The plant became a target in part because imagery analysts noted that a chain-link fence atop a concrete wall surrounded the four-acre compound. Guard towers marked out the perimeter and there was a security checkpoint at the entrance. "The unusual security measures at the plant make it highly suspect," the DIA wrote at the time.
But the DIA and the intelligence community were by no means certain, a fact documented in now-declassified reports written in 1990 and 1991. Interviews with key analysts and other officials confirm the ambiguities reflected in those contemporaneous documents.
The possibility that Abu Ghraib was linked to biological weapons had been raised as early as April 1988, documents show, but hard evidence was lacking. Two months after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center, a unit of the DIA, did not include the plant on its list of suspected sites.
On the other hand, there were reports that the plant had never been used to produce infant formula. And, after poring over debriefings and importation records, the DIA concluded that it contained "dual use" equipment that could be used for biological weapons. This included five 27,000-liter processing tanks, drying equipment and cold-storage facilities -- equipment that could also be used to produce infant formula.
Sifting through other evidence, analysts came to the conclusion that Iraq had obtained industrial fermenters and high-efficiency particulate filters that "could easily be used for [biological weapon research] and production." This esoteric gear had gone missing inside the country. Was it at Abu Ghraib? Imagery analysts detected an air-handling and filtration system at the plant, and in December 1990 the roof was painted in a mottled camouflage pattern, which further aroused suspicion. "If it was merely a baby formula plant," the DIA wrote in a report after the 1991 attack, "they could have made it obviously civilian, and [the] DIA's judgment about the facility might have been different."
In other words, U.S. analysts classified the facility a possible bioweapons facility based on accumulated fragments of information. The Interagency Working Group, established to look more closely at evidence regarding Iraqi nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, concluded on Dec. 17, 1990, that the plant "may be involved" in biological weapons production.
