Fearing Saddam, anthrax scientist kept her secret - and chanced war

WKRC ^ | 3/28/04

[areafiftyone]

Fearing Saddam, anthrax scientist kept her secret - and chanced warLAST UPDATE: 3/28/2005 12:36:24 PM

In early 2003, as war fever built in Washington, an Iraqi scientist faced a fateful choice.

Rihab Rashid Taha could try to lower the heat by finally telling U.N. inspectors what happened to Iraq's "missing" anthrax.

Or she could remain silent, rather than risk Saddam Hussein's wrath.

The microbiologist's dilemma, she has told U.S. interrogators, was that her team 12 years earlier had destroyed the lethal bacteria by dumping it practically at the gates of one of Saddam's main palaces, and the feared Iraqi despot might grow enraged at news of anthrax on his doorstep.

Taha chose silence in 2003, thus stoking suspicions of those who contended Iraq still harbored biological weapons. Soon thereafter, two years ago this month, the United States invaded.

"Whether those involved understood the significance and disastrous consequences of their actions is unclear," the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group says of Taha and colleagues in its final report on Iraq weapons-hunting. "These efforts demonstrate the problems that existed on both sides in establishing the truth."

It also demonstrates anew that the war was launched on the basis not of hard fact, but of speculation and untruths, especially about Iraqi motives and actions.

"We ourselves had a lesson to learn there," one ex-arms inspector, Australian microbiologist Rod Barton, says of the account by Taha, still in U.S. detention in Iraq.

The anthrax mystery had bedeviled U.N. inspectors since the 1990s.

The Iraqis claimed then that before the 1991 Gulf War they had made 2,191 gallons of anthrax, considered highly suited for biowarfare because its spores are relatively easily produced, durable and deadly when inhaled. They said they destroyed all of it in mid-1991 at their bioweapons center at Hakam, 50 miles southwest of Baghdad.

The U.N. experts, who scoured Iraq for banned arms from 1991-98 and again in 2002-03, confirmed anthrax had been dumped at Hakam. But they also found evidence indicating Iraq produced an additional, undeclared 1,800 gallons of anthrax.

In early 2003, chief inspector Hans Blix put the seeming discrepancy high on his list of Iraq's "unresolved disarmament issues," complaining the Iraqis must be withholding information. Colin Powell dwelled on an anthrax threat in his February 2003 speech seeking U.N. Security Council authority for war.

Warning of "tens of thousands of teaspoons" of anthrax still in Iraq, the then-U.S. secretary of state said of the discrepancy, "This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true."

But the truth appears to lie elsewhere, according to the account disclosed in a little-noted section of the Iraq Survey Group report, a 350,000-word document issued last Oct. 6.

The British-educated Taha, who ran the Hakam complex in the 1980s, told interrogators her staff carted off anthrax from Hakam in April 1991 and stored it in a bungalow near the presidential palace at Radwaniyah, 20 miles west of Baghdad, the U.S. teams report.

Later that year the crew dumped the chemically deactivated anthrax on grounds surrounded by a Special Republican Guard barracks near the palace, the report says. Barton, who took part in Iraq Survey Group interrogations, said in a recent Australian Broadcasting Corp. interview that the disposal was carried out in July 1991 when Iraqi orders came down to destroy all bioweapons agents immediately.

Then, through the years, Taha and other Iraqi officials denied the "missing" anthrax ever existed.

"The members of the program were too scared to tell the Regime that they had dumped deactivated anthrax within sight of one of the principal presidential palaces," the Iraq Survey Group says.

The arms hunters' report also concludes, "ISG's investigation found no evidence that Iraq continued to hide BW (biological) weapons after the unilateral destruction of 1991 was complete."

"We knew there was a lie," Barton said, "but we jumped to the wrong conclusions."

The U.N. inspection agency says in an assessment of the U.S. report that the Taha disclosure is "perhaps the most significant new information" in the biological area. It suggested sampling and analysis at the Radwaniyah site to corroborate her account.

[Southack]

"It also demonstrates anew that the war was launched on the basis not of hard fact, but of speculation and untruths, especially about Iraqi motives and actions."

No, not true at all. The facts are that Iraq failed to show proof that it had dismantled and destroyed all aspects of its WMD programs per its 1991 surrender agreement and various UN resolutions.

It was up to Hussein to demonstrate conclusively that he had complied; he didn't.

Moreover, besides the above WMD disclosure failure, Iraq was rewarding the families of Palestinian suicide bombers with cash payments, firing at U.S. and British aircraft patroling the UN no-fly zones over North and South Iraq, building and importing missiles with illegal ranges per surrender treaties and UN resolutions, was harboring terrorists such as Abu Nidal (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/14/wterr14.xml), was caught red-handed in the 1993 WTC attack, and in general was destablizing the Middle-East.

And those are FACTS, contrary to what "speculation" the uneducated TV rubes tried to report above.

[MD_Willington_1976]

No prob..I got what you were getting at, I'm only saying that they are using fear to up their ratings...

I'm reading this book right now:

Fear Less: Real Truth About Risk, Safety, and Security in a Time of Terrorism

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316085960/103-2707402-0872652

and I want to check out this book by the same author...

