Iraq Said to Have Standing Orders for Attack on Israel

President Saddam Hussein says that in the event of an Israeli nuclear attack, he has instructed Iraqi commanders to strike Israel with chemical weapons without waiting for orders, government media said Tuesday.

Several newspapers and the Iraqi News Agency said Hussein made the disclosure last week during talks with a group of six visiting U.S. senators led by Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas.

“I ordered the commanders of air and rocket bases, if they ever hear that Israel hits any base or place in Iraq with an atomic bomb, you have to hit Israel because Israel could hit us while we (the leadership) are holding a meeting in Baghdad,” Hussein was quoted as saying.

“So you have an advance order to hit back, even in the event that you do not have an order from a top commander, if Israel bombs any base or any Iraqi city,” the Iraqi media quoted Hussein as saying.

Israeli jets using conventional bombs destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad in 1981. Israel said the facility was being used to develop atomic weapons, but Iraq denied it.

Hussein had earlier announced that in the event of an Israeli attack on Iraqi installations, Iraq would retaliate with advanced binary chemical weapons. Binary weapons are composed of different chemical elements that while relatively harmless by themselves can turn lethal when combined.

Dole did not provide many details of their talks but did say Hussein was worried that Israel would launch a preemptive strike similar to the 1981 attack.

Hussein’s announcement on binary weapons came after the arrests in London of several people accused of trying to smuggle nuclear bomb triggers to Iraq.

Later, British customs agents impounded eight steel tubes bound for Iraq, saying they could be used as part of a huge gun. The tubes were made by a British firm, Sheffield Forgemasters.

On Tuesday, another British firm said it may have been duped into supplying Iraq with a recoil mechanism to form part of a giant gun.

Walter Somers, a West Midlands steel forging company, said equipment was sent to Iraq last October as part of a petrochemical order but that its engineers now fear they had produced a hydraulic mechanism for a huge cannon.

“Our engineers are now wondering whether they have been led up the garden path (tricked) by the Iraqis,” a company official said.

The firm said it canceled a second Iraqi order for components.