Iraqi arms threat real

[boblandis]

Iraqi arms threat real

By Marie Colvin, Nicholas Rufford

18mar02

AN Iraqi defector has given US intelligence details of a secret underground network of laboratories where Saddam Hussein is believed to be building weapons of mass destruction.

The defector is a 43-year-old civil engineer named Adnan Sayeed, who worked on 20 sites. He has provided evidence suggesting they are part of a network of bunkers where chemical and biological weapons have been made, and where attempts are under way to create a nuclear bomb.

A second defector said Iraq had constructed seven mobile germ laboratories, which are disguised as milk trucks.

Mr Hussein's efforts to conceal his weapons program have reinforced fears among US and British officials that he has rebuilt a clandestine arsenal since UN weapons inspectors were forced out of Iraq three years ago.

Amid growing tension over plans by US President George W. Bush to force Mr Hussein from power, the British foreign office has alerted its embassies after eight Iraqis were found spying on British diplomats in Sweden in preparation for terrorist attacks.

The eight, including two diplomats, were expelled or banned from Sweden after carrying out reconnaissance on British and US missions.

The expulsions in January were the first sign that Mr Hussein may have activated a European network of spies to retaliate if he is attacked.

Mr Sayeed escaped from Baghdad in June, 2001, by paying about ึ,000 in bribes and driving his two wives and children north to Kurdistan.

A senior British official said the information about underground sites was regarded as high-grade by the Pentagon. Mr Sayeed has supported it with technically detailed Iraqi government contracts, which have been seen by The Sunday Times.

The 3000-word transcript of a preliminary interview with Mr Sayeed shows he claims to have created "clean" rooms, using special materials to line floors and walls. The sites were under private houses, state factories and the Saddam Hussein hospital in Baghdad.

Mr Sayeed says a unit producing mustard gas has been hidden between factories making insulation material at the Al-Taji compound, north of Baghdad. At the city's Waziriya complex two years ago, he was ordered to wear a protective suit, mask and gloves to seal a floor in an area where the air passed through seven layers of filtration before reaching the outside.

He also speaks of a biological laboratory under the Adwaniya presidential palace, and wells about 16km south of Baghdad that were dug six metres underground and lined with 1.25m of concrete mixed with lead. "My assumption is that there is radiation there. Why use lead otherwise?" he said.

The second recent defector, whose name is being withheld until his family reaches safety, said he worked in a conceal ment unit to foil UN searches.

According to his account, Iraq took delivery of seven flatbed trucks fitted with computers, microscopes and other equipment. They moved between the central Iraqi cities of Hilla and Kut, he said.

Such claims are expected to add momentum to US efforts to win support for military action against Iraq. Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, arrived in Saudi Arabia yesterday on the latest stage of a tour of the Middle East.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

More lies from Bob, brought to you from the American misinformation services.  Ha

Ritter on Chalabi

During my service as a UN weapons inspector, I had responsibility for liaison with Mr. Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress to gather "intelligence information" derived from Chalabi's erstwhile network of defectors and in-country sources. This information turned out to be more flash than substance. For example, there was the "engineer" who allegedly worked on Saddam Hussein's palaces who spoke of a network of underground tunnels where crates of documents were allegedly hidden during inspections. Inspectors did find a drainage tunnel. However, despite the fact that no documents were discovered, Chalabi took the tunnel's existence as confirmation that documents also existed, and spoke as if they were an established fact.

In the same manner, when Mr. Wolfowitz and company needed a link between Iraq and the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, Chalabi dutifully trotted out a series of heretofore "undiscovered" defectors who have "information" about the training of "Arab" hijackers by Iraqi intelligence at a facility near the Iraqi town of Salman Pak. The site is reported to be fully equipped with, among other things, a commercial airliner upon which the trainees can practice their trade, conveniently enough, in "groups of five" and "armed only with knives and their bare hands." The facility at Salman Pak does exist; its use as an Al Qaeda training camp is unsubstantiated.

More recently, following President Bush's demand that Iraq permit the return of UN weapons inspectors or else "suffer the consequences," Chalabi conveniently produced another "defector" who allegedly had access to Saddam's secret plans to hide underground biological and chemical weapons facilities from international detection. I spent more than six years investigating the organizations the defector claimed to work for, and although elements of his story ring true, the details used to embellish his tale on weapons of mass destruction are impossible to pin down or, in some cases, just plain wrong.