The Gift of Fear
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0440226198/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/103-2707402-0872652?v=glance&s=books&st=*

good read...

I got my copy for $1 in the discount bin...Amazon is making some serious coin off the book.

MD

[piasa]

To: areafiftyone Isn't this lady one of the people on the deck of cards?

Yes, and her hubbie was none other than the Iraqi Oil Minister...

And isn't she a potential defendant in the upcoming war crimes trials?

Yes...

And where is the anthrax coming from that is being used in the attacks here in the U.S.?

Good question.

[peacebaby]

"Rather than remaining ignorant or asking others to do your work for you, why didn't you just visit Google and find out."

maybe you ought to change your name to "angryguy"...or just "jerk."

[WL-law]

But the truth appears to lie elsewhere, according to the account disclosed in a little-noted section of the Iraq Survey Group report, a 350,000-word document issued last Oct. 6.

The British-educated Taha, who ran the Hakam complex in the 1980s, told interrogators her staff carted off anthrax from Hakam in April 1991 and stored it in a bungalow near the presidential palace at Radwaniyah, 20 miles west of Baghdad, the U.S. teams report.

So what a Baathist "tells" someone becomes synonomous with "truth"? In what universe?

It's truth to the intellectually dishonest MSM, that's all.

[ordinaryguy]

In the time it took you to post your original message, you could have gone to Google and found the answer. The fact is, nobody else answered your question. If I had not done your work for you then you would have remained ignorant.

Incidently, as for the 1,800 gallons of anthrax... um, that is exactly what the article was about! Taha says it was deactivated and dumped at Radwaniyah. Please reread the article.

[peacebaby]

there you go again, being quite pompous. First, I'm not ignorant...I am inexperienced in the matters of science and anthrax.

Secondly, regarding the 1800 gallons of anthrax, I know it was mentioned in the article. If YOU'D TAKE THE TIME TO REREAD MY PAST POSTS, you could educate yourself and not remain.....dare I say, ignorant?

[Billthedrill]

You are correct. The article rather blithely mentions "deactivation" as if it were a simple matter. It is not.

There are three basic methods - somebody googled them up - heat, chemicals, and radiation. The difficulty is the the spore of Bacillus anthracis is remarkably tough, and the heat required to guarantee 100% destruction is blowtorch-level. You can get lower yields with lower heat but you wouldn't want to release that into the environment, which is one reason that method is so expensive.

They may well have made advances in chemical methods since I took my last path course, but at the time concentrated formalin was the method of choice (same for the Mycobacteria such as the tuberculosis and leprosy bacilli for a similar reason - they do not sporulate but have an amazingly impenetrable lipid coat). Nasty stuff, and also has its own difficulties being released into the environment.

As for radiation, it takes a lot and the yield isn't great. There are no ongoing chemical reactions inside the spores to affect, so the idea is sufficient point mutations within the organism's nucleic acids will keep it from properly replicating.

The issue on the UN's mind (and ours, and the ex-Soviet scientists with similar challenges) is that whatever method was used was either better than our own or it didn't work. I'm betting on the latter. It would have taken a major plant somewhere to use any of the three methods described above - we're talking about 10,000 liters of the stuff, after all. It would have been something he could have shown the inspectors, and in fact he was required to do precisely that.

In which case the dump site is a very dangerous area right now.

[ordinaryguy]

I'm not ignorant...I am inexperienced in the matters of science and anthrax.

Ignorance is the lack of knowledge. If you lack knowledge about anthrax, then you are ignorant about anthrax.

[peacebaby]

fine. have at it, smart guy.

[muawiyah]

I suspect this is a lie.

[muawiyah]

Or, over 50 or 60 ~ then 1 spore might nail you. That definitely happens when you are 90 or so.

BTW, the problem with the weaponized anthrax is that it is prepared in a form that makes it much more likely that an infection will occur. Anthrax found in nature is not weaponized.

[muawiyah]

Not too long ago they (the famous "they") discovered containers of nerve gas in NW Washington DC ~ it was leftover from WWI.

There are parts of the main battlefield in France and Belgium that are still offlimits.

[muawiyah]

Let's see if that ol'gal shows folks exactly where she had the stuff dumped.

If that's what happened, she won't go there ("There's really nothing to see"). If that's not what happened, she will go there happily ("See, nothing left")

[peacebaby]

just saw your reply from yesterday. thanks for the compliment. As you might have seen from the thread, another Freeper tried to bust my chops, so I'm sincerely appreciative of your goodwill.

[MD_Willington_1976]

You are correct...but weaponized Anthrax is not as easy to deliver as one would think it is...don't believe the media hype.

[muawiyah]

Just put an ounce or so in a standard envelope. Tape it up to retard leakage. Drop in the mail.

Did you say this is difficult to do?

[MD_Willington_1976]

Sure...but are you going to go make sure whoever receives it takes a big ol wiff of it, ingests it ot has an open cut for it to get in to?

[muawiyah]

Thousands of people in the Postal Service and on Capitol Hill were contaminated with the stuff.

Did you miss that part?

Cipro had been found to be an effective anti-anthrax medication fortunately, so only a few died.

[muawiyah]

Not to sound snotty, but I know one individual who's been hospitalized for 3 years after he managed to ingest very few spores.