Whitehall dossier says Saddam plans biological weapons for Palestinians
Michael Evans, defence editor Time of London 3 August 2002

SADDAM HUSSEIN is suspected of planning to arm a Palestinian
terrorist group with biological weapons to attack either American or Israeli
targets.
A Whitehall dossier containing a detailed assessment of Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programme, which has been circulated
to the Prime Minister and other senior Cabinet ministers, is understood to
focus on Iraq's biological weapons capability.

Details of the dossier came to light as the United Nations
rejected a new offer from the Iraqi leader. Kofi Annan, the UN
Secretary-General, said that an Iraqi letter calling for a further round of
technical talks with Hans Blix, the head weapons inspector, set conditions
"at variance" with the demands of the United Nations Security Council.

Using mobile laboratories for their research, the team of
scientists working for Saddam are believed to be developing a range of
biological agents that can be "delivered" by an aerosol system.

The latest assessment in Washington and London is that Saddam's
plan is to produce a basic weapon that can be used by a terrorist group to
attack the Iraqi leader's enemies, the United States and Israel. In the same
way that Iran has funded and trained terrorist groups to carry out attacks
from Lebanon against Israel, Saddam, according to the assessment, could be
banking on recruiting a Palestinian terrorist group to act on his behalf.

Analysis of US satellite imagery over the past four years has
provided sufficient evidence to show what Saddam has been doing since the
expulsion of the United Nations weapons inspectors in December 1998. While
the Iraqi leader has pursued all elements of his weapons of mass destruction
programme, he has made greatest progress in trying to "weaponise" his
biological systems, using the mobile research laboratories to try to deceive
America's spy satellites.

The Iraqi leader knows from experience that it is far more
difficult to hide work on nuclear weapons because of the substantial
infrastructure required. Saddam's attempts to develop long-range ballistic
missiles, capable of reaching America, have also been carefully monitored
from space and there is no sign that he has succeeded beyond trying to
modify old Russian Scud missiles.

In assessing the threat posed by Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction programme, the emphasis has, therefore, been on his biological
warfare projects, which pose as great a threat as nuclear devices and can be
developed relatively easily away from the sensors of America's spy
satellites.

The Palestinian connection is now at the heart of intelligence
thinking. Despite the belief in some quarters in America that a senior
officer in Saddam's intelligence service met an al-Qaeda terrorist in Prague
last year, before September 11, this is given no credence by the CIA, the
FBI or by British Intelligence.

Saddam has funded Palestinian extremist groups for many years,
and the assessment now is that, with the Middle East in turmoil, the Iraqi
leader may see that the best way of taking revenge against the US and Israel
is by using a Palestinian organisation as his proxy terrorists.