Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-12

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: As the Chairman, and obviously those position changed as the individual changed.  Secondly the Surgeon-General, my predecessor initially and later on myself.  Thirdly, the Chief of Staff Finance.  Fourthly, the Chief of Staff Intelligence and then other members that were initially coopted, depending on where the project stood at the time, those members later on became full members of the Co-ordinating Committee.
 I'm referring to the Chief of the Army, I'm referring to the Commanding Officer of Special Forces, the Commanding General of Special Forces, I'm referring to the Chief of Staff of the Defence Command Council and I believe at a stage later on the Chief of the Airforce was also on one of these meetings or twice, I'm not sure, and lastly members of ARMSCOR also took part in meetings.  In fact there was also a member from Auditor-General at certain stages.

MR VALLY: So are you saying that after the Ministerial level, the Co-ordinating Committee, which included yourself and Brigadier Basson?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: He was the Project Officer and acted as a Secretary to the Co-ordinating Management Committee.

MR VALLY: Who was responsible for all these front all these front companies and the project they were running?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: No, Sir, he was responsible for all the documentation that was dealt with by the Co-ordinating Management Committee and he was the direct link with companies, if that is what you mean by responsible.

MR VALLY: Fine.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: That's correct.

MR VALLY: So he was the direct link?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: That's correct.

MR VALLY: I see.  Tell me, what is your understanding of hard projects as compared to soft projects?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Mr Vally, the hard and soft projects were not known to me until I saw the documents that had emerged from the trunks and when I saw this terminology being used.

MR VALLY: So you say you are not aware of such a distinction?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: No, you didn't listen to my answer.

MR VALLY: I'm sorry, you are talking a bit softly, I don't know if I can get the sound person to turn the sound up a bit if it is possible, I beg your pardon.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: It would also help is you don't talk to somebody while I'm answering your question Mr Vally.

MR VALLY: No, I appreciate that I'm still trying to prepare some other issues.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: I'll repeat the answer Mr Vally.

MR VALLY: Thank you.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: I said that the term hard and soft projects were never used within the Co-ordinating Management Committee.  I personally became aware of that distinction when I had the opportunity to look at the documents that had come out of the trunks, and I saw that there were documents referring to so-called hard projects and documents referring to so-called soft projects.

MR VALLY: Was this the first time that you became aware of such terminology being used?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Correct.  Mr Vally, I'm a little bit unhappy with the answer on your questions, I would just like to clarify that a little bit further if I may.
 The Co-ordinating Management Committee which was the overall broad directive, the committee that gave direction to the entire project, was subdivided into working groups.  I've already mentioned the one called the Technical Work Group which was the Project Officer, the Managing Directors of the Companies involved and the scientists within those companies.  They did the scientific research planning per company, each company being dealt with separately.  
 In fact in the beginning the companies were not supposed to know about each other's existence and so on.  The only person who had knowledge of those two companies was the Project Officer.  I'm talking specifically about Delta G and about Roodeplaat Research Laboratories.  
 But here were also other Committees.  There was a General Administration and Financial Committee which was under control of the Project Manager which was the Surgeon-General assisted by the Chief of Staff Finance and the Project Officer was obviously also a member of that committee.  That is where the broad budgetary planning was done on behalf of the total Co-ordinating Management Committee.
 After 1990 the Chief of Staff of the Defence Command Council became a member of that committee, in fact he became the Chairman of that committee and the financial planning and the budgetary planning was done in that committee.  But at the same time there was also another committee called the Security Committee.  The security aspects of this project was of vital importance.  That was the Chief of Staff Intelligence with the Surgeon-General and the Project Officer who had to look after the security aspects of the project.  
 So I'm just trying to say to you that it would be unfair to leave the Commission with the impression that there was only one committee that dealt with the companies.  The Security Committee had freedom of movement to do it's own security analyses about the project.

MR VALLY: Right, let's just talk about, at this stage, about two of the Committees.  Firstly the Co-ordinating Committee and the Security Committee.  The Co-ordinating Committee, would they get report-backs on what projects were being run, the success of those projects, progress to date, money being spent?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes, they did but I have to qualify that.  The detail made available at the Co-ordinating Management Committee was in terms of the achievement of objectives that had been formulated and approved by the Co-ordinating Management Committee and it would be very broad guidelines.  The members of that committee did not have either the scientific knowledge or background to be able to deal with the absolute detail of projects at grassroots level, if you will accept that term, but in broad terms the type of reporting that would be done is: we have now completed our investigations into all irritating agents or into all the classical chemical weapons or into this particular category of the classical chemical weapon.
 There was never an opportunity to really discuss in detail what particular experiments were carried out about the very vast numbers of chemicals that had to be studied or ...[intervention]

MR VALLY: Let me get an understanding of the degree of detail General Knobel.  Were you for example told that we have cultivated various toxins?  Broad, nothing specific?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes, I think that would be incorrect to say that is what happened.  I think what would have happened was:  "We have now embarked on studying the classical biological weapon groups, all the organisms as well as all the toxins that are normally considered to be classical biological weapons".

MR VALLY: And what's considered to be classical biological weapons is determined by literature in this regard, so people would know what you're talking about?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes, I don't think that quite frankly the members of the Defence Command Council would have those facts at their fingertips ...[intervention]

MR VALLY: But you would?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: No, not necessarily but I'll tell you what does apply.  In conventions there are schedules published with regard to the conventions which indicates exactly what the classical schedule one and schedule two ...[intervention]

MR VALLY: But that's what I'm referring to.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes.

MR VALLY: You would know if they gave you a report of that sort, which particular ...[intervention]

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes.  And if I didn't I would check it on the list of the applicable convention.

MR VALLY: So you would be told for example only that:  "We've developed certain toxins as set out in the schedules" or would you be told for example: "We have managed to create cultures of Anthrax"?