Excerpts from the final update, by subject:

Removed on August 15, 2006

Pre-war intelligence

U.S. pre-war intelligence on Iraq’s weapons that has been made public, or leaked, since the war reveals that Saddam Hussein was not actively working on nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. For instance, suspicion about the existence of mobile biological weapons labs was a primary source of evidence offered by President Bush prior to the invasion of Iraq. In June 2006, former CIA officer Tyler Drumheller told the Washington Post that prior to President Bush’s and Secretary of State Powell’s 2003 speeches asserting that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories, he repeatedly warned senior CIA officials about the credibility of a key informant on the issue known as “Curveball.” The government has since acknowledged that Curveball was a fraud.

In addition, a secret DIA-dispatched fact-finding mission in May 2003 concluded that the two trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had nothing to do with biological weapons and were not biological weapon laboratories. Yet, only days later, President Bush made a public announcement that these trailers were the long-sought biological weapon laboratories

Further, it has been revealed that the CIA received information from Naji Sabri, Saddam Hussein’s last foreign minister who was paid by French intelligence to provide information about Iraq’s weapon programs. Sabri indicated that Hussein had nuclear ambitions but no active nuclear program. Sabri also reported that Hussein had a biological weapons research program, and some stocks of chemical weapons not under military control.

According to a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment from 2002, the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was “unlikely.” This assessment was made nearly a year before President Bush stated in his 2003 State of the Union address that Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Weapons found

A Pentagon report declassified in June 2006 revealed that coalition forces had uncovered approximately 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. The weapons were all manufactured prior to the first Gulf War. These weapons were, however, the weapons Iraq was supposed to have destroyed. The weapons were reported to be in poor condition, but could prove harmful if used in improvised explosive devices.

In August 2005, U.S. troops uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing some 1,500 gallons of 11 precursor agents. The chemicals may have been intended for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians.

In November 2004, Iraqi security forces and the U.S. military found chemicals and bomb-making literature at two houses in Fallujah. One residence housed a chemical and bomb-making factory, while the other contained bomb-making and chemical-weapon material, including ammonium nitrate and military explosives used to make roadside and vehicle bombs. The chemical labs contained directions on how to make anthrax and the blood agent hydrogen cyanide.

U.S. forces also discovered a large cache of weapons in and around a mosque in Fallujah. They included small arms, artillery shells, heavy machine guns, antitank mines, mortar systems, rocket-propelled grenades, recoilless rifles and parts of surface-to-air weapons systems.

Inspections

In April 2005, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group officially closed its investigation into the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. In a 2005 annex to its comprehensive report, the group concluded there was no evidence that weapons of mass destruction material was moved to Syria before the war, though the group could not rule out an “unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials.” And in its September 2004 comprehensive report, the ISG concluded that Iraq had neither stockpiles of illicit weapons nor any active program to make such weapons before the war. In a rare on-the-record talk, Charles Duelfer, head of the ISG, suggested that Saddam Hussein did not publicize the destruction of Iraq’s weapons because of pride, and because of the perceived threat from Iran following the 1980-1988 war between Iran and Iraq. Hussein wanted Iran to believe Iraq had more armaments than it really did.

Much remains to be discerned regarding Iraq’s past weapon development from untapped information. In March 2006, untranslated Arabic-language documents contained in approximately 50,000 boxes were posted online to a military website (http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm). These documents were subsequently removed due to concerns that they contained sensitive information on nuclear weapon development. In February, former U.N inspector Bill Tierney released to the public 12 hours of audio recordings of conversations between Saddam Hussein and his top advisors. Tierney translated the tapes for the FBI. U.S. officials have confirmed that the tapes are authentic. While the tapes indicate that Iraq hid information from the United Nations during the 1990s, they do not change the post-war assessment of Iraq’s weapons programs.

Iraq has called for an end to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which had been charged with chemical, biological and missile related inspections before the war. Meanwhile, UNMOVIC has continued to collect data from satellite images, but has done no work on the ground. Cessation of the UMOVIC program, which is funded by Iraqi oil money, could be a financial boon to the fledgling government. According to U.N. Inspector Demetrius Perricos, the U.N. Security Council must decide whether to rely on the final assessment of the ISG or to conduct an independent assessment of Iraq’s disarmament. The Security Council must also decide if any dual-use equipment still in Iraq needs further monitoring.

Securing Iraqi weapons materials

Although Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi officially renounced Iraq's efforts to become a nuclear power in July 2004, a proliferation threat from Iraq remains.

