§ Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his best estimate of the annual production capacity of chemical weapon agents at the al-Muthanna establishment in Iraq in 1991. [75825]
§ Mr. HoonAccording to information supplied to the United Nations by Iraq the annual production capacity of the al-Muthanna site in Iraq in 1991 was 4,000 tonnes of chemical weapon agents per annum. This is indicative of the large scale of Iraq's chemical weapons programme at that time.
We assess that the capacity of this production site could have been higher if Iraq had reduced the wastage rates at the site.