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Indian firms helped Iraqi missile programme: Blair

Stating that Iraq has "military plans" for the use of chemical and biological weapons even against its own population and that it is able and willing to deploy some of its deadliest weapons in under an hour from the order, Britain on Tuesday alleged that Baghdad had obtained some key ingredients from some Indian companies.

Presenting a 55-page dossier in the specially summoned House of Commons, Prime Minister Tony Blair said a private Indian chemical engineering firm with extensive links in Iraq provided a key ingredient in the production of solid propellant rocket motors to a new plant at al-Mamoun.

Blair said, "A new plant at al-Mamoun for indigenously producing ammonium perchlorate, which is a key ingredient in the production of solid propellant rocket motors, has been constructed. This has been provided illicitly by NEC Engineers Private Limited, an Indian chemical engineering firm with extensive links in Iraq, including to other suspect facilities...

"After an extensive investigation, the Indian authorities have recently suspended its export licence, although other individuals and companies are still illicitly procuring for Iraq."

The dossier tries to make a case for operations to disarm President Saddam Hussein and change his regime in Baghdad. The document also claimed that Iraq had tried to procure uranium from Africa.

Stating that Saddam Hussein is just one or two years off building a nuclear weapon if he manages to obtain weapons-grade material from abroad, Blair said Iraq had managed to rebuild much of the missile production infrastructure destroyed in the Gulf War and in Operation Desert Fox in 1998. "New missile-related infrastructure is also under construction," he said.

"Some aspects of this, including rocket propellants mixing and casting facilities at the al-Mamoun plant, appear to replicate those linked to the prohibited BADR-2000 programme (with a planned range of 700-1,000km), which were destroyed in the Gulf war or dismantled by UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission]."

Blair said chemical and nuclear programmes were "well funded" through illicit earnings of up to US $3 billion. "Iraq has tried covertly to acquire technology and materials, which could be used in the production of nuclear weapons," the British prime minister said.

He said Iraq was preparing to conceal evidence of weapons and incriminating documents from weapons inspectors in the future. "Saddam regards the possession of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles as the basis of Iraq's regional power. He practises torture, execution, and coercion against enemies within Iraq.

"I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that he has made progress on weapons of mass destruction, and that he has to be stopped," Blair said.

PTI

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