According to a May 2005 UNMOVIC report, satellite images showed that at least 109 of 353 sites formerly monitored for unconventional weapons material had been razed or looted since the U.S. invasion. UNMOVIC has reached no conclusions about who took the looted material, which could be used to make biological or chemical weapons or missiles, or where it is now located.

According to mid-April 2005 report in the New York Times, dual-use equipment previously looted from Iraqi weapons installations had turned up on its way across the Iranian border. And machine tools looted from the Al Walid artillery factory were reportedly seized by Iraqi border guards near Iran. The machine tools had been cut expertly in order to turn them into scrap without damaging them or hindering reassembly. The Times also pointed to “run-of-the-mill” equipment and spare parts that were “obviously looted” and were being sold openly in street markets. Further, members of the Iraqi resistance reportedly described an arms market flush with looted artillery shells, mortar rounds, and Kalashnikov rifles.

In October 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed concern about missing weapon material in Iraq. High precision equipment, including dual-use milling machines and electron beam welders had disappeared from Iraq, and, unlike some other industrial material, had not been located. The IAEA noted that the removals appeared to be systematic, rather than the result of simple looting, a suspicion which was corroborated by Iraq’s Industry Ministry. According to Deputy Minister Sami al-Araji, information on the timing of the thefts, the material taken, and the skill of the looters was collected by the Ministry. The missing items reportedly included machinery capable of making missile parts, chemical and biological weapons, and centrifuges used for enriching uranium, as well as several hundred tons of explosives. Additionally, hundreds of tons of U.N.-sealed HMX and RDX explosives were reported missing from Iraq’s Al Qaqaa military installation.

On June 23, 2004, the United States airlifted approximately two tons of low-enriched uranium and 1,000 sources of radioactivity from a repository at Tuwaitha, south of Baghdad, to an undisclosed location in the United States. Nearly 400 tons of natural uranium remains in Iraq. This removal of low-enriched uranium followed the release of a letter from the Director-General of the IAEA, which indicated that Iraq had begun to leak nuclear-related material and equipment. On April 11, 2004, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei informed the U.N. Security Council that equipment and even entire buildings had been removed from Iraqi sites that his agency had once monitored. He wrote that "large quantities of scrap, some of it contaminated, have been transferred out of Iraq" and were showing up elsewhere. Still, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no indication that nuclear material had been diverted.

A November 2004 joint analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the proliferation section of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) indicated that several thousand shoulder-fired missiles have disappeared in Iraq. The missiles could be used to shoot down aircraft. As many as 4,000 surface-to-air missiles from Saddam Hussein’s regime are also unaccounted for.

According to the Iraq Survey Group, as many as 36 al-Samoud missiles, 34 Fatah missiles, and 600 missile engines remain unaccounted for. Further, several vials of anthrax and botulinum are missing, as are 550 155mm mustard gas shells. U.N. inspectors destroyed at least 13,000 such shells, but 550 were never found.

The ISG also reported on testimony by Rihab Rashid Taha, an Iraqi anthrax scientist also known as "Dr. Germ." She has claimed that her team destroyed several of the missing anthrax vials by dumping them near one of Saddam Hussein’s main palaces. In December 2005, Taha was freed from jail without charges along with Huda Salid Mahdi Ammash, a biotech researcher known as “Mrs. Anthrax,” and at least 22 other top former officials. The names of other freed officials were not released.

The New York Times reported in May 2004 that an estimated 100 semi-trailers each day were crossing into Jordan carrying scrap metal, some of which included sensitive military equipment and seemingly new components for oil rigs and water plants. Some of the metal that has turned up in Jordan bears tags put in place by UNMOVIC. Also, according to the Washington Post, some nuclear-related equipment and a small number of missile engines were smuggled to European scrap yards for recycling. According to the Associated Press, at least 42 engines from banned missiles have been exported from Iraq.

Iraq and the CWC

The Iraqi government participated in a Chemical Weapons Convention training course in July 2005. The training was intended to help Iraq establish a National Authority and to draft new legislation in accordance with the CWC. Japan helped to pay for Iraqi participation, in the hope that Iraq would accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention. As of November 20, 2006, Iraq had not yet signed the Convention.

