" <as-ilas@DELETETHISgmx.de>]

http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html

STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF
THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP (ISG)

BEFORE THE
HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE, AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

October 2, 2003
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome this opportunity to discuss with the
Committee the progress that the Iraq Survey Group has made in its initial
three months of its investigation into Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD) programs.

I cannot emphasize too strongly that the Interim Progress Report, which has
been made available to you, is a snapshot, in the context of an on-going
investigation, of where we are after our first three months of work. The
report does not represent a final reckoning of Iraq's WMD programs, nor are
we at the point where we are prepared to close the file on any of these
programs. While solid progress - I would say even remarkable progress
considering the conditions that the ISG has had to work under - has been
made in this initial period of operations, much remains to be done. We are
still very much in the collection and analysis mode, still seeking the
information and evidence that will allow us to confidently draw
comprehensive conclusions to the actual objectives, scope, and dimensions of
Iraq's WMD activities at the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Iraq's WMD
programs spanned more than two decades, involved thousands of people,
billions of dollars, and were elaborately shielded by security and deception
operations that continued even beyond the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The very scale of this program when coupled with the conditions in Iraq that
have prevailed since the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom dictate the speed at
which we can move to a comprehensive understanding of Iraq's WMD activities.

We need to recall that in the 1991-2003 period the intelligence community
and the UN/IAEA inspectors had to draw conclusions as to the status of
Iraq's WMD program in the face of incomplete, and often false, data supplied
by Iraq or data collected either by UN/IAEA inspectors operating within the
severe constraints that Iraqi security and deception actions imposed or by
national intelligence collection systems with their own inherent
limitations. The result was that our understanding of the status of Iraq's
WMD program was always bounded by large uncertainties and had to be heavily
caveated. With the regime of Saddam Husayn at an end, ISG has the
opportunity for the first time of drawing together all the evidence that can
still be found in Iraq - much evidence is irretrievably lost - to reach
definitive conclusions concerning the true state of Iraq's WMD program. It
is far too early to reach any definitive conclusions and, in some areas, we
may never reach that goal. The unique nature of this opportunity, however,
requires that we take great care to ensure that the conclusions we draw
reflect the truth to the maximum extent possible given the conditions in
post-conflict Iraq.

We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point
where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or
that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they
have gone. We are actively engaged in searching for such weapons based on
information being supplied to us by Iraqis.

Why are we having such difficulty in finding weapons or in reaching a
confident conclusion that they do not exist or that they once existed but
have been removed? Our search efforts are being hindered by six principal
factors:

  1.. From birth all of Iraq's WMD activities were highly compartmentalized
within a regime that ruled and kept its secrets through fear and terror and
with deception and denial built into each program;


  2.. Deliberate dispersal and destruction of material and documentation
related to weapons programs began pre-conflict and ran trans-to-post
conflict;


  3.. Post-OIF looting destroyed or dispersed important and easily
collectable material and forensic evidence concerning Iraq's WMD program. As
the report covers in detail, significant elements of this looting were
carried out in a systematic and deliberate manner, with the clear aim of
concealing pre-OIF activities of Saddam's regime;


  4.. Some WMD personnel crossed borders in the pre/trans conflict period
and may have taken evidence and even weapons-related materials with them;


  5.. Any actual WMD weapons or material is likely to be small in relation
to the total conventional armaments footprint and difficult to near
impossible to identify with normal search procedures. It is important to
keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the
quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much
larger than a two car garage;


  6.. The environment in Iraq remains far from permissive for our
activities, with many Iraqis that we talk to reporting threats and overt
acts of intimidation and our own personnel being the subject of threats and
attacks. In September alone we have had three attacks on ISG facilities or
teams: The ISG base in Irbil was bombed and four staff injured, two very
seriously; a two person team had their vehicle blocked by gunmen and only
escaped by firing back through their own windshield; and on Wednesday, 24
September, the ISG Headquarters in Baghdad again was subject to mortar
attack.
What have we found and what have we not found in the first 3 months of our
work?

