He said plans and advanced design work were found for three different rockets able to fly at least 625 miles and thus able to strike the capitals of Turkey or Egypt, or Dubai. Iraq also had launched a secret "crash program" to extend the range of old Soviet-era SAM-2 missiles and to convert Silkworm anti-ship cruise missiles into land-attack missiles.
The missile Iraq sought to buy from North Korea, called the Nodong-1, has a range of just over 800 miles.
Kay said his investigators discovered that Hussein's regime negotiated and signed a contract with Pyongyang in late 1999 and paid $10 million in advance to secretly purchase Nodong missile technology, as well as other prohibited military equipment, in violation of U.N. sanctions.
Late last year, Kay said, the Iraqis demanded, " 'Where is the stuff we paid for?' And the North Koreans said, 'Sorry, there's so much U.S. attention on us that we cannot deliver it.' And the Iraqis said, 'Well, we don't like this but give us our $10 million back.' "
Kay said "lots of records" showed Iraqi officials frantically trying to recover the money and the North Koreans refusing or ignoring their pleas until U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in March.
"It's a lesson in negotiating with the North Koreans that the Iraqis found out the hard way," Kay said.
In addition to the North Korean case, Kay's investigators have reported finding scores of leads, suspects and clues related to Hussein's covert weapons plans and programs, but none of the chemical, biological or nuclear arms that were one of the Bush administration's chief justifications for going to war.
Speaking in Milwaukee, President Bush said the report supported many of his administration's prewar claims about Hussein's weapons programs.
"It states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories," Bush said. "They had a live strain of deadly agent called botulinum. And he had sophisticated concealment efforts. In other words, he's hiding his program."
A network of two dozen laboratories and safe houses was secretly set up and maintained by Iraqi intelligence services, Kay said in his conference call. He said investigators had visited the facilities, and equipment in them was "suitable" for chemical or biological weapons research and should have been declared to the U.N.
The Times disclosed the existence of the clandestine labs in June, citing a former Iraqi intelligence officer, and reported that they were part of a covert military research effort set up after 1996.
