Tapes Indicate Hussein WMD Plans
Global Security Newswire
Audio recordings of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his aides from before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq indicate that Baghdad planned to revive its WMD programs once international attention focused elsewhere, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 16).
U.S. officials are reviewing the tapes and thousands of pages of Iraqi documents discovered following the fall of the regime.
"The factories are present," an aide says during a meeting with Hussein in the mid-1990s, during U.N. searches for any remaining Iraqi WMD stockpiles.
"The factories remain, in the mind they remain. Our spirit is with us, based solely on the time period," the aide says. "And (inspectors) take note of the time period, they can't account for our will."
Documents also indicated that Iraqi officials in the mid-1990s hoped to obtain uranium from Africa and looked at burying banned missiles, a U.S. official said.
It is not known, however, whether anything discussed in the recovered tapes and documents actually occurred, the official said.
Tape translator Bill Tierney, a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s, said that statements by Hussein's aide indicate Baghdad was moving to rearm.
"The tapes show that Saddam rebuilt his program and successfully prevented the U.N. from finding out about it," he said.
U.S.-led inspectors following the March 2003 invasion failed to find WMD stockpiles or evidence that prewar Iraq had ongoing unconventional weapons programs.
Another 500 hours of Hussein audiotapes remain to be translated and studied, while the U.S. Central Command is holding 48,000 boxes of Iraqi documents, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) told the Times. Only 68 pages have been submitted to the committee.
"I don't want to overstate what is in the documents," Hoekstra said. "I certainly want to get them out because I think people are going to find them very interesting."
"Everything [Hussein] is doing [on the tapes] is saying, 'Let's take it and hide it' with clear intent. 'As soon as this is over, we're going to be back after this,'" Hoekstra said.
Tierney said he believes Iraq dumped chemical weapons agent into its waterways and moved other weapons into Syria before the war.
The Iraq Survey Group was "lied to in a very systematic way," he said. "Lying. They were very good at it" (Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, March 13).
Audio recordings of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his aides from before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq indicate that Baghdad planned to revive its WMD programs once international attention focused elsewhere, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 16).
U.S. officials are reviewing the tapes and thousands of pages of Iraqi documents discovered following the fall of the regime.
"The factories are present," an aide says during a meeting with Hussein in the mid-1990s, during U.N. searches for any remaining Iraqi WMD stockpiles.
"The factories remain, in the mind they remain. Our spirit is with us, based solely on the time period," the aide says. "And (inspectors) take note of the time period, they can't account for our will."
Documents also indicated that Iraqi officials in the mid-1990s hoped to obtain uranium from Africa and looked at burying banned missiles, a U.S. official said.
It is not known, however, whether anything discussed in the recovered tapes and documents actually occurred, the official said.
Tape translator Bill Tierney, a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s, said that statements by Hussein's aide indicate Baghdad was moving to rearm.
"The tapes show that Saddam rebuilt his program and successfully prevented the U.N. from finding out about it," he said.
U.S.-led inspectors following the March 2003 invasion failed to find WMD stockpiles or evidence that prewar Iraq had ongoing unconventional weapons programs.
Another 500 hours of Hussein audiotapes remain to be translated and studied, while the U.S. Central Command is holding 48,000 boxes of Iraqi documents, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) told the Times. Only 68 pages have been submitted to the committee.
"I don't want to overstate what is in the documents," Hoekstra said. "I certainly want to get them out because I think people are going to find them very interesting."
"Everything [Hussein] is doing [on the tapes] is saying, 'Let's take it and hide it' with clear intent. 'As soon as this is over, we're going to be back after this,'" Hoekstra said.
Tierney said he believes Iraq dumped chemical weapons agent into its waterways and moved other weapons into Syria before the war.
The Iraq Survey Group was "lied to in a very systematic way," he said. "Lying. They were very good at it" (Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, March 13).
