Saddam's $20 Billion Cash Transfers

October 1, 2002

The just-released British intelligence assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs (which is available at the prime minister's Website (www.official-documents.co.uk/document/reps/iraq/contents.htm) highlights Iraq's recent procurement successes. In addition to seeking "the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa," intelligence shows a pattern on Iraqi purchases of high-tech gear specially adapted for a revived nuclear-weapons program which the sanctions were unable to stop. According to British intelligence, these purchases include:

* vacuum pumps that "could be used … in a gas-centrifuge cascade needed to enrich uranium";
* "an entire magnet-production line … for use in the motors and top bearings of gas centrifuges";
* anhydrous hydrogen fluoride and fluoride gas, both of which are required for "converting uranium into uranium hexafluoride for use in gas-centrifuge cascades";
* a large filament-winding machine "which could be used to manufacture carbon-fiber gas-centrifuge rotors," and a large balancing machine needed for the "initial centrifuge-balancing work";
* "repeated attempts covertly to acquire a very large quantity (60,000 or more) of specialized aluminum tubes" of the specification needed for gas centrifuges to enrich uranium.

Added to this, the British report says intelligence "has confirmed that Iraq wants to extend the range of its missile systems to more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), enabling it to threaten other regional neighbors," and can now produce biological-warfare agents using "mobile laboratories."

In presenting the Joint Intelligence Committee assessment — the first of its kind to be released to the public — Prime Minister Tony Blair emphasized that "Iraq is preparing plans to conceal evidence of these weapons, including documents, from renewed inspections," explaining the cynicism with which Saddam's promises to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq has been greeted in Washington and London. — KRT

http://www.insightmag.com/news/284402.html