ahadams
April 27, 2003, 11:25 PM
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Iraqi scientist says he and others lied about bioweapons
By Judith Miller, New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Dr. Nissar Hindawi, a leading figure in Iraq's biological
warfare program in the 1980s, says the stories and explanations he and other
scientists told the United Nations about the extent of Iraq's efforts to
produce poisons and germ weapons "were all lies."
Hindawi, imprisoned during the final weeks of Saddam Hussein's rule, is now
free to talk about his experiences in the program, in which he says he was
forced to work from 1986 to 1989 and again sporadically until the mid-1990s.
Iraq, as it belatedly acknowledged, he says, "produced huge quantities" of
liquid anthrax and botulinum toxin, which it concentrated five to 10 times
with sulfuric acid and other preservatives.
"There were orders to destroy it," Hindawi said during interviews conducted
Saturday and on Friday. "They destroyed some -- whether all or not, I can't
say."
He said that while he worked in the program or was ordered to brief the
inspectors on it, Iraq made 8.9 cubic meters -- 2,350 gallons -- of
concentrated liquid anthrax, one of the deadliest and most durable germ
weapons, and even larger quantities of botulinum toxin, one of the most
lethal poisons.
Even so, he said, there is little need for concern if U.S. military teams
hunting for unconventional weapons stumble across such stockpiles: The
arsenals would have degraded, he said.
"Even if it's all kept until now, don't worry about it," he said.
In addition, he said, Iraq was never able to make dried anthrax, a medium
that would have made the lethal spores far more durable and easier to
disseminate. He thought he had devised a way to turn liquid anthrax into the
even more lethal powder, he said, but he did not do it. "I kept the method
secret," he said. "History would have cursed me."
Several U.N. inspectors questioned his assertion that Iraq had not made a
powdered form of anthrax. They said that in 1989, Iraq imported two drying
ovens that could have made powdered anthrax, and that at least one other
senior scientist in the program appeared to know the required techniques.
Hindawi said if Iraq made such a weapon, it did so after he left the
scientific wing of the program in 1989.
Though he no longer had first-hand knowledge of the program after that,
Hindawi said, he kept up on its progress through his students, some of whom
stayed in the program until the war began last month. U.S. officials have
been hunting for several, including Rihab Taha, the microbiologist who
reportedly headed the germ weapons program and is known in the West as "Dr.
Death," and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, a senior scientist and Baath Party
regional command member who is the only woman on America's most wanted list.
Although there has been no public word from American authorities on their
whereabouts, Hindawi said that he had been told that both women were hiding
in Syria, like other scientists, Baath Party members and military officers.
But Hindawi said he was not aware of Syrian-Iraqi cooperation on
unconventional weapons. Iraqi scientists built their germ warfare program
themselves, he said.
Hindawi, 61 is now in the custody of the Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad
Chalabi, Hindawi, 61, said he spent 12 years at college and doing
postgraduate work in the United States.
He painted a portrait of a biological warfare program that was riddled with
bitter personality rivalries, sycophancy and corruption. He said he was
originally dismissed in 1989 because he had personally complained to Saddam
about fraud in the awarding of contracts in the program. He said Saddam
appeared to agree with him, but did nothing because his son-in-law, Hussein
Kamel, was in charge of the program.
"He was very gentle with me," the scientist said. "He respected me."
Saddam allowed him to leave the program and return to his teaching and
research post at Mustanserieh University, he said. But there was a catch: "He
said, 'If I need you, will you be available?' I said yes."
Nevertheless, Hindawi seemed bitter about his colleagues and former students
in the program. He said he had been paid less than some of his assistants
because he was not a permanent staff member and was still attached to the
university.
"If you were a director's friend, you got paid more," he said. "If you were
an important Baath Party figure, you got more."
Unlike the others, he said, he did not get a car, a house or land. "My salary
was the lowest of any senior person in the program," he said.
Hindawi said he had grave qualms about his work on germ warfare, despite the
fact that Iraq was at war with Iran when he joined the program. He said he
had never worked at his full capacity, but at 50 percent of his abilities.
He also said he secretly tried to get information about the illicit program
to U.S. authorities in 1994, an assertion that could not be confirmed
Saturday.
