Special Security Committee
Iraq's concealment efforts to thwart UN inspectors involve thousands of people from Mukhabarat; the Amn al-Khass, and the Special Republican Guards. Iraq routinely
bars the U.N. from "presidential-residential" buildings. Qusai, the younger son of Iraqi President Saddam Husayn, is the deputy chairman of the Special Security Committee of the Iraqi National Security Council that was created in 1996 as part of the president's office.
The Committee membership includes:
- Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the director of the Public Security Directorate
- Dahham al-Tikriti, Director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service - IIS [Mukhabarat]
- 'Abd-al-Hamid Humud, the director of the president's office
- Faris 'Abd-al-Hamid al-'Ani, the director general of the presidential office
This special body also includes representatives of the Republican Guard.
The Committee is supported by a staff of over 2,000 whose main task is preventing the United Nations monitoring activities from uncovering information, documents, and equipment connected with mass destruction weapons. The staff is drawn from the Republican Guard, or the Special
Guard, and the intelligence services. They are recruited for this specific mission and chosen from the most efficient and loyal units.
The responsibilities of this body are divided between two elements, each of which has a staff of about 1,000:
- The task of the first component is the daily work of the UN monitoring commission, including proposing sites to visit and inspect, escorting UN inspectors, preventing them from carrying out their mission.
- The task of the second component is to conceal documents, equipment, and materials and move them about from one location to another. Several locations have been built for collecting and hiding such selected material. This elements is responsible for material that is imported through "special channels" as part of the program of rebuilding the strategic military arsenal, including chemical and biological weapons and as well as missiles and associated technology.
Sources and Resources
- Report on Iraqi Plans To Conceal Weapons FBIS-NES-97-329 25 November 1997
- GERM WARFARE BY BRUCE W. NELAN Time DECEMBER 1, 1997 VOL. 150 NO. 23
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/ssc_nsc.htm
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