Political challenges for Iraq’s new government

Iraq’s new government at last took shape in mid-April 2006, when Iraq’s parliament reelected Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, as president, and finally reached consensus on appointing Jawad al-Maliki, a Shiite, as the new prime minister. Al-Maliki was selected after a successful effort by Iraqi Kurds, Sunnis, and even some Shiite leaders to convince former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to give up his bid to retain the position for a second term. Iraq’s permanent, democratically-elected parliament convened for the first time on March 16, 2006, and in May legislators approved and swore in several cabinet ministers.

The primary issues faced by the new government have been security and corruption. Al-Maliki outlined a reconciliation plan inviting insurgents to lay down their weapons, and promising amnesty for some. Few details were released about how the plan would be implemented. However, on July 13, one milestone was reached as control over the Muthanna Province was returned to the Iraqi government and Iraqi security forces for the first time since the 2003 invasion.

In April 2006, Iraqi authorities broke up an oil smuggling ring, seizing nearly $28 million in crude oil bound for Syria. While it was unclear whether the smuggling ring used its profits to aid the insurgency, Iraq’s finance minister estimated in February that insurgents have received 40-50% of all oil-smuggling profits. Iraqi and U.S. officials have worried that government corruption is funneling oil money and other funds to support the Iraqi insurgency. U.S. and Iraqi officials have said that the corruption and flow of money is a serious threat to Iraq’s recovering economy.

On December 15, 2005, Iraqis voted in parliamentary elections. The United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite coalition, won 128 of the legislature’s 275 seats. A two-thirds majority, or 182 seats, is needed to form a government. The secular Kurdistan Coalition List won 53 seats, while the Iraqi Accordance Front, the leading coalition of Sunni Arabs, won 44. After an investigation into charges of voter fraud, U.N. elections official in Iraq said the election was “transparent, credible and good.” Iraq’s electoral commission ruled that more than 99% of the ballots were valid.

In an October 15, 2005, referendum, Iraqi voters approved a new constitution, with more than 78% of the voters supporting the document. Approximately 63% of Iraq’s 15.5 million registered voters cast ballots. Sunni Muslims had opposed the constitution, but needed for at least two-thirds of the voters in three of Iraq’s 18 provinces to vote against it. While a majority of voters in three provinces rejected the constitution, one of the provinces failed to reach the two-thirds threshold.

The constitution declares Islam to be the official religion, one which will serve as “a basic source of legislation,” but also says laws passed cannot contradict Islam or the principles of democracy. The document also guarantees the freedom of religious practices, and bans organizations that advocate racism and terrorism. Sunni Muslims had opposed the constitution because it allows individual provinces to declare themselves a region and to unite with other regions. This federalist conception could enable Shiite provinces in the south to unite (and to control much of Iraq’s oil), or Kurdish regions in the North to do the same. Sunnis fear this ability to federate will lead to the disintegration of the Iraqi state. In a deal struck just prior to the referendum, the two sides agreed to a mechanism whereby following the election of the permanent National Assembly, a committee will be established to consider amending the constitution. Any amendments would need to be approved by the parliament, then submitted to another referendum.

The fate of Iraq’s former leader, Saddam Hussein, must also be resolved. Hussein's second criminal trial began in August 2006. An investigative judge has referred a case against Hussein and six co-defendants regarding the massacre of tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds during the Anfal campaign in the late 1980’s. All six will be tried for crimes against humanity. Hussein and co-defendant Ali Hassan al-Majeed, also known as “Chemical Ali,” will also be tried for genocide.

Oil-for-Food corruption

In October 2005, the Independent Inquiry Committee into the U.N. Oil-for-Food program released a detailed report of its investigation into allegations of corruption. The report found that approximately 2,200 companies paid a total of $1.8 billion in kickbacks and illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein’s government between 1997 and 2003. The Committee criticized the United Nations for a lack of diligent management of the program.

In July 2006, it became apparent that the United Nations had known about the illegal kickbacks at least since 2000, when Sweden’s U.N. delegation informed the U.N. committee in charge of sanctions that a Swedish company had reported Iraqi demands for a 10% “fee” on oil-for-food deals. At that time, Sweden was told that the kickbacks were widely known.

The illegal payments came in two forms: surcharges paid for humanitarian contracts, and kickbacks for oil contracts. Under the Oil-for-Food program, Hussein was allowed to select contractors. Companies from 40 countries are alleged to have paid surcharges, and companies from 66 countries are alleged to have paid kickbacks. Russian companies alone are reported to have paid $19.3 billion, or 30% of the total kickbacks, more than any other country.