Other Names: Central Tool Room Plant, Nasser State Establishment; Taji Steel Fabrication Plant; Nasser State Company for Mechanical Industries
Location: Taji district, Baghdad, approximately 30km N of Baghdad city center
Subordinate to: Nasser State Establishment, Military Industrialization Commission
Primary Function: Production of dies and moulds for missile parts manufacture

Description:
Nasser was located within the sprawling Taji military camp, while the Dies Factory itself was housed in a single building within the much larger Nasser State Establishment. The facility was built in 1983; prior to the first Gulf War, and under the name Central Tool Room Plant, the Factory produced dies for Al-Hussein engine parts and tank end domes.

Nasser provided Project 144/4 (guidance) with a workshop to be used for Scud gyro dismantlement and to prepare preliminary sketches of the parts. It also attempted some pilot production of the parts.

Aside from its production duties, Nasser was also used as a procurement cover in support of both Project 144 (development of Al-Hussein and other missiles) and Project 1728 (Scud/Al-Hussein reverse-engineering). For example, between 30 June 1989 and 25 July 1990, Nasser was the recipient—though not the end user—of a 1.2 million Deutschmark order for warhead fuze parts, delivered by Germany's Eyerle GmbH/Rhein-Bayern Fahrzeugbau GmbH & Co. KG. The same companies also shipped Nasser graphite rods for nose tip and jet vane production, asbestos for warhead insulation, a computer workstation, and a variety of other missile-related goods.

Interestingly, German court documents note that in 1989, Rhein-Bayern applied for a license to export the PC workstation to Nasser State Establishment. The German export office requested further documentation, as officials determined that the equipment was intended for printed circuit board production. Eyerle responded that workstation was not intended for military use, delivering to German authorities a Nasser-provided end-user certificate claiming the equipment would be used for "warehouse management of spare parts." The Bill of Indictment against Rhein-Bayern notes the Nasser certificate was signed by "an engineer named Raad Ismail [sic]." What it does not note is that, in fact, General Raad Ismail is perhaps the most famous missile engineer in Iraq, having earned the title "Father of the Al-Hussein" for his lead efforts in developing Saddam's extended-range Scuds. Ultimately, the defendants exported the PC workstation without an export license.

After the war, the factory produced dies and moulds for the Al-Samoud missile, the Ababil-100 (Al-Fateh) missile, the Ababil-50 rocket, an 81mm rocket, the larger (and co-located) Nasser Mechanical Plant, and other outside customers, both military and civilian. Nasser Dies is also capable of dies and moulds design, and has a medium level of equipment capabilities, to include Electronic Discharge Machines (EDM process), CNS turning and milling, and heat treatment.

The EDM machines were of particular interest to inspectors, as they were capable of producing parts of close tolerances, to include gyro parts and injectors for liquid engines.

Key Sources: UN inspection data; Office of the District Attorney, Augsburg District Court, Bill of Indictment Against Anton Eyerle, Walter Dittel, and Subramaniam Venkataramanan, Case Number 501 Js 20894/90/F1, 1992 (CNS Translation by Ralph Westbrooke), <http://cns.miis.edu/research/iraq/indict.pdf>.

	Updated October 2003