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Iraqi colonel says he's the source of WMD claim
December 7, 2003

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An Iraqi officer reportedly said he was the source of the controversial claim in the British Government's Iraq dossier that some weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could be deployed within 45 minutes.

The Sunday Telegraph said the officer, identified only as Lieutenant Colonel al-Dabbagh, had provided several reports to British intelligence on Saddam Hussein's WMD plans from early 2002.

He told the paper these included details of how frontline units - including an air defence unit which he commanded in the western desert - had been supplied with cases of WMD warheads towards the end of last year.

The devices, which were said to have been known by Iraqi officers as "the secret weapon", were said to have been made in Iraq and designed to be launched by hand-held rocket-propelled grenades.

"I am the one responsible for providing this information," he was quoted as saying.

"Forget 45 minutes, we could have fired these within half-an-hour."

Colonel al-Dabbagh does not specify in the article whether the warheads contained chemical or biological agents.


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He said that he believed that they had now been hidden at secret locations by Saddam's fedayeen militias still in Iraq.

The Sunday Telegraph said that Col al-Dabbagh had spied for the Iraqi National Accord - a London-based exile group - for several years before the war and was now working as an adviser for the Iraqi Governing Council.

Downing Street tonight refused to comment on the report.

A spokesman said that the government would urge all those involved to pass on any information they believed they had to the Iraq Survey Group which is conducting the hunt for Saddam's WMD.

-PA