With the apparent death of "Halabja" al-Douri, Let's Review Some Material from the Duelfer and UNMOVIC Reports that Won't Appear in a New York Times Editorial Anytime Soon

"' If you have forgotten Halabja, we are ready to repeat the operation,' Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri to the Kurds, reminding them of chemical attacks they suffered," writes the BBC in its report on his death. In light of Saddam's wmd history, the Oil-for-Food scandal, and Iraqi attempts to conceal "its importing networks," some readers may find these underreported items from the September 30, 2004 Duelfer report and the May 30, 2003 UNMOVIC report of interest. In the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) report, head inspector Charles Duelfer stated that, "there is an extensive, yet fragmentary and circumstantial body of evidence suggesting that Saddam pursued a strategy to maintain a capability to return to WMD production after sanctions were lifted by preserving assets and expertise. In addition to preserved capability, we have clear evidence of his intent to resume WMD production as soon as sanctions were lifted." He continued:

Based on an investigation of facilities, materials, and production outputs, ISG also judges that Iraq had a break-out capability to produce large quantities of sulfur mustard CW agent, but not nerve agents.... Iraq retained the necessary basic chemicals to produce sulfur mustard on a large-scale, but probably did not have key precursors for nerve agent production. With the importation of key phosphorus based precursors, Iraq could have produced limited quantities of nerve agent as well. Mustard production could have started within days if the necessary precursor chemicals were co-located in a suitable production facility; otherwise production could have started within weeks. Nerve agent production would have taken much longer.

Duelfer further noted that ISG "identified several suspect clandestine laboratories that reportedly supported biologically related research" but "has not been able to determine whether these laboratories were part of a clandestine BW effort." However,

the tactic of using IIS and covert laboratories has historical precedence dating back to the programs origins in the 1970s. Reverting to this practice would minimize the evidence available to inspectors. It would also leave the known and acknowledged BW workers free to deal with the UN inspection regime. However, it would require another cadre of scientists other than ones known to the UN to conduct this kind of research. The discovery of multiple clandestine laboratories after OIF lends some credence to this assessment.

In addition, he reported:

ISG also has evidence that, possibly as recently as 1994, an IIS chemist who immigrated to Iraq from Egypt, Dr. Muhammad ‘Abd-al-Mun'im Al Azmirli (now deceased), experimented on prisoners with ricin resulting in their deaths. In the chemical field, ISG learned that, in the 1970s, the former IIS Directorate of Science and Technology, M9 (which later transformed into M16) used this approach for research into lethal agents. The IIS used a succession of four clandestine laboratories in At Taji and Baghdad between 1996 and 2003 to research and develop chemicals. It also included testing of chemicals on small animals like mice, rabbits and rats.

Also, this section from UNMOVIC's May 30, 2003 report (pp. 27-28) on Iraq's attempt "to conceal the extent of its import activities and to preserve its importing networks" is worth reviewing.

Iraq was required to declare the import of dual-use items and supply UNMOVIC with details as to their origin. However, Iraq's recent semi-annual monitoring declarations, starting with the "backlog" of declarations since 1998 supplied to UNMOVIC in October 2002, showed a trend of withholding pertinent information....The biological imports were of a slightly more significant kind, and included the import of a dozen autoclaves, half a dozen centrifuges and a number of laminar flow cabinets. Missile imports, however, were more substantial and could have contributed significantly to any missile development programme. One example was the importation of 380 Volga engines that Iraq planned to use in the production of the Al Samoud 2 missile, a missile system UNMOVIC later determined to be prohibited since its range exceeded 150 km. In its declaration of 7 December 2002, Iraq declared that it had imported 131 such engines but failed to supply any information about their origin (suppliers, exporting countries) until inspectors observed 231 such engines at an Al Samoud production facility. A trend that was especially pronounced in the missile area (but to a lesser extent also present in the biological and chemical fields) was the use of the term "local market" to classify the import of some very sophisticated pieces of equipment....UNMOVIC came to understand that Iraq used the term "local market" when an Iraqi import company imported a commodity and then sold or transferred it to a government facility, which suggested that Iraq was trying to conceal the extent of its import activities and to preserve its importing networks."

Guess Sen. McCain had a point when he said last year that, "our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad. Not our political opponents…."