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant
amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the
inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate
concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi
scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld
and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has
discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a
few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on
later:

  a.. A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi
Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and
suitable for continuing CBW research.


  b.. A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW
agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were
explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.


  c.. Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's
home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.


  d.. New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean
Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were
not declared to the UN.


  e.. Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have
been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic
isotope separation (EMIS).


  f.. A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility
and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a
range of  500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.


  g.. Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful
only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained
at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have
said they were told to conceal from the UN.


  h.. Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges
up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the
UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets
through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.


  i.. Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North
Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the
No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited
military equipment.
In addition to the discovery of extensive concealment efforts, we have been
faced with a systematic sanitization of documentary and computer evidence in
a wide range of offices, laboratories, and companies suspected of WMD work.
The pattern of these efforts to erase evidence - hard drives destroyed,
specific files burned, equipment cleaned of all traces of use - are ones of
deliberate, rather than random, acts. For example,

  a.. On 10 July 2003 an ISG team exploited the Revolutionary Command
Council (RCC) Headquarters in Baghdad. The basement of the main building
contained an archive of documents situated on well-organized rows of metal
shelving. The basement suffered no fire damage despite the total destruction
of the upper floors from coalition air strikes. Upon arrival the
exploitation team encountered small piles of ash where individual documents
or binders of documents were intentionally destroyed. Computer hard drives
had been deliberately destroyed. Computers would have had financial value to
a random looter; their destruction, rather than removal for resale or reuse,
indicates a targeted effort to prevent Coalition forces from gaining access
to their contents.


  b.. All IIS laboratories visited by IIS exploitation teams have been
clearly sanitized, including removal of much equipment, shredding and
burning of documents, and even the removal of nameplates from office doors.


  c.. Although much of the deliberate destruction and sanitization of
documents and records probably occurred during the height of OIF combat
operations, indications of significant continuing destruction efforts have
been found after the end of major combat operations, including entry in May
2003 of the locked gated vaults of the Ba'ath party intelligence building in
Baghdad and highly selective destruction of computer hard drives and data
storage equipment along with the burning of a small number of specific
binders that appear to have contained financial and intelligence records,
and in July 2003 a site exploitation team at the Abu Ghurayb Prison found
one pile of the smoldering ashes from documents that was still warm to the
touch.
I would now like to review our efforts in each of the major lines of enquiry
that ISG has pursued during this initial phase of its work.

With regard to biological warfare activities, which has been one of our two
initial areas of focus, ISG teams are uncovering significant information -
including research and development of BW-applicable organisms, the
involvement of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) in possible BW activities,
and deliberate concealment activities. All of this suggests Iraq after 1996
further compartmentalized its program and focused on maintaining smaller,
covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production
of BW agents.

Debriefings of IIS officials and site visits have begun to unravel a
clandestine network of laboratories and facilities within the security
service apparatus. This network was never declared to the UN and was
previously unknown. We are still working on determining the extent to which
this network was tied to large-scale military efforts or BW terror weapons,
but this clandestine capability was suitable for preserving BW expertise, BW
capable facilities and continuing R&D - all key elements for maintaining a
capability for resuming BW production. The IIS also played a prominent role
in sponsoring students for overseas graduate studies in the biological
sciences, according to Iraqi scientists and IIS sources, providing an
important avenue for furthering BW-applicable research. This was the only
area of graduate work that the IIS appeared to sponsor.

Discussions with Iraqi scientists uncovered agent R&D work that paired overt
work with nonpathogenic organisms serving as surrogates for prohibited
investigation with pathogenic agents. Examples include: B. Thurengiensis
(Bt) with B. anthracis (anthrax), and medicinal plants with ricin. In a
similar vein, two key former BW scientists, confirmed that Iraq under the
guise of legitimate activity developed refinements of processes and products
relevant to BW agents. The scientists discussed the development of improved,
simplified fermentation and spray drying capabilities for the simulant Bt
that would have been directly applicable to anthrax, and one scientist
confirmed that the production line for Bt could be switched to produce
anthrax in one week if the seed stock were available.

