Former Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein predicted in the mid-1990s the US could
suffer a terror attack with weapons of mass
destruction, tapes allegedly show.
But he insisted it would not be Iraq that
carried out the attack.
Saddam Hussein's comments with his cabinet were
recorded and the tapes later found by the CIA. They
were given to the US ABC network by a translator.
A Saddam aide also explains how Iraq hid its
biological weapons programme from UN inspectors at
the time.
ABC News, which ran the story on Wednesday, said it
had obtained the 12 hours of tapes from Bill
Tierney, an ex-UN inspection team member translating
them for the FBI.
It said Mr Tierney had handed them because he
thought it wrong that the US government should keep
the tapes secret.
The network said US officials had confirmed their
authenticity, although the state department has not
commented.
'Told the Americans'
In the tapes, Saddam Hussein says: "Terrorism is
coming. I told the Americans... and told the British
as well... that in the future there will be
terrorism with weapons of mass destruction.
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Saddam pictured in 1995
Photo: AP
Tariq Aziz, The former deputy prime minister of Iraq
Photo : AFP |
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"In the future, what would prevent that we see a
booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in
Washington or a germ or a chemical one?
"This is coming, this story is coming but not from
Iraq."
When the US did suffer the major attack it was from
four hijacked planes on 11 September, 2001. Almost
3,000 people died in the attack by Osama Bin Laden's
al-Qaeda network.
Saddam Hussein was talking to Tariq Aziz, his deputy
prime minister and others, although the exact date
could not be confirmed.
Tariq Aziz responds by saying that biological
weapons are easy to make.
"It's so simple that any biologist can make a germ
bottle and drop it into a septic tank and kill
100,000," he says.
Hidden programme
ABC said the tapes were recorded in "Baghdad's
version of the Oval Office" and were among hundreds
of hours found.
One tape dated April or May 1995, covers the finding
by UN inspectors of evidence of Iraq's biological
weapons programme - a programme it had denied
existed but was then forced to admit.
Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, says:
"We did not reveal all that we have. Not the type of
weapons, not the volume of the materials we
imported, not the volume of the production we told
them about, not the volume of use. None of this was
correct."
But there is no evidence from these tapes that Iraq
was still hiding programmes ahead of the US-led
invasion in 2003 - one of the major reasons for
military action.
Charles Duelfer, a US inspector who helped look for
weapons of mass destruction after the war, said the
tapes "support the conclusion we made... that the
regime had the intention of building and rebuilding
weapons of mass destruction, when circumstances
permitted".
www.bbc.co.uk
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