Comprehensive Report

• The IIS continued small-scale CBW activities,
recruiting chemists and scientists from universities
and private laboratories and assigning them to Al
Salman to conduct research.
• In 1983, a militarily relevant BW program restarted
at the CW facility at Al Muthanna. UN inspectors
were told that the initiative for this came from the
Director General (DG) of Al Muthanna, Lt. Gen.
Nizar Al Attar, who then received endorsement
from the Minister of Defense. ISG has been unable
to establish the veracity of this story, although it is
apparent that a BW program started there in 1984
under the auspices of the MOD, funded by the
State Organization for Technical Industries (SOTI),
and headed at the research level by a new recruit,
Dr. Rihab. Her direction, at least at the working
level, was at this time given by Lt. Gen. Nizar who
instructed her that he “did not want research to put
on a shelf. He wanted applied research to put in a
bomb.”
Renewed Ambition and Near-Realization:
1985-1991
The outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 altered
Baghdad’s perception of the value of WMD and led
to a reinvigoration of the BW program. In the view
of Iraqi leaders, Iraq’s CW halted Iranian ground
offensives and ballistic missile attacks on Tehran
broke its political will.
• According to Brig. Dr. Mahmud Farraj Bilal Al
Samarra’i, Iraq’s war with Iran was the catalyst to
reactivate Iraq’s BW efforts. Iraq’s success with
CW during its war with Iran only reaffirmed the
potential value of unconventional capabilities like
BW. He opined that, “if the Iran war lasted beyond
1988, Saddam would have used BW.” Further,
Iraq’s concerns about Israel and their WMD
capabilities provided additional impetus to seek a
strategic counterbalance to deter foreign threats.
• Dr. Bilal added additional perspectives on the
strategic intent of Iraqi’s BW program, which
he described as a strategic capability that would
compliment Iraq’s CW efforts with great potential
for achieving surprise. Bilal also commented that
Iraq considered BW a potential counterbalance to
the Israeli threat, but acknowledged that Iraq lacked
an effective delivery system to mount a BW attack
against Israel.
• After the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, one of the
country’s most eminent microbiologists and one of
its few experts in fermentation, Professor Nassir
Al Hindawi of Mustansiriyah University, submitted
a proposal for BW research to the Presidential
Diwan. The leadership directed his proposal to Lt.
Gen. Nizar, the DG of Al Muthanna. Al Hindawi
convinced Saddam to utilize disease-causing agents
to aid the war effort against Iran. The focus of his
interest was developing botulinum toxin as tactical
nerve-like BW agent and anthrax as a strategic and
tactical weapon.
In the early 1980s Baghdad stepped up the pace of
it BW program significantly. In 1983, the remnants
of the first BW effort became formally part of Al
Muthanna under the direction of Lt. Gen. Nizar Al
Attar. According to UNSCOM reporting, a formal
research plan was drafted that year committing to BW
research. Meanwhile, close by at the old facilities of
the Al Hasan Institute, Al Salman was conducting a
parallel BW research program under the authority of
the intelligence services that included research into an
anti-crop fungal agent, Tilletia, and the development
of a bacterial spray device (known as the Zubaydi
device, after its inventor). Al Salman tested the spray
device, mounted on a helicopter, with reportedly
inconclusive results, at Khan Bani Sa’ad in August
1988.
In late 1984, on returning from completing her PhD
in the UK, Dr. Rihab was contacted by Lt. Gen. Nizar
and directed to report to Al Muthanna, where she
took over technical leadership of the BW program
and led it to a series of achievements. According to
Dr. Rihab, in 1983, there was an informal decision
made to revitalize the BW program. Three years
later, a 5-year plan was drawn up that would lead
to BW weaponization, a course Dr. Rihab and her
group implemented with urgency, authority, and great
secrecy demonstrating considerable planning. Dr.
8