A very large body of information has been developed through debriefings,
site visits, and exploitation of captured Iraqi documents that confirms that
Iraq concealed equipment and materials from UN inspectors when they returned
in 2002. One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that
ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C.
botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced. This
discovery - hidden in the home of a BW scientist - illustrates the point I
made earlier about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that
can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons. The scientist
who concealed the vials containing this agent  has identified a large cache
of agents that he was asked, but refused, to conceal. ISG is actively
searching for this second cache.

Additional information is beginning to corroborate reporting since 1996
about human testing activities using chemical and biological substances, but
progress in this area is slow given the concern of knowledgeable Iraqi
personnel about their being prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

We have not yet been able to corroborate the existence of a mobile BW
production effort. Investigation into the origin of and intended use for the
two trailers found in northern Iraq in April has yielded a number of
explanations, including hydrogen, missile propellant, and BW production, but
technical limitations would prevent any of these processes from being
ideally suited to these trailers. That said, nothing we have discovered
rules out their potential use in BW production.

We have made significant progress in identifying and locating individuals
who were reportedly involved in a mobile program, and we are confident that
we will be able to get an answer to the questions as to whether there was a
mobile program and whether the trailers that have been discovered so far
were part of such a program.

Let me turn now to chemical weapons (CW). In searching for retained stocks
of chemical munitions, ISG has had to contend with the almost unbelievable
scale of Iraq's conventional weapons armory, which dwarfs by orders of
magnitude the physical size of any conceivable stock of chemical weapons.
For example, there are approximately 130 known Iraqi Ammunition Storage
Points (ASP), many of which exceed 50 square miles in size and hold an
estimated 600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and
other ordinance. Of these 130 ASPs, approximately 120 still remain
unexamined. As Iraqi practice was not to mark much of their chemical
ordinance and to store it at the same ASPs that held conventional rounds,
the size of the required search effort is enormous.

While searching for retained weapons, ISG teams have developed multiple
sources that indicate that Iraq explored the possibility of CW production in
recent years, possibly as late as 2003. When Saddam had asked a senior
military official in either 2001 or 2002 how long it would take to produce
new chemical agent and weapons, he told ISG that after he consulted with CW
experts in OMI he responded it would take six months for mustard. Another
senior Iraqi chemical weapons expert in responding to a request in mid-2002
from Uday Husayn for CW for the Fedayeen Saddam estimated that it would take
two months to produce mustard and two years for Sarin.

We are starting to survey parts of Iraq's chemical industry to determine if
suitable equipment and bulk chemicals were available for chemical weapons
production. We have been struck that two senior Iraqi officials volunteered
that if they had been ordered to resume CW production Iraq would have been
willing to use stainless steel systems that would be disposed of after a few
production runs, in place of corrosive-resistant equipment which they did
not have.

We continue to follow leads on Iraq's acquisition of equipment and bulk
precursors suitable for a CW program. Several possibilities have emerged and
are now being exploited. One example involves a foreign company with offices
in Baghdad, that imported in the past into Iraq dual-use equipment and
maintained active contracts through 2002. Its Baghdad office was found
looted in August 2003, but we are pursuing other locations and associates of
the company.

Information obtained since OIF has identified several key areas in which
Iraq may have engaged in proscribed or undeclared activity since 1991,
including research on a possible VX stabilizer, research and development for
CW-capable munitions, and procurement/concealment of dual-use materials and
equipment.

Multiple sources with varied access and reliability have told ISG that Iraq
did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled CW program after 1991.
Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to
develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced - if not entirely
destroyed - during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN
sanctions and UN inspections. We are carefully examining dual-use,
commercial chemical facilities to determine whether these were used or
planned as alternative production sites.

We have also acquired information related to Iraq's CW doctrine and Iraq's
war plans for OIF, but we have not yet found evidence to confirm pre-war
reporting that Iraqi military units were prepared to use CW against
Coalition forces. Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's
chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information
on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production, although we continue to
receive and follow leads related to such stocks. We have multiple reports
that Iraq retained CW munitions made prior to 1991, possibly including
mustard - a long-lasting chemical agent - but we have to date been unable to
locate any such munitions.

