Iraq destroyed weapons days before start of invasion, claims scientist

AN Iraqi scientist told a US military team that Iraq had destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment mere days before the war began, The New York Times reported yesterday.

Quoting members of the American team, the newspaper said the scientist also claimed that Iraq had sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria from the mid-1990s onwards, and that Iraq had more recently begun to cooperate with al-Qaida.

The scientist, who said he had worked in Iraq’s chemical weapons program for more than a decade, led the US team to a supply of materials used in the production of illegal weapons, which he said he had buried, the newspaper reported from Iraq.

The Americans told the Times that they found precursors for a toxic agent banned by chemical weapons treaties at the site.

The scientist also told them that Iraq had destroyed some stockpiles of deadly agents as early as the mid-1990s, but that officials had set fire to a warehouse where biological weapons research was conducted just four days before George W Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq.

The US officials said the scientist told them he had watched the Iraqis bury chemical precursors and other sensitive materials several months before the war, to conceal and preserve them for future use.

The team declined to identify the scientist. But they said they tested the buried material and checked his identity with US experts. A report was sent to the White House on Friday, the newspaper said.