Saddam's three secret missiles

Jane's Missiles and Rockets:

Between 2000 and the arrival in Iraq of United Nations Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC) inspectors in November 2002, Iraqi engineers worked on three clandestine programmes to develop long-range ballistic missiles. Details of all three missiles were revealed in the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD published on 30 September 2004.

Two of the missiles were based on liquid propellants, the third on solid propellants. All would have had ranges of 500km or more, exceeding the 150km range restriction set by UN Resolution 687.

As a result of UN sanctions, none of these projects left the drawing board despite three years of work by Iraq, while the arrival of UNMOVIC inspectors forced Iraq to attempt the destruction of all evidence that the projects had existed.

According to a senior Iraqi missile engineer interviewed by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the plan to develop missiles with a range of more than 150km dated back to 1997 or 1998....

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