Some inspectors remain skeptical about whether Hindawi was really an
unwilling participant in the program.
He returned to the program in a different capacity in 1992, when inter
national inspectors from the U.N. Special Commission, or Unscom, were
arriving to ensure that Iraqi officials were complying with their country's
pledge to give up chemical, germ and nuclear weapons. He said military
officials had asked him to tell inspectors that he was the head of a
single-cell protein facility. The plant, in fact, had made botulinum toxin
and anthrax.
He said he had had no choice but to lie, just as he had no choice but to work
in the program. "It was that or else," he said.
Although he continued as an informal adviser, Hindawi said he was determined
to try to leave Iraq for the United States, where, he said, he had spent 12
years at college and doing postgraduate work. To secure a Libyan visa that he
intended to use as a stepping stone, he said he had turned over seven
scientific papers to the Libyan Embassy to prove his scientific bona fides.
"The work was more than four years old," he said. "Libya didn't even have
qualified high school teachers, so they could not have used the papers in a
biological warfare program."
The Iraqis, claiming that Hindawi was trying to share military secrets,
imprisoned him for 17 months between 1997 and 1999. The only time he was
permitted to leave prison was to meet with international inspectors, who kept
asking to interview him.
Released in 1999, Hindawi said he had worked in his own private laboratory,
until he was summoned in late 2002 by Taha Yaseen Ramadan, the Iraqi vice
president, because a new group of inspectors asked to see him. He never met
with them, he said, and he was arrested again in March.
Hindawi said he thought his luck had finally run out when the Iraqi secret
police pulled up to his laboratory on March 3, as the U.S.-led war against
Iraq was about to begin.
Accused of supporting the opposition, he was imprisoned again. "I was sure I
was going to be killed," he said.
So were some of his American associates. Former international inspectors and
U.S. officials who monitor Iraq's germ weapons program said they thought that
his name was on a list of scientists and others whom the government intended
to eliminate in the event of war.
But the war that placed him in jeopardy ultimately saved him, Hindawi says.
The officers guarding him fled when U.S. forces cut communications between
Baghdad and his jail. He hitchhiked home.
Iraqi scientist says he and others lied about bioweapons
By Judith Miller, New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Dr. Nissar Hindawi, a leading figure in Iraq's biological
warfare program in the 1980s, says the stories and explanations he and other
scientists told the United Nations about the extent of Iraq's efforts to
produce poisons and germ weapons "were all lies."
Hindawi, imprisoned during the final weeks of Saddam Hussein's rule, is now
free to talk about his experiences in the program, in which he says he was
forced to work from 1986 to 1989 and again sporadically until the mid-1990s.
Iraq, as it belatedly acknowledged, he says, "produced huge quantities" of
liquid anthrax and botulinum toxin, which it concentrated five to 10 times
with sulfuric acid and other preservatives.
"There were orders to destroy it," Hindawi said during interviews conducted
Saturday and on Friday. "They destroyed some -- whether all or not, I can't
say."
He said that while he worked in the program or was ordered to brief the
inspectors on it, Iraq made 8.9 cubic meters -- 2,350 gallons -- of
concentrated liquid anthrax, one of the deadliest and most durable germ
weapons, and even larger quantities of botulinum toxin, one of the most
lethal poisons.
Even so, he said, there is little need for concern if U.S. military teams
hunting for unconventional weapons stumble across such stockpiles: The
arsenals would have degraded, he said.
"Even if it's all kept until now, don't worry about it," he said.
In addition, he said, Iraq was never able to make dried anthrax, a medium
that would have made the lethal spores far more durable and easier to
disseminate. He thought he had devised a way to turn liquid anthrax into the
even more lethal powder, he said, but he did not do it. "I kept the method
secret," he said. "History would have cursed me."
Several U.N. inspectors questioned his assertion that Iraq had not made a
powdered form of anthrax. They said that in 1989, Iraq imported two drying
ovens that could have made powdered anthrax, and that at least one other
senior scientist in the program appeared to know the required techniques.
Hindawi said if Iraq made such a weapon, it did so after he left the
scientific wing of the program in 1989.
