Posted on 10/10/2004 5:34:27 PM PDT by mylife
Growing threat' of bio-attack on coalition in Iraq
CIA warns of insurgents' plans for germ warfare
WASHINGTON - Insurgent networks across Iraq are increasingly trying to acquire and use toxic nerve gases, blister agents and germ weapons against coalition forces, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) says.
Investigators said one group recruited scientists and sought to prepare poisons over seven months, before being dismantled in June.
US officials say the threat is especially worrisome as leaders of the previously unknown group, which investigators dubbed the 'Al Abud network', were based in Fallujah in proximity to insurgents aligned with fugitive militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
The CIA says Zarqawi, who is blamed for numerous attacks on US forces and beheadings of hostages, has long sought to use chemical and biological weapons against targets in Europe as well as Iraq.
An exhaustive report released last week by Mr Charles Duelfer, the CIA's chief weapons investigator in Iraq, concluded that Saddam Hussein destroyed his stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s and never tried to rebuild them.
But a little-noticed section of the 960-page report warns that the danger of a 'devastating' attack with unconventional weapons has grown since the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq last year.
Neither of the two Al Abud chemists had any ties to Saddam's long-defunct weapons programmes, and Mr Duelfer's investigators found no evidence that the group's poison project was part of a 'prescribed plan by the former regime to fuel an insurgency'.
The leaders and financiers of the network 'remain at large, and alleged chemical munitions remain unaccounted' for, the report said.
It added that other insurgent groups are 'planning or attempting to produce or acquire' chemical and biological agents throughout Iraq, and warns that the availability of chemicals and munitions, as well as sympathetic former Iraqi weapons scientists, 'increases the future threat'.
The new discoveries are separate from several attacks this year involving chemical munitions, the report said.
In May and June, insurgents used chemical-filled artillery shells, left over from Iraq's pre-1991 stocks, in three roadside bombs. Partly because of the shells' age, no chemical injuries were reported.
In all, US forces have recovered 53 decaying chemical-filled shells or artillery rockets that apparently were looted from unguarded ammunition bunkers or other sites.
Investigators from Mr Duelfer's Iraq Survey Group learned of the Al Abud threat by chance in March, when a US Army patrol raided a laboratory in a Baghdad market known for chemical supply shops.
They discovered an Iraqi chemist who had successfully produced small quantities of ricin, a potentially deadly toxin made from castor beans.
After the chemist was interrogated, Mr Duelfer quickly created a special team of covert agents, analysts and weapons experts to track down the scientist's contacts and arrest other members of the Al Abud network, named for the laboratory where the chemist was found.
By June, the team was able to identify and 'neutralise' the group's chemists, chemical suppliers, and other members of the network.
A series of raids, interrogations and detentions 'disrupted key activities at Al Abud-related laboratories, safe houses, supply stores' and organisational centres, according to Mr Duelfer's report.
Hmm.. wonder where they got 'em
Surely,.....not via French/Canadian/British corporations of 'flu' vaccines.....etc.
.................'They' would NEVER do 'that'........
(Mystery 'ship' lady found 'head-dead' in British 'lab'....street?)
naw
>>Mystery 'ship' lady found 'head-dead' in British 'lab'....street?)<<
Could you explain this, please?
I thought there were no wmd's . oops silly me .
/sarcasm
I thought those were considered "weapons of mass destruction." There AREN'T any WMD in Iraq -- I know that because AWC&GC Kerry told me so.....
If this proves out; its time to "BUFF Up OUR TACTICAL NUKES!
This would be a big worry. Such attacks would not be specific to the Green Zone even if that were the primary target, but would hit all without checking their religious or political affiliation.
I have no doubt that they are there.
Though the storys headline is probably hype.
Our troops have been at risk all along
mylife wrote - Our troops have been at risk all along.
That is very true. It's almost amazing there hasn't been any chemical attacks at least to date.
And Zarqawi already knows how to make them himself. He doesn't need any scientists help other than to maybe procur supplies for him or to develop some of the really serious chems like VX.
(steely)
Wow, a bio attack would certainly be a "nuisance". If they do that, somebody is gonna get arrested!!! /sarcasm
VOA wrote - The "nuts-'n-bolts" of what Saddam wanted to do...could easily be done on a smaller scale by some smart folks (maybe bacherlor of science grads?) with enough money.
What hasn't been talked about enought yet in my opinion is just that. It is one the main reasons we moved on Saddam. Technology and knowledge, especially biological, is spreading so fast around the world now, that we really need the whole world to democratize at a faster rate and get rid of these terrorists at a faster pace.
There is short timeline of perhaps only 15 years before every country on the planet needs to be run by people who can be trusted not to develop a nasty bio-weapon that escapes from a lab by accident or especially allows terrorists to get their hands on what-will-become-easy-to-produce WMD.
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