With regard to Iraq's nuclear program, the testimony we have obtained from
Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts
about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. They have told
ISG that Saddam Husayn remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear
weapons. These officials assert that Saddam would have resumed nuclear
weapons development at some future point. Some indicated a resumption after
Iraq was free of sanctions. At least one senior Iraqi official believed that
by 2000 Saddam had run out of patience with waiting for sanctions to end and
wanted to restart the nuclear program. The Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission
(IAEC) beginning around 1999 expanded its laboratories and research
activities and increased its overall funding levels. This expansion may have
been in initial preparation for renewed nuclear weapons research, although
documentary evidence of this has not been found, and this is the subject of
continuing investigation by ISG.

Starting around 2000, the senior Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) and
high-level Ba'ath Party official Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id began several
small and relatively unsophisticated research initiatives that could be
applied to nuclear weapons development. These initiatives did not in-and-of
themselves constitute a resumption of the nuclear weapons program, but could
have been useful in developing a weapons-relevant science base for the
long-term. We do not yet have information indicating whether a higher
government authority directed Sa'id to initiate this research and,
regretfully, Dr. Said was killed on April 8th during the fall of Baghdad
when the car he was riding in attempted to run a Coalition roadblock.

Despite evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons,
to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant
post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile
material. However, Iraq did take steps to preserve some technological
capability from the pre-1991 nuclear weapons program.

  a.. According to documents and testimony of Iraqi scientists, some of the
key technical groups from the pre-1991 nuclear weapons program remained
largely intact, performing work on nuclear-relevant dual-use technologies
within the Military Industrial Commission (MIC). Some scientists from the
pre-1991 nuclear weapons program have told ISG that they believed that these
working groups were preserved in order to allow a reconstitution of the
nuclear weapons program, but none of the scientists could produce official
orders or plans to support their belief.


  b.. In some cases, these groups performed work which could help preserve
the science base and core skills that would be needed for any future fissile
material production or nuclear weapons development.


  c.. Several scientists - at the direction of senior Iraqi government
officials - preserved documents and equipment from their pre-1991 nuclear
weapon-related research and did not reveal this to the UN/IAEA. One Iraqi
scientist recently stated in an interview with ISG that it was a "common
understanding" among the scientists that material was being preserved for
reconstitution of nuclear weapons-related work.
The ISG nuclear team has found indications that there was interest,
beginning in 2002, in reconstituting a centrifuge enrichment program. Most
of this activity centered on activities of Dr. Sa'id that caused some of his
former colleagues in the pre-1991 nuclear program to suspect that Dr. Sa'id,
at least, was considering a restart of the centrifuge program. We do not yet
fully understand Iraqi intentions, and the evidence does not tie any
activity directly to centrifuge research or development.

Exploitation of additional documents may shed light on the projects and
program plans of Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id. There may be more projects to be
discovered in research placed at universities and private companies. Iraqi
interest in reconstitution of a uranium enrichment program needs to be
better understood through the analysis of procurement records and additional
interviews.

With regard to delivery systems, the ISG team has discovered sufficient
evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery
system improvements that would have, if OIF had not occurred, dramatically
breached UN restrictions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

Detainees and co-operative sources indicate that beginning in 2000 Saddam
ordered the development of ballistic missiles with ranges of at least 400km
and up to 1000km and that measures to conceal these projects from UNMOVIC
were initiated in late-2002, ahead of the arrival of inspectors. Work was
also underway for a clustered engine liquid propellant missile, and it
appears the work had progressed to a point to support initial prototype
production of some parts and assemblies. According to a cooperating senior
detainee, Saddam concluded that the proposals from both the
liquid-propellant and solid-propellant missile design centers would take too
long. For instance, the liquid-propellant missile project team forecast
first delivery in six years. Saddam countered in 2000 that he wanted the
missile designed and built inside of six months. On the other hand several
sources contend that Saddam's range requirements for the missiles grew from
400-500km in 2000 to 600-1000km in 2002.

