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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Duelfer report describes Zarqawi's pursuit of chemical weapons |
| 2004-10-10 |
| Insurgent networks across Iraq are increasingly trying to acquire and use toxic nerve gases, blister agents and germ weapons against U.S. and coalition forces, according to a CIA report. Investigators said one group recruited scientists and sought to prepare poisons over seven months before it was dismantled in June. U.S. officials say the threat is especially worrisome because leaders of the previously unknown group, which investigators dubbed the "Al Abud network," were based in the city of Fallouja near insurgents aligned with fugitive militant Abu Musab Zarqawi. The CIA says Zarqawi, who is blamed for numerous attacks on U.S. forces and beheadings of hostages, has long sought to use chemical and biological weapons against targets in Europe as well as Iraq. An exhaustive report released last week by Charles A. Duelfer, the CIA's chief weapons investigator in Iraq, concluded that Saddam Hussein destroyed his stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s and never tried to rebuild them. But a little-noticed section of the 960-page report says the risk of a "devastating" attack with unconventional weapons has grown since the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq last year. The Bush administration, which went to war primarily to disarm the Baghdad regime of suspected illicit stockpiles, has not previously disclosed that the insurgent groups that have emerged and steadily expanded since Hussein's ouster are trying to develop their own crude supplies of such deadly agents as mustard gas, ricin and the nerve gas tabun. Neither of the two chemists who worked for Al Abud had ties to Hussein's long-defunct weapons programs, and Duelfer's investigators found no evidence that the group's poison project was part of a "prescribed plan by the former regime to fuel an insurgency." For now, the leaders and financiers of the network "remain at large, and alleged chemical munitions remain unaccounted," the report says. It adds that other insurgent groups are "planning or attempting to produce or acquire" chemical and biological agents throughout Iraq, and says the availability of chemicals and munitions, as well as sympathetic former Iraqi weapons scientists, "increases the future threat." The discoveries are separate from several attacks this year involving chemical munitions, the report says. In May and June, insurgents used old chemical-filled artillery shells, left over from Iraq's pre-1991 stocks, in three roadside bombs. Partly because of the age of the weapons, no chemical injuries were reported. In all, U.S. forces have recovered 53 decaying chemical-filled shells or artillery rockets that apparently were looted from unguarded ammunition bunkers or other sites. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 The US has no bio weapons. The US has been destroying chem weapons stocks under the Chemical Weapons Convention and all stocks are supposed to destroyed by 2007. The US may be behind schedule (extensions are in the treaty) since we may be pacing destruction of our stocks with the FSU's stock destruction. The FSU is behind schedule. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-10-10 12:40:34 PM |
| #2 Another factor is that chemical and bio-weapons are the other two legs of the WMD 'triad'. The US has the option to respond in kind whenever WMD are used against itself or its allies. I'm under the impression that the US has eschewed chemical and bio-weapons. If so, that leaves one other kind of weapon, and the US has quite a few of them. |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2004-10-10 8:42:50 AM |
| #1 incorrect amounts of the precursors and inadequate processes Sounds like somebody is trying cookbook recipies. Fortunately the sort of person that would be able to sucessfully produce a militarily useful quantity and deploy it effectively can usualy find more productive employment elsewhere. Given the problems these guys have with plain old explosives (Is it the red or the blue wire, Ahmed?) the thought of adding (insert favorite persitant agent here) is for me distressing only because of the numbers of potential (relatively!) innocent bystanders involved. Still, its good that our side got ahead of the curve here. NBC suits are uncomfortable to operate in. |
| Posted by: N Guard 2004-10-10 8:01:05 AM |