http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_art...=21801&lang=en

No uranium, no munitions, no missiles, no programmes

05 October 2003

As the first progress report from the Iraq Survey Group is released,
Cambridge WMD expert Dr Glen Rangwala finds that even the diluted
claims made for Saddam Hussein's arsenal don't stand up


Last week's progress report by American and British weapons inspectors
in Iraq has failed to supply evidence for the vast majority of the
claims made on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction by their governments
before the war.

David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), told congressional
committees in Washington that no official orders or plans could be
found to back up the allegation that a nuclear programme remained
active after 1991. Aluminium tubes have not been used for the
enrichment of uranium, in contrast to US Secretary of State Colin
Powell's lengthy exposition to the UN Security Council in February. No
suspicious activities or residues have been found at the seven sites
within Iraq described in the Prime Minister's dossier from September
2002.

The ISG even casts serious doubt on President Bush's much-trumpeted
claim that US forces had found three mobile biological laboratories
after the war: "technical limitations" would prevent the trailers from
being ideally suited to biological weapons production, it records. In
other words, they were for something else.

There have certainly been no signs of imported uranium, or even
battlefield munitions ready to fire within 45 minutes. Most
significantly, the claim to Parliament on the eve of conflict by Jack
Straw, the Foreign Secretary, that "we know that this man [Saddam
Hussein] has got ... chemical weapons, biological weapons, viruses,
bacilli and ... 10,000 litres of anthrax" has yet to find a single
piece of supportive evidence.

Those who staked their career on the existence in Iraq of at least
chemical and biological weapons programmes have latched on to three
claims in the progress report.

First, there is the allegation that a biologist had a "collection of
reference strains" at his home, including "a vial of live C botulinum
Okra B from which a biological agent can be produced". Mr Straw
claimed the morning after the report's release that this agent was
"15,000 times more toxic than the nerve agent VX". That is wrong:
botulinum type A is one of the most poisonous substances known, and
was developed in weaponised form by Iraq before 1991. However, type B
- the form found at the biologist's home - is less lethal.

Even then, it would require an extensive process of fermentation, the
growing of the bug, the extraction of the toxin and the weaponisation
of the toxin before it could cause harm. That process would take
weeks, if not longer, but the ISG reported no sign of any of these
activities.

Botulinum type B could also be used for making an antidote to common
botulinum poisoning. That is one of the reasons why many military
laboratories around the world keep reference strains of C botulinum
Okra B. The UK keeps such substances, for example, and calls them
"seed banks".

Second, a large part of the ISG report is taken up with assertions
that Iraq had been acquiring designs and under- taking research
programmes for missiles with a range that exceeded the UN limit of
150km. The evidence here is more detailed than in the rest of the
report. However, it does not demonstrate that Iraq was violating the
terms of any Security Council resolution. The prohibition on Iraq
acquiring technology relating to chemical, biological or nuclear
weapons was absolute: no agents, no sub-systems and no research or
support facilities.

By contrast, Iraq was simply prohibited from actually having
longer-range missiles, together with "major parts, and repair and
production facilities". The ISG does not claim proof that Iraq had any
such missiles or facilities, just the knowledge to produce them in
future. Indeed, it would have been entirely lawful for Iraq to develop
such systems if the restrictions implemented in 1991 were lifted,
while it would never have been legitimate for it to re-develop WMD.

Third, one sentence within the report has been much quoted: Iraq had
"a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses within the
Iraqi intelligence service that contained equipment subject to UN
monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research". Note what that
sentence does not say: these facilities were suitable for chemical and
biological weapons research (as almost any modern lab would be), not
that they had engaged in such research. The reference to UN monitoring
is also spurious: under the terms of UN resolutions, all of Iraq's
chemical and biological facilities are subject to monitoring. So all
this tells us is that Iraq had modern laboratories.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=450121

Source: Dr Glen Rangwala The Independent