General Hussein Kamil

Hussein Kamil, Saddam�s cousin and son-in-law (as well as the then minister of MIMI), was instrumental in the creation of this ultra-elite intelligence agency.(48) Kamil defected to Jordan in August 1995, where he revealed to Western intelligence sources the concealment techniques of the apparatus that he worked so diligently to build.(49)

This agency also controls units of Iraq�s Chemical Corps, which is responsible for deploying Iraq�s chemical weapons arsenal.(50) During the 1991 Gulf War, the SSO controlled and concealed the SCUD missile arsenal.(51) Hussein Kamil stated, �Saddam declared that if contact with him was severed [SSO units possessing non-conventional warheads were based deep in the deserts of western Iraq], and if SSO officers believed that communications had been broken off because of a nuclear attack on Baghdad, they should mate the chemical and biological warheads in their custody with missiles in the possession of the regular missile force and launch them against Israel.�(52) The Chemical Corps, in addition to deploying chemical munitions, also played a role in salvaging Iraq�s chemical warfare capability after the 1991 Gulf War.(53)
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Hussein Kamil also used Special Security to facilitate his extensive arms and technology procurement network as part of Iraq�s covert drive to build weapons of mass destruction. Up until 1995, Hussein Kamil headed this agency as well as the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization and the Military Industrial Commission, essentially emerging as the �father� of Iraq�s WMD program. The covert techniques Kamil learned while head of the SSO aided his quest in obtaining sophisticated Western technology through a clandestine procurement network.
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Previously, this service was provided by Special Security, which was also headed by Kamil. After he fled Iraq, the SSO�s function was shared with the General Intelligence, complying with Saddam�s security doctrine of not allowing any one agency to have a monopoly over any one area of security.
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Traditionally, the military procurement system of Iraq was managed by the Wizarat al-Sana�a wa Tasni� al-Askari (The Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization or MIMI).(87) In August 1987, the law of Military Industrialization was passed giving Hussein Kamil the chance to augment his role in the domestic arms industry.(88) That same year, the Ministry of Heavy Industry, Ministry of Light Industry and Special Security Department, as well as the General Technical Industry Corporation were consolidated into the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization.(89)

The Military Industrialization Commission (MIC--Hiy�at al-Tasni� al-Askari)(90) was created in 1988 by Hussein Kamil to serve as the key agency within MIMI for acquiring and developing equipment for Iraq�s military industrial establishments.
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In May 1989, Hussein Kamil proclaimed that Iraq�s industrialization program was intended to provide all of Iraq�s basic industrial supplies from indigenous sources.�(96) One of MIMI�s goals was to develop an infrastructure that would allow Iraq to produce everything needed to use any WMD weapon.(97) December 1989, Kamil announced that MIMI had developed a long-range missile, known as Al-�Abid, with a range of 1,110 miles.(98)
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Correspondence on August 16, 1990, from Ali Hassan al-Majid (at that time the head of the Ba�th party in Kuwait) ordered Hussein Kamil, then head of MIMI, to forward the intelligence gathered from their eavesdropping equipment and stations, which are under the control of the Center of Technical Research.(105)

On September 17, 1990, the Iraqis showed interest in a Kuwaiti government building for scientific research that had a storage area for chemicals.(106) Ali Hassan al-Majid forwarded the letter to the MIMI representative in Kuwait on the next day, informing him to �do what you need to do.�(107)

On that same day, Hussein Kamil wrote to �Ali Hassan al-Majid, informing him that there were substantial materials in storage facilities and in private factories in Kuwait that MIMI desperately needed, such as precursors for making plastics and substances that could be used to substitute for other unspecified materials. Kamil had to ask permission from Ali Hassan al-Majid, who was the de facto governor of Kuwait (as well as his uncle), to be granted the power to take all the needed materials. Kamil stresses that due to the UN sanctions, MIMI has had difficulties in acquiring �basic elements� for its production efforts.(108) �Ali Hassan al-Majid responded to Kamil saying that he would form a committee to decide on what could and could not be transported from Kuwait.(109) There was an implicit tension in the correspondence between nephew and uncle, where Kamil wanted an agreement to withdraw any materials he wanted from Kuwait, while �Ali Hassan al-Majid responded indirectly that such power would not be granted.

