AFF/ROGUE STATES/IRAQ

IRAQ HAS WMD NOW!

INSIDE SOURCES CORROBORATE THE EXISTENCE OF IRAQI NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Uzi Mahnaimi and Tom Walker February 25, 2001 The Ottawa Citizen SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A6 HEADLINE: Iraq tested nuclear bomb, scientists say: Ex-Iraqi workers claim Saddam has stockpiled nuclear weapons //VT2002acsln

The principal source of the new evidence about Saddam Hussein's nuclear program is a former military engineer, known as "Leone," who says he worked for a special scientific department of the Republican Palace in Baghdad, which supervised the development of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

His claim is corroborated by a scientist from another branch of the weapons program and by Abbas al-Janabi, a former personal assistant to Uday Hussein. "A nuclear test was carried out in 1988 or 1989 in an underground site beside Lake Rezzaza," said Mr. Janabi, who claimed to have been in the test cavern before the explosion. Satellite images from 1989 show a huge tunnel at the site.

Last month, another former engineer from the weapons program, now in hiding, said Saddam Hussein had two "fully operational" nuclear bombs.

Western intelligence officers who have heard Leone's claims say he is well informed, but they insist there is no evidence Iraq could obtain sufficient enriched nuclear fuel. Leone and his corroborators say the fuel was smuggled in from South Africa via Brazil.

IRAQ HAS DONE A NUCLEAR TEST AND NOW HAS OPERATIONAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Disturbing new evidence has emerged about Saddam Hussein's nuclear arsenal as tension rises in the Middle East over an increasingly aggressive Iraq.

According to two former senior scientists in the Iraqi nuclear program, corroborated by a former aide to Saddam Hussein's son Uday, Iraq carried out a successful nuclear test before the Gulf War and now has a nuclear stockpile.

The scientists say Saddam Hussein carried out a nuclear test in September 1989 deep beneath Lake Rezzaza, southwest of Baghdad. The blast was undetected because it was relatively small -- about equal to the Hiroshima bomb, but muffled.

Over the past decade, despite UN inspections, Saddam Hussein has carried out further tests and now has several bombs stored in a bunker under the Hamrin mountains north of Baghdad, they say. Their claims challenge the consensus among the U.S., British and Israeli intelligence services that Saddam Hussein does not have sufficient enriched uranium or plutonium to fulfil his ambition of developing a nuclear bomb.

IRAQI DEFECTORS CONFIRM IRAQ HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS

JESSICA BERRY January 28, 2001, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) SECTION: Pg. 27 HEADLINE: Saddam has made two atomic bombs, says Iraqi defector Fresh evidence alarms security experts //VT2002acsln

SADDAM Hussein has two fully operational nuclear bombs and is working to construct others, an Iraqi defector has told The Sunday Telegraph.

The defector, a military engineer who fled Iraq a year after United Nations arms inspectors left the country, says he helped to oversee the completion of the weapons programme. He is currently in hiding in Europe.

International nuclear officials are investigating his evidence, which contradicts recent reports that the Iraqi dictator's plans were still at a preparatory stage. Saddam's efforts to build atomic weapons were delayed by the UN Special Commission (Unscom) inspectors who were forced to leave in November 1998, but scientists resumed the work immediately after their departure.

According to the defector, who cannot be named for security reasons, bombs are being built in Hemrin in north-eastern Iraq, near the Iranian border. "There are at least two nuclear bombs which are ready for use," he said last week. "Before the UN inspectors came, there were 47 factories involved in the project. Now there are 64."

IRAQ TESTED A NUCLEAR DEVICE IN 1987

Ben Macintyre April 30, 2001, The Times (London) HEADLINE: Saddam 'tested dirty bomb' //VT2002acsln

IRAQ tested a so-called "dirty bomb" in 1987, intended to cause lingering death by radiation, according to secret Iraqi papers.

The New York Times acquired the documents from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a private group, which obtained the data from a United Nations official. Instead of killing with explosive power, such weapons, also known as "dirty nukes", would kill slowly by scattering radioactive materials over an enemy target, causing cancer, vomiting and birth defects before death.

The Iraqis abandoned the project, believing radiation yields were probably too low to achieve the desired killing-rate, but officials say the papers prove President Saddam Hussein's intention to develop weapons of mass destruction.

IRAQ NUCLEAR TEST DEVICE WAS CRUDE AND DIRTY IN 1987

WILLIAM J. BROAD April 29, 2001, The New York Times SECTION: Section 1; Page 16; HEADLINE: Document Reveals 1987 Bomb Test by Iraq //VT2002acsln

Iraq tested a bomb in 1987 that cast a radioactive cloud in the open air and was designed to cause vomiting, cancer, birth defects and slow death, according to a secret Iraqi report on the weapon's construction and testing.

Radiation sickness from the bomb, the document said, would "weaken enemy units from the standpoint of health and inflict losses that would be difficult to explain, possibly producing a psychological effect." Death, it added, might occur "within two to six weeks."

The bomb, 12 feet long and weighing more than a ton, according to the document, could be dropped on troop areas, industrial centers, airports, railroad stations, bridges and "any other areas the command decrees."

IRAQI DIRTY NUCLEAR DEVICE IS POISONOUS MORAL BARBARISM

WILLIAM J. BROAD April 29, 2001, The New York Times SECTION: Section 1; Page 16; HEADLINE: Document Reveals 1987 Bomb Test by Iraq //VT2002acsln

Radiation or radiological weapons, sometimes known as "dirty nukes," are the poor cousins of nuclear arms. Their conventional high explosives scatter highly radioactive materials to poison targets rather than destroying them with blast and heat. Their effects on people can range from radiation sickness to agonizingly slow death, which is why military experts often see them as ethically bankrupt.

"It shows what kind of guy we're dealing with," said Gary Milhollin, the group's director, of the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein. The bomb, he added, was "nasty stuff meant to kill people over a long period of time" and thus, he said, "crossed the line into moral barbarism."

NEW EVIDENCE INDICATES IRAQ HAS NUCLEAR WMD CAPABILITIES

Uzi Mahnaimi and Tom Walker February 25, 2001, Sunday Times (London) HEADLINE: Defectors say Iraq tested nuclear bomb //VT2002acsln

DISTURBING new evidence has emerged about Saddam Hussein's nuclear arsenal as tension rises in the Middle East over an increasingly aggressive Iraq.

According to two former senior scientists in the Iraqi nuclear programme - corroborated by a former aide to Saddam's son Uday -Iraq carried out a successful nuclear test before the Gulf war and now has a nuclear stockpile.

The scientists describe in detail Iraq's nuclear programme. They say Saddam carried out a nuclear test in September 1989 deep beneath Lake Rezzaza, southwest of Baghdad. The blast was undetected because it was relatively small -about equal to the Hiroshima bomb -and muffled.

Over the past decade, despite UN inspections, Saddam has carried out further tests and now has several bombs stored in a bunker under the Hamrin mountains north of Baghdad, they say.