Volume 1 - Iraq Watch

Security Services (continued)The Special Security Organization (SSO)The SSO was primarily responsible for the security ofthe President and other key members of the Regime,security of Presidential palaces and facilities, andensuring the loyalty of key military units, principallythe RG and SRG. SSO personnel also played animportant coordinating role between Husayn KamilHasan Al Majid and the SRG elements that engagedin concealment of weapons, documents, and materialsin the early 1990s. An SSO element also coordinatedfl ight planning for UNSCOM and UNMOVIC aviationelements and provided warning of UN fl ight activitiesto the Iraqi Government. The SSO reportedly workedwith the IIS to develop a database of inspectors.• SSO minders also accompanied inspection teamsinvolved in inspections of “sensitive sites,” whichincluded RG, SRG, and security service sites. Theirrole, ostensibly, was to facilitate quick access tothe facilities and prevent controversy. In 2002 and2003, SSO minders accompanied many inspectionteams because of the requirement laid down byUNSCR 1441 to provide immediate access to allfacilities, including presidential sites. They alsoserved to warn Saddam Husayn’s security personnelthat inspectors were approaching presidentiallocations.• Qusay also ordered SSO personnel to hide anyorders from Saddam when UN teams came toinspect SSO sites, according to two high-level SSOoffi cers. They were also to hide any contingencywar plans, anything dealing with Saddam’s family,SSO personnel rosters, or fi nancial data whichcould have posed a risk to Iraq national security.Offi cers would keep materials in their homes andreturn it once inspectors left.Regime StrategicIntent• The SSO recruited sources on inspection teams touncover information on planned inspection visits,according to a former SSO security officer. Whenthe SSO officer assigned to an UNSCOM inspectionteam learned which site was due for inspection,he notified the target site via walkie-talkie using apredetermined code system. The SSO officer onsitehad authority to use whatever means was necessaryto keep the team from entering the site beforeit was fully sanitized.• Concealment failures ultimately compounded issuesraised by UNSCOM. The most notorious failurewas UNSCOM’s discovery in July 1998 discoveryof the “Air Force Document” which called intoquestion Iraq’s declaration of destroyed chemicalmunitions. Inspectors found the document despiteextensive Iraqi efforts to sanitize the site prior toinspector arrival. The discovery resulted in a presidentialdecree creating a committee to purge suchdocuments from MIC facilities to prevent othersuch occurrences.Iraq’s Internal Monitoring Apparatus: The NMDand MIC ProgramsIn 1998, after the Air Force Document incident,Saddam personally ordered the establishment of aDocument Committee under the purview of the NMDto purge all MIC establishments of records of pastprohibitedprograms to prevent their discovery.• The NMD oversaw the destruction of redundantcopies of declared documents, as well as continuedthe concealment of documents of past programsthat would cause additional problems with the UN.Financial documents that were deemed too valuableto destroy but too controversial to declare wereplaced in a lockbox in the care of a special agent ofthe Iraqi Intelligence Service.• According to NMD Director Husam MuhammadAmin, the NMD continued in its role of enforcingUNSC resolutions, despite its subordination toMIC and the departure of UNSCOM inspectors on15 December 1998. For example, the NMD carriedout the destruction of missile production components,such as the 300-gallon mixer, that MIC hadreconstructed against Security Council resolutions53