Description:
Ma'moun made up one of the three facilities of the Rashid State Establishment, the others being Amin and M'utasim.

Ma'moun was located in the north central section of the Qa-Qa State Establishment, and occupied some 45 buildings, including workshops, nine propellant processing buildings, assembly/disassembly buildings, and explosive storage.

Ma'moun was originally constructed in the 1980s—it was then known as the Taj Al Marik Plant of the Balat Al-Shuhada' Factory—for the production of Badr 2000 first stage motors and Sakr 200 motors. Much of the equipment and technology was contained at Ma'moun to accomplish this goal, including that for APC grinding, filtering, and drying; 1,500 liter mixing bowls; and casting and curing chambers for Badr and Sakr-sized motors. According to the Iraqis, and based on available evidence, the facility was never able to produce the motors, due to certain supply problems with Egypt, the partner country. The site was bombed heavily during the Gulf War and the equipment sustained considerable damage. UN inspectors thereafter destroyed much equipment per the terms of UN resolution 687, including Badr mandrels, the large mixing bowls, purpose-built toolings and jigs, and casting chambers.

After the war, Ma'moun became involved in the on-again, off-again Ababil-100 project, Iraq's attempt to produce a solid-propellant, short-range ballistic missile. Towards this end, Iraq employed the capabilities remaining after Coalition and UN destruction activities. These included a 30 gal/120 liter mixer, a smaller casting pit, autoclaves and laboratory-scale mixing and related propellant research and production equipment. At the time of the departure of UNSCOM, not much progress had been made on the motor for the system in part because of technology and raw material limitations. Iraq was attempting to use four batches of propellant from the 30-gallon mixer for each Ababil motor. In addition to these activities, Ma'moun worked on the production of "base-bleed" charges, grain production for the Saham-Saddam air-to-air missile, and research and development for the Al-Mutasady (another air-to-air missile) motor.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported in October 2002 that following UNSCOM's December 1998 departure, Iraq rebuilt/repaired structures at Ma'moun previously damaged during the Gulf War or dismantled by inspectors. Further, the CIA charged, Iraq had built a new casting building and two new mixing buildings.

Finally, both the CIA and the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) noted that a new ammonium perchlorate production plant had been built at Ma'moun. According to the JIC, "This has been provided illicitly by NEC Engineer Private Limited, an Indian chemical engineering firm with extensive links to Iraq....After an extensive investigation, the Indian authorities have recently suspended its export license, although other individuals and companies are still illicitly procuring for Iraq." [Note: See also the entry for Ibn-Sina Center.]

According to Indian court records, NEC used false documents and customs declarations to export 10 shipments of materials—worth some $800,000—to Iraq between 1998 and 2001. According to the British and US intelligence reports, equipment was first shipped to companies in Jordan and Dubai and later traced to Ma'moun. According to a CNN report, the perclorate plant was built by NEC personnel in late 1999. Moreover, the various NEC shipments included three tons of aluminum powder to Ma'moun; aluminum powder is a key composite propellant ingredient.

For its part, UNMOVIC inspected the Ma'moun facility some 20 times during its four months in Iraq. During these inspections, UNMOVIC found that Iraq had indigenously developed casting chambers or had repaired chambers previously destroyed by UNMOVIC. More specifically, UNMOVIC stated that "Iraq declared an indigenously produced propellant casting chamber with a diameter that would be useful for the manufacture of composite propellant missiles with a range considerably in excess of what is permitted under resolution 687 (1991). During the inspection of...the Ma'moun factory, two additional casting chambers with an even larger diameter than the one mentioned above were discovered. Iraq declared that two of the casting chambers were provided by a foreign country and that, originally, these chambers were imported for the Badr-2000 programme project. Although UNSCOM had deemed them proscribed and supervised their destruction, Iraq had managed to reconstitute them. Iraq explained that the depth of the reconstituted chambers had been shortened from the original eight meters to six meters, which was sufficient to produce the rocket motor for Al 'Ubour [a solid-propellant air-to-air missile using a similar motor as the Fateh]."

Clearly, Iraq had progressed quite far since UNSCOM's departure; in December 1998, the Ababil (later named Fateh) solid-propellant missile program was still in a nascent stage. However, Iraq declared in late 2002 that it had produced 96 Al-Fateh missiles and 11 launchers, with 32 missiles declared as deployed. Moreover, 33 tests of the missiles had been conducted. It is evident, therefore, that the expansion of Ma'moun's capabilities—either through domestic or foreign sources—contributed immeasurably to the surprisingly rapid success of the Fateh program. Further, it was apparent that the large casting chambers provided Iraq with the capability to produce large motors to power proscribed-range missiles.

Accordingly, and based on the advice of a Panel of Experts convened in February 2003, UNMOVIC determined that the re-constituted and indigenously produced casting chambers; the casting chambers were, therefore, destroyed.

Key Sources: UN inspection data; Central Intelligence Agency, "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs," October 2002, <http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm>; "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government," 24 September 2002, p. 20, <http://www.number-10.gov.uk/files/pdf/iraqdossier.pdf>; "Indian company alleged source of illicit Iraqi goods," Los Angles Times, 19 January 2003; Satinder Bindra and Amol Sharma, "Probe into illegal Indian exports to Iraq," CNN, 26 January 2003, <http://www.cnn.com/>; Satinder Bindra and Amol Sharma, "Indian documents suggest Iraq violated U.N. resolutions," CNN, 5 February 2003, <http://www.cnn.com/>; UNMOVIC, "Unresolved Disarmament Issues," 6 March 2003,
<http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/documents/cluster_document.pdf>; CNS UNMOVIC Inspection Database, <http://cns.miis.edu/Iraq-Inspections>.

	Updated October 2003