Though he no longer had first-hand knowledge of the program after that,
Hindawi said, he kept up on its progress through his students, some of whom
stayed in the program until the war began last month. U.S. officials have
been hunting for several, including Rihab Taha, the microbiologist who
reportedly headed the germ weapons program and is known in the West as "Dr.
Death," and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, a senior scientist and Baath Party
regional command member who is the only woman on America's most wanted list.
Although there has been no public word from American authorities on their
whereabouts, Hindawi said that he had been told that both women were hiding
in Syria, like other scientists, Baath Party members and military officers.
But Hindawi said he was not aware of Syrian-Iraqi cooperation on
unconventional weapons. Iraqi scientists built their germ warfare program
themselves, he said.
Hindawi, 61 is now in the custody of the Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad
Chalabi, Hindawi, 61, said he spent 12 years at college and doing
postgraduate work in the United States.
He painted a portrait of a biological warfare program that was riddled with
bitter personality rivalries, sycophancy and corruption. He said he was
originally dismissed in 1989 because he had personally complained to Saddam
about fraud in the awarding of contracts in the program. He said Saddam
appeared to agree with him, but did nothing because his son-in-law, Hussein
Kamel, was in charge of the program.
"He was very gentle with me," the scientist said. "He respected me."
Saddam allowed him to leave the program and return to his teaching and
research post at Mustanserieh University, he said. But there was a catch: "He
said, 'If I need you, will you be available?' I said yes."
Nevertheless, Hindawi seemed bitter about his colleagues and former students
in the program. He said he had been paid less than some of his assistants
because he was not a permanent staff member and was still attached to the
university.
"If you were a director's friend, you got paid more," he said. "If you were
an important Baath Party figure, you got more."
Unlike the others, he said, he did not get a car, a house or land. "My salary
was the lowest of any senior person in the program," he said.
Hindawi said he had grave qualms about his work on germ warfare, despite the
fact that Iraq was at war with Iran when he joined the program. He said he
had never worked at his full capacity, but at 50 percent of his abilities.
He also said he secretly tried to get information about the illicit program
to U.S. authorities in 1994, an assertion that could not be confirmed
Saturday.
Some inspectors remain skeptical about whether Hindawi was really an
unwilling participant in the program.
He returned to the program in a different capacity in 1992, when inter
national inspectors from the U.N. Special Commission, or Unscom, were
arriving to ensure that Iraqi officials were complying with their country's
pledge to give up chemical, germ and nuclear weapons. He said military
officials had asked him to tell inspectors that he was the head of a
single-cell protein facility. The plant, in fact, had made botulinum toxin
and anthrax.
He said he had had no choice but to lie, just as he had no choice but to work
in the program. "It was that or else," he said.
Although he continued as an informal adviser, Hindawi said he was determined
to try to leave Iraq for the United States, where, he said, he had spent 12
years at college and doing postgraduate work. To secure a Libyan visa that he
intended to use as a stepping stone, he said he had turned over seven
scientific papers to the Libyan Embassy to prove his scientific bona fides.
"The work was more than four years old," he said. "Libya didn't even have
qualified high school teachers, so they could not have used the papers in a
biological warfare program."
The Iraqis, claiming that Hindawi was trying to share military secrets,
imprisoned him for 17 months between 1997 and 1999. The only time he was
permitted to leave prison was to meet with international inspectors, who kept
asking to interview him.
Released in 1999, Hindawi said he had worked in his own private laboratory,
until he was summoned in late 2002 by Taha Yaseen Ramadan, the Iraqi vice
president, because a new group of inspectors asked to see him. He never met
with them, he said, and he was arrested again in March.
Hindawi said he thought his luck had finally run out when the Iraqi secret
police pulled up to his laboratory on March 3, as the U.S.-led war against
Iraq was about to begin.
Accused of supporting the opposition, he was imprisoned again. "I was sure I
was going to be killed," he said.
So were some of his American associates. Former international inspectors and
U.S. officials who monitor Iraq's germ weapons program said they thought that
his name was on a list of scientists and others whom the government intended
to eliminate in the event of war.
But the war that placed him in jeopardy ultimately saved him, Hindawi says.
The officers guarding him fled when U.S. forces cut communications between
Baghdad and his jail. He hitchhiked home.