*EPF406 09/12/2002
House Hears Iraq Could Construct a Nuclear Device in Six Months
(Experts Testify Sept 11 Before House Armed Service Committee) (990)

By Vicki Silverman
Washington File Staff Writer

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are holding public hearings in Washington over next several weeks to consider administration policy towards Iraq and the threat Iraq currently poses.

On September 11, the U.S. House of Representative��s Armed Services Committee held the first of several planned hearings on Iraq, listening to expert testimony from David Kay and Richard Spertzel, two senior members of the United Nations inspection team that first uncovered Iraq��s illicit nuclear and biological weapons programs in the 1990��s.

"Before the administration and the Congress can decide on the best course of action, we must clearly understand the threat," Representative Ike Skelton (Democrat from Missouri) noted at the outset of the hearing.

Skelton expressed his hope that the witnesses would be able to help the committee better understand the "the likely state of the Iraqi weapons systems, what we know for sure about Iraqi capabilities at this point, and what information do we have to infer, based on imperfect knowledge."

Dr. David Kay, chief nuclear weapons from 1991-1992 for United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with locating, destroying and monitoring Iraq��s prohibited weapons programs, told lawmakers his greatest concern is the breadth of Iraq��s technical nuclear expertise and Iraq��s successful record of concealing its program.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

"I led the teams that went into Iraq initially after the war that discovered the enrichment procedure, the Calutron, their initial centrifuge program ?The briefings we received prior to going in from national intelligence services, both in the West and in the Middle East, did not point towards any large Iraqi nuclear program," Kay said.

"Indeed, what we found was a program that had employed over 20,000 people. It cost well over $10 billion, had gone on for longer than a decade, had 24 major sites, most of which were not known prior to the war, nor were they bombed during the course of the war. It was unknown," Kay testified.

This discovery was important, Kay said, because " it should warn you how much you can know from intelligence from the outside. But secondly, it describes the task of understanding and unmasking such a program."

Kay said that in 1991, Iraq��s nuclear program was not a program of facilities that could be destroyed, but rather a program of expertise. " For Iraq, by 1991, when we entered the program, their nuclear program was not a program of facilities that you could destroy. Iraq had understood, had conquered all the secrets of producing a nuclear weapon. They had understood enrichment technology and they were well on their way to very large enrichment facilities," he said.

"This is a program that is in the fabric of the society," thwarting the efforts of the intelligence community to accurately access the size of any program, according to Kay.

"They are facing some physical technical production problems, but given time and money, which they have plenty of, I don't think any of us who were there doubt that they will solve those problems" as long as Iraq��s government maintains its present efforts, he said.

Kay believes Iraq does not yet possess a nuclear bomb, but based on his reading of Iraq��s procurement activities, they are well on their way to producing devices in three to six years ?or even "six months if they have the fissile material."

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

Dr. Richard Spertzel, who served as an UNSCOM biological warfare specialist, described for the committee the breadth of Iraq��s efforts to both develop and conceal its toxic biological agents.

"Iraq's biological warfare program was among the most secretive of the weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. It began in the early 1970s, it would appear, immediately after, or certainly within a few months of them signing the biological weapons convention," Spertzel said.

Briefly describing the various toxins Iraq is known to have developed and their various types of delivery systems, Spertzel said Iraq��s biological weapons program "from the very beginning on, included both a military portion and what appeared to be a terrorist application."

He noted that, like Iraq��s nuclear program, its biological weapons production sites went undetected by the international intelligence community.

"Iraq still maintains and retains the necessary personnel, equipment and supplies to have an expanded capability. Even after the destruction in 1996 of its major bacterial production facility at Al Hakam complex ?It is my opinion that Iraq's greatest threat to the U.S., and certainly the U.S. homeland, is in the production of agents, bacterial agents, to be used by terrorists," Spertzel concluded.

Following Kay��s and Spertzel��s testimony, during the question and answer period, Representative Lindsey Graham (Republican of South Carolina) asked Kay about former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter��s remarks in Baghdad. .

"If you listen to him (Ritter), it's very foolish for us to put the world at risk by engaging Iraq in a decisive manner?In all honesty, if we reentered Iraq tomorrow ?what degree of confidence do you have that anything would change in terms of us knowing the threat that Saddam Hussein presents to this country?" Graham asked.

Kay responded that he had little confidence of the effectiveness of inspections under the current regime. " If you entered tomorrow as an inspector, as long as the present regime is in power ?I have little confidence that we could find that program in its entirety."

"Unless Saddam Hussein changes who he is and the way he believes, it's a fruitless effort, is what you're telling us?" Graham asked.

Kay responded that if Saddam "had no weapons of mass destruction, why would he not let the inspectors in with full rein? ?I think the best evidence that there is something there is the evidence of the perpetrator of the crime and his behavior."

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is expected to testify on Iraq in a pubic hearing before the House Armed Services Committee on September 18th. Secretary of State Powell is also scheduled to testify before both the House and Senate committees on foreign relations later in the month.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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