Berlin, Feb 01: Germany's intelligence service believes Iraq has mobile laboratories capable of developing and producing chemical and biologial weapons, a German weekly said in a report to be published on Monday.
The laboratories are hidden in trucks that appear
completely normal from the outside, focus magazine said,
quoting the results of an investigation by the intelligence
service, BND.
A BND spokesman was not immediately available for comment
on the report.
Focus said BND officials gave details about the
laboratories to the foreign affairs committee of the
Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, in November.
The head of the BND, August Hanning, told the deputies
the Iraqi government had even bought equipment for the
laboratories in Germany, Focus said. He said Baghdad had
also attempted to buy material in Germany to build missiles.
The weekly said the deputies had promised not to reveal
the information given to them by Hanning. But some members of
the conservative opposition have pressed the social democrat
government to publish the BND findings, or at least hand them
over to the UN Security Council.
In a rare statement, the BND yesterday said it had "with
the government's consent, transmitted to the UN weapons
inspectors information about Iraq that it had gathered about
Iraq."
Bureau Report