ISG has gathered testimony from missile designers at Al Kindi State Company
that Iraq has reinitiated work on converting SA-2 Surface-to-Air Missiles
into ballistic missiles with a range goal of about 250km. Engineering work
was reportedly underway in early 2003, despite the presence of UNMOVIC. This
program was not declared to the UN. ISG is presently seeking additional
confirmation and details on this project. A second cooperative source has
stated that the program actually began in 2001, but that it received added
impetus in the run-up to OIF, and that missiles from this project were
transferred to a facility north of Baghdad. This source also provided
documentary evidence of instructions to convert SA-2s into
surface-to-surface missiles.

ISG has obtained testimony from both detainees and cooperative sources that
indicate that proscribed-range solid-propellant missile design studies were
initiated, or already underway, at the time when work on the clustered
liquid-propellant missile designs began.  The motor diameter was to be 800
to 1000mm, i.e. much greater than the 500-mm Ababil-100. The range goals
cited for this system vary from over 400km up to 1000km, depending on the
source and the payload mass.

A cooperative source, involved in the 2001-2002 deliberations on the
long-range solid propellant project, provided ISG with a set of concept
designs for a launcher designed to accommodate a 1m diameter by 9m length
missile. The limited detail in the drawings suggest there was some way to go
before launcher fabrication. The source believes that these drawings would
not have been requested until the missile progress was relatively advanced,
normally beyond the design state. The drawing are in CAD format, with files
dated 09/01/02.

While we have obtained enough information to make us confident that this
design effort was underway, we are not yet confident which accounts of the
timeline and project progress are accurate and are now seeking to better
understand this program and its actual progress at the time of OIF.

One cooperative source has said that he suspected that the new
large-diameter solid-propellant missile was intended to have a CW-filled
warhead, but no detainee has admitted any actual knowledge of plans for
unconventional warheads for any current or planned ballistic missile. The
suspicion expressed by the one source about a CW warhead was based on his
assessment of the unavailability of nuclear warheads and potential
survivability problems of biological warfare agent in ballistic missile
warheads. This is an area of great interest and we are seeking additional
information on warhead designs.

While I have spoken so far of planned missile systems, one high-level
detainee has recently claimed that Iraq retained a small quantity of
Scud-variant missiles until at least 2001, although he subsequently recanted
these claims, work continues to determine the truth.  Two other sources
contend that Iraq continued to produce until 2001 liquid fuel and oxidizer
specific to Scud-type systems. The cooperating source claims that the al
Tariq Factory was used to manufacture Scud oxidizer (IRFNA) from 1996 to
2001, and that nitrogen tetroxide, a chief ingredient of IRFNA was collected
from a bleed port on the production equipment, was reserved, and then mixed
with highly concentrated nitric acid plus an inhibitor to produce Scud
oxidizer.  Iraq never declared its pre-Gulf War capability to manufacture
Scud IRFNA out of fear, multiple sources have stated, that the al Tariq
Factory would be destroyed, leaving Baghdad without the ability to produce
highly concentrated nitric acid, explosives and munitions. To date we have
not discovered documentary or material evidence to corroborate these claims,
but continued efforts are underway to clarify and confirm this information
with additional Iraqi sources and to locate corroborating physical evidence.
If we can confirm that the fuel was produced as late as 2001, and given that
Scud fuel can only be used in Scud-variant missiles, we will have strong
evidence that the missiles must have been retained until that date. This
would, of course, be yet another example of a failure to declare prohibited
activities to the UN.

