Analysis: Saddam's arsenal: from chemical weapons to nuclear programme

UN experts, now barred from Baghdad, previously uncovered a terrifying arsenal which, if reactivated, could engulf the entire region

Two hours after American warplanes struck Iraqi targets at the beginning of the Gulf War in 1991, President George Bush went on national television to report that a main war goal was to "knock out Saddam Hussein's nuclear bomb potential".

Forget liberating Kuwait. Eleven years later, his son, President George Bush Jnr, is using remarkably similar language about weapons of mass destruction to justify a new military intervention to topple the Iraqi leader.

In 1991, the United States was well aware of the risk to the Gulf region from President Saddam's chemical and biological weapons, long-range missiles and clandestine attempt to build a nuclear bomb. After all, he had already gassed to death some 5,000 Iraqi Kurds while putting down a Kurdish uprising. "When you've got an insect problem, you use insecticide," was how an Iraqi general shrugged off the event to the former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler.

President Saddam's military had earlier killed an estimated 5,000 Iranians with chemical bombs dropped on troop concentrations during the Iran-Iraq war.But the extent of Iraq's success in acquiring a vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction only became apparent when the UN weapons inspectors were sent into the country to confirm the elimination of Iraq's suspected illegal arms programmes.

Since 1991, leading experts in these weapons – ranging from Russia to Australia – have braved a hostile environment to track down and destroy the weapons in an extraordinary cat-and-mouse game. They have supervised the destruction of hundreds of missiles and rockets modified to carry poison gases and their launchers – weapons the Iraqis claimed had never existed or had already been destroyed. They certified the destruction of 68,000 chemical munitions, and rendered harmless 600 tons of chemical weapons agents. The same goes for about 1,000 instrument parts that were used or intended to be used for chemical warfare.

The Iraqis' main chemical development and production complex at al-Muthanna, largely destroyed by the allies in the Gulf War, was dismantled and closed, still reeking with the fumes of mustard gas. The inspectors also oversaw the destruction of Iraq's biological weapons plant at al-Akam in 1996, one year after Iraqi officials finally admitted, after four years of strenuous denials, that they even had an offensive germ warfare programme.

Several gyroscopes – the main component of a missile's guidance system – fished out of the river Tigris on the Jordanian border in 1995 demonstrated that the Iraqis were attempting illegally to increase the range of their missiles.

Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, working with the New York-based experts, accounted for Iraq's secret nuclear programme. But worrying aspects of Iraq's arsenal remain to be fully detailed: the inspectors pulled out in 1998 before they could determine the exact quantities of lethal VX nerve gas still held by President Saddam. And although the UN inspectors uncovered much about Iraqi germ warfare programmes, the Baghdad government never provided a full account. The inspectors have outstanding questions about tons of deadly anthrax and of botulinum toxin – which causes death from acute muscular paralysis – which could still be in Iraq. The Iraqis were also known to be working on other deadly agents. Iraq, from day one, set out to conceal its weapons from the inspectors, who have been barred from the country for almost four years. As the 1990s wore on, its concealment was more and more ingenious, including mobile germ warfare units, which were kept on the move to confuse the UN monitors. Part of the deception involved lorries painted with the markings of the Tip Top ice cream factory.

"Cheat, retreat. Cheat, retreat," was the inspectors' description of the Iraqi tactics, intended to avoid punitive military strikes by America.

"International law? UN resolutions? Disarmament? They would have none of it," Mr Butler recalls in a book on his Iraqi experience. "They wanted the freedom to sell oil, to travel and to trade without restrictions. They wanted, above all, to hold on to their weapons of mass destruction. All other topics merely bored and annoyed them."

As the UN experts, "middle-aged people with floppy hats and cameras" armed only with notebooks and pencils, worked up the chain of command to President Saddam's military elite, the Iraqi stalling became more desperate.

The inspectors' biggest stroke of luck came in August 1995, when the son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, Hussein Kamal, defected to Jordan and released a wealth of information. He led the inspectors to a chicken farm, where they uncovered some 1.5 million pages of documents. Rolf Ekeus, then chief UN inspector, was staggered by the enormity of what the UN inspectors had missed. Mr Kamal, who was murdered on his return to Iraq, revealed that the Iraqis had successfully hidden much of their nuclear programme from the IAEA experts.

Another stroke of luck came when two Iraqi officials were intercepted running down a stairway with a briefcase bulging with documents. Their contents concerned the feared germ agents anthrax and botulinum toxin.

There were tense stand-offs outside government and defence buildings as the investigation drew closer to the President's immediate entourage. IAEA inspectors were held at gunpoint in a car park for hours in sweltering temperatures during one confrontation in 1991. Documents were burnt inside government offices while the white UN Jeeps drove up to bar the exits. UN helicopter pilots were jostled and harassed as they flew over sensitive sites.

The grounds of a palace were scoured in search of a suspected underground nuclear facility. Documents on Iraq's production of VX gas were found when the inspectors tunnelled under a destroyed chemical weapons building.

The inspectors were subjected to organised demonstrations and were asked why they were killing Iraqi babies. Mr Ekeus moved from a government hotel into a villa after receiving death threats.

As the 1990s wore on, the Iraqi spin machine kept up a barrage of attacks on the inspectors: they were accused of riding roughshod over Muslim sensitivities, by staging lightning raids on Fridays, the Muslim day of prayer. The IAEA inspectors were accused of using a geiger counter in a cemetery as they searched for information on the Iraqi nuclear programme.But the most damaging accusations levelled against the UN inspectors were allegations that they were used by American and Israeli intelligence for their own purposes. Although Mr Butler strenuously denied he knew of such piggy-backing, the charges ultimately led to the creation of a new body of inspectors.

The threat

Chemical and biological

* A droplet of VX nerve gas on the skin is enough to kill a person. A warhead loaded with the most deadly chemical agent known to man could kill up to a million people. Chemical agents sprayed into the air could kill thousands of people. Other chemical weapons already used by Iraq include mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin. The biological agent anthrax can cause death within a week if particles are inhaled, while aflatoxin causes liver cancer years after being ingested.

Nuclear

* A "dirty bomb" would disperse radioactive particles through a conventional explosion. If set off in an urban area such a bomb would contaminate the region for years. Building one is much easier than making a nuclear device, but experts assume that President Saddam Hussein is still attempting to acquire a nuclear weapon. Fears abound of nuclear proliferation from the former Soviet Union.

Long-range missiles

* A modified Iraqi missile filled with chemical or germ agents would be able to reach Israel, where several Iraqi Scud missiles landed during the 1991 Gulf War. While Baghdad's weaponry essentially aims to secure a dominant place for President Saddam Hussein in the region, there have been reports that Iraqi experts are working on missiles capable of reaching European capitals.

Inspectors in Iraq

* April 1991

UN sets up weapons inspections after the Gulf War to account for the elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction under sanctions regime.

* 1996-98

Stand-offs between the Iraqi government and UN arms inspectors increase over Baghdad's refusal to allow access to suspected weapons sites.

* January 1998

Iraq accuses American head of inspection team, Scott Ritter, of spying.

* February 1998

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, reaches deal with Saddam Hussein to allow inspectors access to "presidential sites".

* October 1998

Iraq breaks off co-operation with UN.

* November 1998

Inspectors return to Iraq.

* December 1998

Inspectors pulled out after chief monitor says Iraq is not co-operating. Hours later, America and Britain bomb Iraq.