Iraq Arrests Expert in Germ Warfare Program

The Iraqi government has arrested a key figure in the development of its biological weapons, depriving U.N. investigators of a potentially valuable source of information on Baghdad’s germ warfare program, officials said Tuesday.

Nasser Hindawi, described by U.N. and American officials as a former high-level official of the biological weapons establishment specializing in anthrax, was seized on suspicion that he was planning to flee the country, according to Nizar Hamdoun, Iraq’s ambassador to the U.N.

Hindawi has been interviewed many times by U.N. disarmament experts trying to track down information about biological weapons, which is the portion of Iraq’s illegal arsenal about which the inspectors know the least.

One official familiar with the inspection program said Hindawi has been one of the most cooperative Iraqi officials but that he has not been interviewed for more than a year. Nonetheless, had he escaped the country he undoubtedly would have been questioned again.

“He’s been reasonably forthcoming in the past, as have quite a few [Iraqi arms experts],” the U.N. official said. “Yes, we probably would have gotten more out of him if he wasn’t in their clutches, but that’s true with all of them.”

David Kay, a former weapons inspector now in private business in the Washington area, said Hindawi had broad knowledge of the germ warfare program and “certainly would have been a good source of important information” if he had escaped Iraq and cooperated with the U.N.

Hamdoun said Hindawi was seized for “attempting to leave the country illegally in possession of improper papers” and was being held at an undisclosed location.

Hamdoun said that Hindawi would continue to be available for questioning, but only in the presence of an Iraqi government official.

Kay said the single biggest breakthrough for inspectors investigating Iraq’s biological weapons was the 1995 defection of Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Majid, the son-in-law of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the onetime overseer of Iraq’s arms development.

Interviews with Kamel in Jordan led U.N. inspectors to a chicken farm outside Baghdad that housed millions of pages of records on illegal weapons. The discovery forced the Iraqi government to admit to development of germ warfare weapons--something it had denied. The documents also resulted in the discovery of a major biological weapons factory called Al Hakam, where Hindawi was managing director in 1989-91. The U.N. blew up the weapons factory after removing equipment used to make biological agents.

Kamel was lured back to Iraq later in 1995 and killed.

Although Hindawi’s defection probably would not have been as important as Kamel’s, he “still possesses very important historical information on [the] Iraqi [biological weapons] program and the people involved in it,” one U.S. official said Tuesday.

Kay said that U.N. officials could demand to interrogate Hindawi at the U.N. field headquarters in Baghdad and even seek to talk to him without other Iraqis present. “That would be signing his death warrant--but he knows what happened to Hussein’s son-in-law. He knows he’s dead.”

In Washington, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen refused to say whether the United States had tried to assist Hindawi in any attempt to leave Iraq. But he said Hindawi’s arrest might be further evidence “that there is an attempt on the part of Saddam Hussein to continue to hide and prevent inspectors from receiving information that would help them in their business.”

Meanwhile, 18 diplomats designated as escorts for inspectors entering Iraqi “presidential sites” arrived in Baghdad, joining two others already based in the Iraqi capital, according to U.N. spokesman Juan Carlos Brandt. The first inspections of the presidential compounds could begin this week, officials here said.

The new inspection procedures were negotiated last month by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a meeting with Hussein.

Times staff writer James Risen in Washington contributed to this report.