Iraq was continuing to develop a variety of UAV platforms and maintained two
UAV programs that were working in parallel, one at Ibn Fernas and one at
al-Rashid Air Force Base. Ibn Fernas worked on the development of smaller,
more traditional types of UAVs in addition to the conversion of manned
aircraft into UAVs. This program was not declared to the UN until the 2002
CAFCD in which Iraq declared the RPV-20, RPV-30 and Pigeon RPV systems to
the UN. All these systems had declared ranges of less than 150km. Several
Iraqi officials stated that the RPV-20 flew over 500km on autopilot in 2002,
contradicting Iraq's declaration on the system's range. The al-Rashid group
was developing a competing line of UAVs. This program was never fully
declared to the UN and is the subject of on-going work by ISG. Additional
work is also focusing on the payloads and intended use for these UAVs.
Surveillance and use as decoys are uses mentioned by some of those
interviewed. Given Iraq's interest before the Gulf War in attempting to
convert a MIG-21 into an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry spray tanks
capable of dispensing chemical or biological agents, attention is being paid
to whether any of the newer generation of UAVs were intended to have a
similar purpose. This remains an open question.

ISG has discovered evidence of two primary cruise missile programs. The
first appears to have been successfully implemented, whereas the second had
not yet reached maturity at the time of OIF.

The first involved upgrades to the HY-2 coastal-defense cruise missile. ISG
has developed multiple sources of testimony, which is corroborated in part
by a captured document, that Iraq undertook a program aimed at increasing
the HY-2's range and permitting its use as a land-attack missile. These
efforts extended the HY-2's range from its original 100km to 150-180km. Ten
modified missiles were delivered to the military prior to OIF and two of
these were fired from Umm Qasr during OIF - one was shot down and one hit
Kuwait.

The second program, called the Jenin, was a much more ambitious effort to
convert the HY-2 into a 1000km range land-attack cruise missile. The Jenin
concept was presented to Saddam on 23 November 2001 and received what
cooperative sources called an "unusually quick response" in little more than
a week. The essence of the concept was to take an HY-2, strip it of its
liquid rocket engine, and put in its place a turbine engine from a Russian
helicopter - the TV-2-117 or TV3-117 from a Mi-8 or Mi-17helicopter. To
prevent discovery by the UN, Iraq halted engine development and testing and
disassembled the test stand in late 2002 before the design criteria had been
met.

In addition to the activities detailed here on Iraq's attempts to develop
delivery systems beyond the permitted UN 150km, ISG has also developed
information on Iraqi attempts to purchase proscribed missiles and missile
technology. Documents found by ISG describe a high level dialogue between
Iraq and North Korea that began in December 1999 and included an October
2000 meeting in Baghdad. These documents indicate Iraqi interest in the
transfer of technology for surface-to-surface missiles with a range of
1300km (probably No Dong) and land-to-sea missiles with a range of 300km.
The document quotes the North Koreans as understanding the limitations
imposed by the UN, but being prepared "to cooperate with Iraq on the items
it specified". At the time of OIF, these discussions had not led to any
missiles being transferred to Iraq. A high level cooperating source has
reported that in late 2002 at Saddam's behest a delegation of Iraqi
officials was sent to meet with foreign export companies, including one that
dealt with missiles. Iraq was interested in buying an advanced ballistic
missile with 270km and 500km ranges.

The ISG has also identified a large volume of material and testimony by
cooperating Iraq officials on Iraq's effort to illicitly procure parts and
foreign assistance for its missile program. These include:

  a.. Significant level of assistance from a foreign company and its network
of affiliates in supplying and supporting the development of production
capabilities for solid rocket propellant and dual-use chemicals.


  b.. Entities from another foreign country were involved in supplying
guidance and control systems for use in the Al-Fat'h (Ababil-100). The
contract was incomplete by the time of OIF due to technical problems with
the few systems delivered and a financial dispute.


  c.. A group of foreign experts operating in a private capacity were
helping to develop Iraq's liquid propellant ballistic missile RDT&E and
production infrastructure. They worked in Baghdad for about three months in
late 1998 and subsequently continued work on the project from abroad. An
actual contract valued at $10 million for machinery and equipment was signed
in June 2001, initially for 18 months, but later extended. This cooperation
continued right up until the war.


  d.. A different group of foreign experts traveled to Iraq in 1999 to
conduct a technical review that resulted in what became the Al Samoud 2
design, and a contract was signed in 2001 for the provision of rigs,
fixtures and control equipment for the redesigned missile.


  e.. Detainees and cooperative sources have described the role of a foreign
expert in negotiations on the development of Iraq's liquid and solid
propellant production infrastructure. This could have had applications in
existing and planned longer range systems, although it is reported that
nothing had actually been implemented before OIF.
Uncertainty remains about the full extent of foreign assistance to Iraq's
planned expansion of its missile systems and work is continuing to gain a
full resolution of this issue. However, there is little doubt from the
evidence already gathered that there was  substantial illegal procurement
for all aspects of the missile programs.

