The Blix Report: Anthrax, missiles and nerve gas... all missing

The following is an edited transcript of the report by Professor Hans Blix to the UN:

Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field. The most important point to make is access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. ...

I am obliged to note some recent disturbing incidents and harassment. For instance, for some time far-fetched allegations have been made publicly that questions posed by inspectors were of intelligence character. Iraq knows they do not serve intelligence purposes and Iraq should not say so.

Paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be "active". It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of "catch as catch can". ...

Chemical weapons

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said, the agent was never weaponised.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilisation and that more had been achieved than has been declared. ...

I would now like to turn to the so-called "Air Force document" that I have discussed with the Council before.

This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air Force Headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs, by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War.

I am encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC. The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs.

The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170km south-west of Baghdad was much publicised. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. ...

The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate. During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would make new efforts in this regard and had set up a committee of investigation. Since then it has reported that it has found a further four chemical rockets at a storage depot in Al Taji.

Biological weapons

Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of (anthrax), which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. ...

As I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650kg, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as imported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999.

As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered. ... I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax.

Missiles

There has been a range of developments in the missile field during the past four years presented by Iraq as non-proscribed activities. Two projects in particular stand out. They are the development of a liquid-fuelled missile named the Al Samoud 2, and a solid propellant missile called the Al Fatah.

Both missiles have been tested to a range in excess of the permitted range of 150km ... The Al Samoud's diameter was increased from an earlier version to the present 760mm. This modification was made despite a 1994 letter from the executive chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its missile diameters to less than 600mm. ...

During my recent meeting in Baghdad, we were briefed on these two programmes. We were told the final range for both systems would be less than the permitted maximum range of 150km. These missiles might well represent prima facie cases of proscribed systems. In the meantime, we have asked Iraq to cease flight tests of both missiles. ...

Also associated with these missiles and related developments is the import, which has been taking place during the last few years, of a number of items despite the sanctions, including as late as December 2002. Foremost amongst these is the import of 380 rocket engines which may be used for the Al Samoud 2. What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq, that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.

Mr President, I have touched upon some of the disarmament issues that remain open and need to be answered if dossiers are to be closed and confidence to arise. Which are the means at the disposal of Iraq to answer these questions?

Our Iraqi counterparts are fond of saying there are no proscribed items and if no evidence is presented to the contrary they should have the benefit of the doubt and be presumed innocent. UNMOVIC, for its part, is not presuming that there are proscribed items and activities in Iraq, but nor is it – or I think anyone else after the inspections between 1991 and 1998 – presuming the opposite, that no such items and activities exist in Iraq. Presumptions do not solve the problem. Evidence and full transparency may help. Let me be specific.

Find the items and activities

So far we have reported on the recent find of a small number of empty 122mm warheads for chemical weapons. Iraq declared that it appointed a commission of inquiry to look for more. Fine. Why not extend the search to other items? Declare what may be found and destroy it under our supervision?

Find documents

When we have urged our Iraqi counterparts to present more evidence, we have all too often met the response that there are no more documents. ... However, Iraq has all the archives of the Government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports on how they have been used. ...

In response to a recent UNMOVIC request for a number of specific documents, the only new documents Iraq provided was a ledger of 193 pages which Iraq stated included all imports from 1983 to 1990 by the Technical and Scientific Importation Division, the importing authority for the biological weapons programme. Potentially, it might help to clear some open issues.

The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of some 3,000 pages of documents relating to laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side, which claims research staff sometimes may bring home papers from their workplaces.

On our side, we cannot help but think the case might not be isolated and such placements of documents are deliberate. Any further sign of the concealment of documents would be serious. ...

Find persons to give credible information

When Iraq claims tangible evidence in the form of documents is not available, it ought at least to find individuals, engineers, scientists and managers to testify about their experience.

UNMOVIC asked for a list of such persons, in accordance with resolution 1441. Some 400 names for all biological and chemical weapons programmes as well as their missile programmes were pro- vided by the Iraqi side. This can be compared to over 3,500 names of people associated with those past weapons programmes that UNSCOM interviewed in the 1990s or knew from documents and other sources.

At my recent meeting in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to supplementing the list and some 80 additional names have been provided.

Allow information through credible interviews

In the past, much valuable information came from interviews. There were also cases in which the interviewee was clearly intimidated by the presence of Iraqi officials. This was the background of resolution 1441's provision for a right for UNMOVIC and the IAEA to hold private interviews "in the mode or location" of our choice, in Baghdad or even abroad.

To date, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have invariably been that the individual will only speak at Iraq's monitoring directorate or in the presence of an Iraqi official. At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews "in private", that is to say alone with us. Despite this, the pattern has not changed.

UNMOVIC's capability

Mr President, I must not conclude this update without some notes on the growing capability of UNMOVIC.

In the past two months, UNMOVIC has built up its capabilities in Iraq from nothing to 260 staff members from 60 countries. All serve the United Nations and report to no one else. In the past two months, we have conducted about 300 inspections on more than 230 different sites.

Mr President, we have now an inspection apparatus that permits us to send multiple inspection teams all over Iraq, by road or air. Let me end by simply noting that that capability, built up in a short time and now operating, is at the disposal of the Security Council.