Can Iraq Hit America?

Iraqi agents have a reputation for being ruthless bunglers. But U.S. intelligence analysts have plenty of reasons to worry
By Daniel Klaidman and Christopher Dickey
NEWSWEEK
March 17 issue � In the Baghdad prison known as The Palace of the End, in the first years of Saddam Hussein�s reign, his torturers sometimes used a crude but effective biological weapon. They�d take an inmate with tuberculosis, who was coughing blood, and force him to spit into the mouths of others. Not all prisoners caught the disease, but all were infected with the terror

NOW, AS WASHINGTON threatens to bring Saddam�s own reign to an end, U.S. officials are afraid he might use such gruesome tactics against Americans. Outgunned on the traditional battlefield, Saddam is looking to fight back on his own terms. That, according to American officials, could mean any number of terror plots, from isolated assassinations of U.S. citizens overseas to biological or chemical attacks in the American heartland.

Does Saddam Hussein have a covert plan to �flush� his weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq and use them against Americans? And can he pull it off in a meaningful way? It�s one thing to experiment on prisoners in your own jails. Staging a biological or chemical attack in the United States or Europe would be a far greater challenge. And when the Iraqis have attempted overseas terror operations in the past, they have often been bunglers. �The Iraqis are the Marx Brothers of intelligence services,� says Richard Clarke, a former White House antiterrorism czar. (In one of Saddam�s most famous ops, the botched attempt to assassinate former president Bush in Kuwait, he hired a bunch of semiliterate smugglers who left a trail right back to Iraq�s intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.)
Still, a steady stream of fresh intelligence suggests there are reasons to be worried. Last summer the CIA learned that Baghdad had ordered its spies at the Iraqi Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, to begin using female agents to penetrate Canada�s Iraqi emigre community. U.S. officials believe the broader scheme was to infiltrate agents into the United States. �Because of its belief that the U.S. is about to attack Iraq, the Iraqi Intelligence Service is now exploring possible retaliatory responses, including conducting terrorist-style attacks against U.S. targets,� said an FBI internal report. Last week, recalling the intelligence, a U.S. counterterrorism source wondered aloud to NEWSWEEK whether an �Iraqi femme fatale� might slip across the border with a vial of smallpox and contaminate thousands of Americans.

In the past few weeks, another strand of intelligence spooked officials. The Pentagon picked up �credible information� that Iraqi operatives were planning to use botulinum toxin to poison American food and water supplies. The information, NEWSWEEK has learned, was one of the factors that led the Bush administration to elevate the national threat level to Code Orange last month. Iraqi intelligence has also �indicated interest� in food-service companies supplying U.S. troops in Kuwait. Military authorities weeded out suspicious employees from the companies, and the food and water are being closely monitored for tampering.
For months, CIA and Iraqi operatives have been engaged in a shadowy cat-and-mouse game. Saddam has deployed hundreds of agents in European and Southeast Asian capitals, where they are suspected of laying the groundwork for possible attacks. �They�re waiting for the go-ahead signal from Baghdad,� says a knowledgeable intelligence official. In some recent cases, CIA officers and fellow spies from friendly liaison services have watched the Iraqis case potential targets. And last week the Bush administration identified some 300 Iraqi agents working under diplomatic cover and called on 60 countries to expel them, a tactic that worked well in 1991, when the Iraqis had been planning several terrorist strikes in Southeast Asia.

But what kinds of attacks would best suit Baghdad�s goals? And how would they fit into Saddam�s larger strategic calculation? Some intelligence analysts have predicted a �proxy� strike. The Iraqis would hand off weapons of mass destruction to a surrogate group, perhaps Al Qaeda, and Saddam could plausibly deny involvement. The attacks would knock the Americans off stride and distract them from their goal of toppling the Iraqi regime. Recently a small group of analysts at the CIA whose mission is to forecast Saddam�s behavior predicted just such a scenario, calling it the �Iraqi deflection strategy.� But evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda have joined in a strategic terror alliance remains murky, at best. And Saddam has always exhibited a need to exert tight control over his agents. Handing over an important operation to subcontractors might be out of character.
Intelligence officials have increasingly focused on the possibility that Saddam would take a more cautious tack: a strike at military or governmental targets with conventional weapons. Saddam�s calculus might be that he could hurt the United States while maintaining some legitimacy. Sources tell NEWSWEEK that Iraqi operatives have scouted targets of opportunity, including the barracks at the U.S. naval base in Bahrain and the Radio Free Europe station in Prague.
The final scenario could be the most dangerous. Saddam, on the brink of humiliating defeat, lashes out with one final, horrific act of terror�a twisted attempt to place his name in the pantheon of Arab heroes who have fought Western invaders. One grisly possibility, however remote: �human pathogens.� A small team of Iraqi operatives could be injected with smallpox and sent to America. All they�d have to do is hang out in crowds and slowly die. That�s something even bunglers might be able to handle, if they get the chance.

� 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
www.msnbc.com...

I read a report a couple months back (wish I had saved it) from the BBC: A known Al Quaida operative was observed in Iraq in the vicinity of a known bioweapons facility. Intelligence indicated that he recieved a bio or chemical weapon of sufficient power to be worthwhile to transport it in a manportable quanitity (IE, something powerful enough that a quantity small enough for one person to transport it would still be considered a WMD).

This operative was tracked carrying a container approximately 10 liters in volume across the northern border and into Turkey, where he disappeared.

What would be so powerful is such a small quantity? Any number of things, but my personal guess would be VX. Of course, if it is a weaponized biological agent 10 liters would be very much an overkill amount...

Pretty scarey....

There is no doubt Iraq has had some bad items, and most are sure they still have some.
If Hussaine is left with no place to go or hide, there is no doubt if he has planned to strike America at home, he will do it.
Now at that point, the vengful will of America will unite in a force never seen since Peral Harbor,
If you find more information about weapons on the loose, please post them.

Good Post,

Yeah it can!!

All you have to watch out for is the amount of Iraqi refugees that will be created by the massacre.. oops, war on Iraq, that will seek haven in the "Free (Mason) World" and how many of them will be desperate enough to wage a guerilla war in the U.S. and other allied countries!

After all, that is what a lot of people here in the U.K. fear. That the 'Allied' countries that are involved in a so called war will get devine retribution from the forces of Islam for the devestation of their ways of life and homelands being invaded.

Its not very far fetched to see this coming. Also its the perfect excuse for the president etc to have a continual war without end. It will never end as we will create the enemy from the actions of so called saving the "Free (Mason) World"!

Terrorism. Whether it's the use of biologics, nukes, etc. defending yourself from attack is just that...defence, not terrorism. Rules of warfare only work when both sides agree with them (i.e. see Vietnam). All's fair in love and war... Our troops must simply prepare for the worst...and I wish them good luck and happy hunting...

ermsss i dont know about this?
but this is the time for the CONRAD push the button for
`GLOBAL DEFENSED INIciaTIVE maybe

ermsss i dont know about this?
but this is the time for the CONRAD push the button for
`GLOBAL DEFENSED INIciaTIVE maybe