Comprehensive Report

• The Iraqis were well aware of the shortcomings
of the Al Husayn missile and the R-400. Lt. Gen.
Hazim, commander of the Surface-to-Surface Missile
Forces openly admitted that the Al Husayn,
with a BW agent filled warhead, would fulfill its
purpose if after impact in an enemy country sufficient
material survived to enable its detection as
a BW agent. It was a weapon of terror. They were
for use in extremis and only if an enemy directly
threatened the existence of the Regime in its heartland
in and around Baghdad. Except for those in
the know, Iraqi armed forces treated BW weapons
as ‘special chemical’, a more toxic type of CW
weapon.
Saddam himself exercised control over Iraq’s BW
arsenal, and he was prepared to use it against US
and allied forces in the event of war. At a meeting
in early January 1991, he identified the targets
for the BW weapons. Israel was to be first and all
Israeli cities were targets, but he ordered that strikes
concentrate on Tel Aviv. US forces were to be targets
if they attacked with unconventional forces. He
also identified Riyadh and Jeddah as targets. In a
transcript of discussions held at the time Saddam
ordered the use of the more persistent (presumably
anthrax) BW agents: “we want the long term, the
many years kind.”
• Saddam envisaged all out use of the weapons. He
said “we don’t want to depend on one option” and
that Iraqi forces must use all means, bombs, missiles
and spray aircraft, to deliver the BW agent. He
pointed out that this was “a life and death issue and
all the orders about targets are sealed in writing
and authenticated” in case something happened to
him.
• The stockpiles of weapons and bulk agents
remained in their hide sites unused and undamaged.
Two officials shared the day-to-day responsibility;
Dr. Bilal for the bombs and missiles and Dr. Rihab
for the bulk BW agent.
The Beginning of the Decline: Opportunity
Through Ambiguity and the End of the Game
(1991-1996)
ISG assesses that in 1991, Iraq clung to the objective
of gaining war-winning weapons with strategic
intent that would enable the projection of its power
over much of the Middle East and beyond. BW
was part of that plan. With an eye to the future and
aiming to preserve some measure of its BW capability,
Baghdad in the years immediately after Desert
Storm sought to save what it could of its BW infrastructure,
hide evidence of the program, and dispose
of its existing weapons stocks. Following Baghdad’s
formal acceptance of UNSCR 687 of 3 April 1991,
Iraq had 15 days to declare its stocks of WMD. It did
not do so, and in a letter dated 18 April 1991, to the
Secretary General of the UN, Foreign Minister Tariq
‘Aziz even denied that Iraq had any BW program.
Baghdad’s action in the following months and years
indicate that it intended to preserve its BW capability
and return to the steady, methodical progress toward
a mature BW capability when inspections ended and
sanctions were lifted. The biopesticide program that
was established after the 1991 Gulf war, temporarily
preserved Iraq’s research, development and production
base at Al Hakam and, whether intentionally
or otherwise, achieved several objectives set out in
the original Iraqi BW strategic plan drafted in 1985.
These included industrial-scale production of biological
agents, albeit nonpathogenic ones, and perfecting
development of dry agent formulation.
Baghdad took early steps to protect what remained
of the BW physical plant and
equipment. During the first Gulf war, the only facilities
directly relevant to Iraq’s BW program that were
destroyed were the research laboratories at Al Salman
and the munitions filling station at Al Muthanna. Neither
was critical to the BW program that was centered
on Al Hakam. Al Hakam at that time was unknown to
the Coalition and therefore was not attacked during
the war, unlike the Abu Ghurayb Infant Formula Plant
(the Baby Milk Factory) that the Coalition destroyed
by bombing in the mistaken belief that it was a key
BW facility. Following approval of UNSCR 687 in
early April 1991, Saddam Husayn endorsed Husayn
Kamil’s decision not to declare Al Hakam as part
Biological
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