From October to November 1990, MIMI requested the reallocation of refrigerators, freon gas cooling compressors, water coolers,(110) 800 tons of reinforced iron,(111) 700 tons of aluminum cables,(112) copper pipes, spare parts for refrigerators,(113) an oxygen device,(114) as well as an �oven� in the Kuwait airport that could reach temperatures over 1200 degrees centigrade that was an �utmost necessity.�(115) While it is difficult to link this material to WMD applications, these requests in 1990 demonstrated how Hussein Kamil gave a �shopping list� to Ali Hassan al-Majid of the materials that MIMI required in a way comparable to how WMD shopping might be conducted.
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49. Hussein Kamil returned to Iraq in 1996 after a presidential pardon from Saddam, and was subsequently killed in Baghdad, most likely on the orders of the President.

A leading participant in the 1996 family massacre after President Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamil, defected to Jordan, betrayed Iraq's weapons secrets, and then returned to Baghdad.He remains one of the most influential members of the RCC.

Tareq AzizDeputy prime minister since 1991 after having been Iraq's foreign minister for several years, including during the Gulf War when he was the Baghdad government's spokesman.

Accordingly, the director of Iraq's Military Industrialization Commission, Hussein Kamil, ordered the collection of all inculpatory documents and equipment.The equipment and documentation were then moved to a variety of locations to hide them from the IAEA.Hussein Kamil ordered at least one set of all nuclear-related documents and some equipment to be retained by a senior scientist.84

Despite Iraqi efforts, in early summer 1991 the IAEA confronted Baghdad with evidence of uranium enrichment components during the course of its inspections.At that point Baghdad admitted to its large pre-war enrichment programs, but still did not fully declare the extent of its centrifuge program.85

Indeed, Iraq continued to resist more comprehensive disclosure of its pre-1991 nuclear program until after the defection of Hussein Kamil in 1995, when a large number of documents and equipment fell into the hands of UNSCOM and the IAEA.
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It was not until 1995--when UNSCOM presented the Iraqis with evidence of continuing BW-related imports and Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamil, defected--that Iraq made substantial declarations to the United Nations about its activities prior to the Gulf War, admitting that it had produced and weaponized BW agents.
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266 This confrontation, followed by the defection of Hussein Kamil in August 1995, prompted Iraq to admit that it had produced large quantities of bulk BW agent before the Gulf War.
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The Intelligence Community's understanding of Iraq's CW program was altered with the defection in August 1995 of Hussein Kamil, the head of Iraq's Military Industrialization Committee and, as such, the head of Iraq's WMD programs.Among a host of damning revelations, Kamil released details previously unknown to the U.S. Intelligence Community about Iraq's pre-1991 production and use of VX nerve gas.
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In August 1995, however, after the defection of Hussein Kamil, Saddam relented and revealed to inspectors extensive VX research and other, more advanced, technologies.
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564 Iraq admitted to this program in 1995, after the defection of Hussein Kamil.
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In order to prevent discovery of his still-hidden pre-1991 WMD programs, Saddam ordered Hussein Kamil to destroy large numbers of undeclared weapons and related materials in July 1991.

Eight years ago, your two sons-in-law, Hussein Kamil, the former minister of defense, and his brother, defected to Jordan.

Hussein Kamil, Iraq's Minister of Industry and Military Manufacturing, Saddam's son-in-law.He defected to Jorden with his brother Saddam Kamil, another of Saddam's sons-in-law.

Hussein Kamil, Iraq's Minister of Industry and Military Manufacturing, Saddam's son-in-law.