I have covered a lot of ground today, much of it highly technical. Although
we are resisting drawing conclusions in this first interim report, a number
of things have become clearer already as a result of our investigation,
among them:

  1.. Saddam, at least as judged by those scientists and other insiders who
worked in his military-industrial programs, had not given up his aspirations
and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Even
those senior officials we have interviewed who claim no direct knowledge of
any on-going prohibited activities readily acknowledge that Saddam intended
to resume these programs whenever the external restrictions were removed.
Several of these officials acknowledge receiving inquiries since 2000 from
Saddam or his sons about how long it would take to either restart CW
production or make available chemical weapons.


  2.. In the delivery systems area there were already well advanced, but
undeclared, on-going activities that, if OIF had not intervened, would have
resulted in the production of missiles with ranges at least up to 1000 km,
well in excess of the UN permitted range of 150 km. These missile activities
were supported by a serious clandestine procurement program about which we
have much still to learn.


  3.. In the chemical and biological weapons area we have confidence that
there were at a minimum clandestine on-going research and development
activities that were embedded in the Iraqi Intelligence Service. While we
have much yet to learn about the exact work programs and capabilities of
these activities, it is already apparent that these undeclared activities
would have at a minimum facilitated chemical and biological weapons
activities and provided a technically trained cadre.
Let me conclude by returning to something I began with today. We face a
unique but challenging opportunity in our efforts to unravel the exact
status of Iraq's WMD program. The good news is that we do not have to rely
for the first time in over a decade on

  a.. the incomplete, and often false, data that Iraq supplied the UN/IAEA;


  b.. data collected by UN inspectors operating with the severe constraints
that Iraqi security and deception actions imposed;


  c.. information supplied by defectors, some of whom certainly fabricated
much that they supplied and perhaps were under the direct control of the
IIS;


  d.. data collected by national technical collections systems with their
own limitations.
The bad news is that we have to do this under conditions that ensure that
our work will take time and impose serious physical dangers on those who are
asked to carry it out.

Why should we take the time and run the risk to ensure that our conclusions
reflect the truth to the maximum extent that is possible given the
conditions in post-conflict Iraq? For those of us that are carrying out this
search, there are two reasons that drive us to want to complete this effort.

First, whatever we find will probably differ from pre-war intelligence.
Empirical reality on the ground is, and has always been, different from
intelligence judgments that must be made under serious constraints of time,
distance and information. It is, however, only by understanding precisely
what those difference are that the quality of future intelligence and
investment decisions concerning future intelligence systems can be improved.
Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is such a continuing threat to
global society that learning those lessons has a high imperative.

Second, we have found people, technical information and illicit procurement
networks that if allowed to flow to other countries and regions could
accelerate global proliferation. Even in the area of actual weapons there is
no doubt that Iraq had at one time chemical and biological weapons. Even if
there were only a remote possibility that these pre-1991 weapons still
exist, we have an obligation to American troops who are now there and the
Iraqi population to ensure that none of these remain to be used against them
in the ongoing insurgency activity.

Mr. Chairman and Members I appreciate this opportunity to share with you the
initial results of the first 3 months of the activities of the Iraqi Survey
Group. I am certain that I speak for Major General Keith Dayton, who
commands the Iraqi Survey Group, when I say how proud we are of the men and
women from across the Government and from our Coalition partners, Australia
and the United Kingdom, who have gone to Iraq and are carrying out this
important mission.

Thank you.



_______________________________________________
Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss
To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk
All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk