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Iraq planned three illegal long-range missiles
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19 October 2004
Iraq planned three illegal long-range missiles
By Doug Richardson, Editor of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets
Between 2000 and the arrival in Iraq of United Nations Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC) inspectors in November 2002, Iraqi engineers worked on three clandestine programmes to develop long-range ballistic missiles. Details of all three missiles were revealed in the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD published on 30 September 2004.
Two of the missiles were based on liquid propellants, the third on solid propellants. All would have had ranges of 500km or more, exceeding the 150km range restriction set by UN Resolution 687.
As a result of UN sanctions, none of these projects left the drawing board despite three years of work by Iraq, while the arrival of UNMOVIC inspectors forced Iraq to attempt the destruction of all evidence that the projects had existed.
According to a senior Iraqi missile engineer interviewed by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the plan to develop missiles with a range of more than 150km dated back to 1997 or 1998. During a monthly ballistic-missile meeting at the Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), Minister of Military Industrialisation Abd-al-Tawab Abdallah al Mullah Huwaysh (who was to become deputy prime minister from 2001 to 2003), stated his desire for a 1,000km missile. In mid-1999, Huwaysh is reported to have told a meeting of Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard personnel that Iraq was developing a missile with a range of 500km and that development would take five years.
The formal go-ahead for the new missiles was given by Saddam Hussein in June 2000. Many sources stated that the project was regarded as highly secret, information being passed only in person at face-to-face meetings among a select few individuals. These arrangements may account for the discrepancies in dates provided by various individuals interviewed by the ISG.
The Al Karamah State Establishment, later known as Al Karamah General Company, started work on liquid-propellant concepts, while solid-propellant weapons were studied by the Al Rashid General Company. Both teams seem to have decided that the quickest way to develop long-range missiles would be to cluster existing hardware.
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