With Haboby at this meeting at the London headquarters of TDG was Fadel Khaddum, Hussein Kamil's bagman.
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With the nuclear physicists so close to their ultimate goal, Hussein Kamil decided it was time to begin the final push to get the bomb. In September 1988, he ordered his procurement networks to launch an all-out effort to purchase nuclear triggering devices called krytrons. These miniaturized electronic switches were the key to detonating a nuclear explosion, but they were only available from a handful of companies in the United States and Britain. Their sale was tightly controlled..

Hussein Kamil never believed for a second he would have any difficulties obtaining his precious switches in the U.S. Indeed, on February 10, 1988 one of his network's best suppliers, Leybold AG of West Germany, had obtained an export license from the Department of Commerce in the U.S. to purchase vacuum pumps and numerical controllers worth $888,000 for the Taji ultracentrifuge project, and an initial batch of 184 capacitors similar to krytrons had been acquired legally from a San Diego company called Maxwell Laboratories.
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An Iraqi delegation headed by one of Hussein Kamil's top Deputies arrived in Rome on March 2, 1989, for an extended negotiating session with the Italian government.
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They were accompanied by a host of technical experts and by Hussein Kamil's bagman, Fadel Khaddum.
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Some, such as General Motors, even got to meet with Hussein Kamil. The U.S. military attaché in Baghdad received orders from Washington not to wear his uniform when he toured the show. He and other U.S. embassy officials, dressed in ordinary business suits, took photographs of every Iraqi weapon they could see.
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It was Hussein Kamil's coming out party.
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Later, it became apparent that Hussein Kamil was taking direct kickbacks from the Iraqi government as well. Just before the arms fair he purchased $120 million worth of state-owned manufacturing establishments, as part of a widely-publicized drive to privatize Iraqi industry after the war. But when Kamil couldn't pay, the Revolutionary Command Council (run by his father-in-law) passed a decree waiving payment for the factories, "in appreciation of Hussein Kamil's services to military industrialization.
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In his opening speech at the fair, Hussein Kamil announced that Iraq was now manufacturing "three different types" of fuel-air explosives. He didn't mention how Iraq had come to master this sophisticated technology, nor the extensive Iraqi contacts with Honeywell and MBB.
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That type of flying was forbidden under most air show rules, because it was dangerous, but it impressed the hell out of Kamil and not a few of his foreign partners.
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Within three day of arriving in Baghdad, they managed to get Iraqi pilots flying their aircraft for the first time, and convinced Hussein Kamil to send a MIMI delegation to corporate headquarters in Madrid for further talks.
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After meeting with Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamil, David Hastie knew that victory was within reach.
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Hussein Kamil was particularly impressed to learn that British Aerospace had been selected by the U.S. Navy to conduct its pilot training program for the Hawk.
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All evening long, Serge Dassault stood in a corner by the steps leading down into the garden, just in case the Minister, Hussein Kamil, showed up.
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"I don't expect Hussein Kamil to show up for one minute.
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Hussein Kamil greeted him in his private office suite with good news. Iraq finally agreed to make the down payments on the Tulip and Jacinthe helicopter contracts, so production could begin. In return, Kamil wanted Aerospatiale to submit plans to build a helicopter assembly line in Iraq, to build Aerospatiale's latest anti-tank machine, the Panther. Aircraft was not enough. To have a complete aerospace industry, Kamil argued, you needed to build helicopters as well.

General Hussein Kamil held a variety of top positions in the Government such as Minister of Defence, Presidential Adviser, Director of Military Industrialization Commission, Minister-Supervisor, etc.
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General Hussein Kamil.
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General Hussein Kamil's defection, an "amnesty" order was issued by the Government. By this order, retained proscribed components could be turned over "anonymously" at various collection points. The gyroscopes appeared as a result of this campaign. The Commission asked for specific explanations regarding the reasons for retention of proscribed items, the "collection" sites, dates of collection of items etc. Iraq has not provided complete clarifications of these events.

103. Available evidence revealed that Lt. General Hussein Kamil had a meeting with senior engineers in May 1993 to assess missile activities ongoing in Iraq at that time.
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General Hussein Kamil issued the orders both for the project itself and for the requirement to keep it a secret from the Commission.