Dating WMD Destruction

Authored by Michael Pate on February 6th, 2004 at 4:53 PM

Everyone agrees that, once upon a time, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

On July 30, 1991, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, director of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), charged with overseeing the elimination of Iraq’s chemical and nuclear arsenals, told the Security Council that the U.N. inspectors had found chemical warheads armed with nerve gas. Mr. Ekeus claimed that some warheads found were already fitted onto the SCUD missiles. - Riegle Report

Assuming, for the moment, that they were destroyed, what year did that take place?

1991?

Before the end of 1991, all proscribed nuclear, chemical, biological and missile assets were destroyed. - Jafar Dhia Jafar

1992?

The U.N. Security Council told top Iraqi officials November 23 that it is justified in concluding that Iraq has only “selectively and then partially complied with the obligations placed upon it by the council” at the end of the Persian Gulf war. In a lengthy statement, the council said that Iraq “needs to provide the full, final, and complete disclosure of all aspects of its programs for weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers…including credible documentary evidence on Iraq’s past production, suppliers and consumption of all prohibited items and its past capacity to produce such items.” - United States Information Agency

1993?

I ordered in 1993 that all remaining weapons be destroyed. Today in Iraq there are no weapons. We destroyed them all. - Hussein Kamal

1994?

Iraq “falls far short” of its obligation to provide the United Nations with complete details of its banned weapons programs and is deliberately withholding information, a top U.N. official has reported to the U.N. Security Council. Recounting Iraq’s lack of cooperation with the U.N. over the past six months, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus says the U.N. “has both direct and indirect evidence that Iraq is still failing to declare equipment and materials acquired for and capable of use in proscribed programs and that its accounts of certain of its projects do not reflect their true purpose and their role as part of now proscribed weapons programs.” - Judy Aita

1995?

“No way,” says author Krasno, dismissing such statements. On the face of it, she pointed out, it is untrue the entire arsenal was destroyed in the early 1990s, as Kamel said, because the U.N. inspectors still found some chemical weapons even after 1995. Ekeus said Kamel may have believed what he said was true. U.N. inspectors found a Kamel communication of 1991 ordering a blanket destruction of weapons. - Charles Hanley

1996?

March 1996 UNSCOM teams denied access to five Iraqi sites - New Scientist

1997?

Now, during the past 2 weeks, Saddam again has raised his obstinately uncooperative profile. We all know of his announcement that he will no longer permit United States citizens to participate in the U.N. inspection team searching Iraq for violations of the U.N. requirement that Iraq not build or store weapons of mass destruction. And he has made good on his announcement. The UNSCOM inspection team, that is, the United Nations Special Commission team, has been refused access to its inspection targets throughout the week and once again today because it has Americans as team members. While it is not certain, it is not unreasonable to assume that Saddam’s action may have been precipitated by the fear that the U.N. inspectors were getting uncomfortably close to discovering some caches of reprehensible weapons of mass destruction, or facilities to manufacture them, that many have long feared he is doing everything in his power to build, hide, and hoard. - John Kerry

1998?

When UNSCOM tested the fragments, we found irrefutable evidence that the warheads had been filled with both VX nerve agent and anthrax biological agent, directly contradicting earlier Iraqi claims. - Scott Ritter

The inspections performed by UNSCOM ended December 16th, 1998.

1999?

If Iraq continues to bar inspectors following today’s Security Council action, there may be no way of knowing whether all the enriched and natural uranium, which was left under seal, is still there. If Iraq doesn�t let the IAEA in, it would be prudent to assume the Iraqis have a reason for keeping the inspectors out—such as the material has been diverted to weapons use. In any event, there is no excuse for the IAEA not to insist on an inspection, or for the Security Council not to take up the matter urgently if the Agency is rebuffed. - Paul Leventhal

2000?

Until two years ago Iraq was under international inspection which prevented a renewal in developing and producing long range missiles for nuclear arms. Since the inspections have stopped, Saddam Hussein has resumed the production of these missiles. The significance of this is that one morning, not far off, we will wake up and discover that Saddam also has nuclear arms and the ability to fire them great distances. - Ephraim Sneh

2001?

Saddam has a whole range of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological and chemical. The nuclear program is his primary weapon, and that would give him the ability to use the biological and chemical better. According to German intelligence estimates, we expect him to have three nuclear weapons by 2005. So, the window (actually, he’s being careful right now), will close by 2005, and we expect him then to be a lot more aggressive with his neighbors and encouraging terrorism, and using biological weapons. - Khidhir Hamza

2002?

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. - Jay Rockefeller

By the time UN Inspectors arrived November 18th, 2002?

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 U.N. - David Kay

2003?

When Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime - Jose Manuel Durao Barroso

—

One question that many may ask is what does Hans Blix think?

Blix is inclined to believe Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law, who briefly defected to Jordan in 1995 and told his interrogators that he had ordered all WMD destroyed in the summer of 1991. Why then had the Baathi regime in Iraq not presented categorical evidence to the inspectors? The answer, Blix surmises, is that Sad dam is a proud man. Also, badly weakened after his defeat in 1991, he may have needed the threat of unconventional weaponry to deter the Kurds, the Shia and his neighbours. To have bluffed when the stakes were so high was a misjudgment of heroic proportions. - James Buchan

I would have to assume that Mr. Buchan missed Mr. Blix with Bill O�Reilly last week.

O’REILLY: Where do you think the 10,000 liters of anthrax went? BLIX: I think they might have destroyed them in the summer of 2001. O’REILLY: 2001? BLIX: Yes. - Frank Warner