Biological and chemical weaponry

Biological agents Anthrax • Iraq declared 8,500 liters, but UNSCOM estimates Iraq could have 25,000 liters. VX Nerve Agent • Iraq admitted to having 4 tons of VX after Saddam Hussein’s late son-in-law defected and led inspectors to collect documents. • UNSCOM also has forensic evidence that Iraq produced and weaponized VX, but Iraq denies ever weaponizing the agent.

Chemical agents Iraq has failed to account for: • 550 artillery shells of mustard gas • 30,000 empty munitions • Enough precursors to increase chemical agent stockpile to 500 tons • 6,500 bombs from Iran-Iraq war, estimated by UNMOVIC to contain 1,000 tons of chemical agent

Weapons munitions facility

The Taji facility shown below is one of 65 such facilities in Iraq. UN inspectors found a 122mm chemical weapons shell in Taji early this month, and the Iraqis found four additional shells three days later.

Enlarge photo Nov. 10, 2002 Fifteen munitions bunkers shown in yellow and red outlines. The four in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers. One of these bunkers is enlarged in the next image.

Enlarge photo Nov. 10, 2002 Close-up of a chemical bunker • Security and decontamination vehicle: Signature items for chemical bunkers. • Inside: Guards and equipment to monitor leakage from the bunker.

Enlarge photo Dec. 22, 2002 Sanitized chemical bunker • Security and decontamination vehicles are gone. • Bunkers are "clean" when the inspectors arrive.

Mobile biological agent production facilities

Enlarge photo Truck labs

Enlarge photo Railroad labs

Artist renderings based on eyewitness interviews

Four sources, including three Iraqis, confirm the existence of these movable facilities comprising trucks and train cars that can be easily moved to evade detection by weapons inspectors. The United States says that Iraq has at least seven mobile facilities with a minimum of 18 trucks.

Sources quoted by Powell

• According to one source, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised a mobile facility, production runs began on Thursdays at midnight because Iraq thought UNSCOM would not inspect on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

• Truck-mounted facilities have at least two or three trucks and can produce enough anthrax or botulinum toxin in a month to kill thousands. UN specialists agree that Iraqi scientists can dry the toxins, making them better weapons.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)

Enlarge photo Path of a UAV test flight

Enlarge photo An Iraqi UAV with a wingspan of a few meters

Iraq is said to have been working on a variety of UAVs for more than a decade. UAVs are well suited for dispensing biological and chemical weapons.

On Dec. 7, 2002, Iraq declared that its UAVs have a range of only 80 km (50 miles). US intelligence detected a UAV test flight that went around a circuit several times, reaching 500 km (311 miles) nonstop on autopilot. The distance is well over the 150 km (93 miles) allowed by the United Nations.

Human experiments

• The US has sources that say Saddam Hussein’s regime has been experimenting on human beings to perfect its chemical and biological weapons.

• The source says that 1,600 death-row prisoners were transferred in 1995 to a special unit so experiments could be conducted on them.