Leading Iraqi Scientist Says He Lied to U.N. Inspectors

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/in...al/27SCIE.html

Leading Iraqi Scientist Says He Lied to U.N. Inspectors
By JUDITH MILLER


AGHDAD, Iraq, April 26 ? Nissar Hindawi, a leading figure in Iraq's biological warfare program in the 1980's, 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."

Dr. 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-1990's.

Iraq, as it belatedly acknowledged, he says, "produced huge quantities" of liquid anthrax and botulinum toxin, which it concentrated 5 to 10 times with sulfuric acid and other preservatives.

"There were orders to destroy it," Dr. Hindawi said during interviews conducted today 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 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 added, there is little need for concern if American military teams hunting for unconventional weapons stumble across such stockpiles. The arsenals would have degraded quickly, he maintains.

"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 United Nations 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.

But Dr. Hindawi says that 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 firsthand knowledge of the program after that, he said, he kept up on its progress through his students, some of whom stayed in the program until the war began last month. American officials are 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, Dr. Hindawi said that he had been told that both women were hiding in Syria, as other Iraqi scientists, Baath Party members and military officers are said to be. But he said he was not aware of Syrian-Iraqi cooperation on unconventional weapons. Iraqi scientists built their germ warfare program themselves, he said.

Dr. Hindawi, 61, is now in the protective custody of the Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi.

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 Mr. Hussein about fraud in the awarding of contracts in the program. He said Mr. Hussein 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."

Mr. Hussein 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, he 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.


Dr. Hindawi said he had 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 says he secretly tried to get information about the illicit program to American authorities in 1994, an assertion that could not be confirmed today.

Some inspectors remain skeptical about whether Dr. Hindawi was really an unwilling participant in the program.

He returned to the program in a different capacity in 1992, when international inspectors from the United Nations 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, Dr. 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, which he intended to use as a steppingstone, he said he 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, contending that he 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, he said he had worked in his own private laboratory until he was summoned in late 2002 by Taha Yassin 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 rearrested in March.

Dr. Hindawi said he thought that his luck had finally run out when the Iraqi secret police pulled up to his laboratory on March 3, as the American-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 American 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, Dr. Hindawi says. The officers guarding him fled when American forces cut communications between Baghdad and his jail. He hitchhiked home.