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Bio-Chemical Weapons & Saddam: A History.
Various Sources | 02-20-03 | PsyOp

Posted on 02/20/2003 10:29:31 PM PST by PsyOp

Bio-Chemical Weapons & Saddam: A History.


In recent months there has been a great deal of bad information going around in the argument over whether we should attack Iraq, and whether Iraq is a threat to us. Some of that bad information is simple ignorance concerning chemical and biological warfare, and some is deliberate dis-information. Among those charges are that we (1) sold Saddam chemical and biological weapons, (2) equipped his army, (3) helped him in his war with Iraq. These charges are specious but start with a germ of fact. These “facts” are always twisted, blown out of proportion and presented out of context by those wishing to smear the USA with the taint of Saddam’s crimes.

To help combat this I have put together a primer on the subject drawing on numerous sources, both published books and internet (they are listed at the end of this article). Because of the confusing nature and volume of relevant information, I have decided to present it in a timeline. This is useful because it helps one to follow the development of chemical and biological weapons, and why they present such a large threat if they fall into the wrong hands. It also lends historical perspective to the subject that is often lacking in other sources.

I have also gone into great detail concerning Soviet and U.S. Bio/Chemical weapons programs to provide additional perspective.

What is presented here is corroborated fact--conspiracy theories notwithstanding. In this case the truth is scarier than any conspiracy theory or work of fiction. If, after reading this, you are not convinced of the need to remove Saddam and others like him--then you probably have bigger issues you need to deal with.

The use of chemical and biological weapons has a long history. While this article may seem long, it is nothing more than a brief synopsis. But people need to know what I have presented here.

1000 BC. Chinese use arsenical smokes sicken enemy troops and make them combat ineffective.

600 BC. Solon of Athens puts hellebore roots in the drinking water of Kirrha to kill the inhabitants.

429 and 424 BC. Spartans and their allies use noxious smoke and flame against Athenian-allied cities during the Peloponnesian War.

400 BC. Scythian archers used arrows dipped in blood and manure or decomposing bodies to prevent wounds from healing.

200 BC. Carthaginians used Mandrake root left in wine to sedate the enemy.

190 BC. Hannibal hurls venomous snakes onto the enemy ships of Pergamus at Eurymedon to panic and injure enemy sailors.

Middle Ages. The use of disease to break sieges of castles and fortified towns is widespread. The most common method is to use catapults to hurl dead human or animal bodies over walls to spread disease. This same method is used to poison water sources.

1155. Barbarossa uses dead bodies to spread pathogens among the enemy during the battle of Tortona.

1346. Black Sea port of Kaffa (now Feodossia, Ukraine). Tartars attacking the port are attacked by rats carrying Plague. They return the favor by catapulting diseased bodies their dead into the city, forcing the defending Genoese to abandon it when Plague spreads. Ships carrying plague-infected refugees (and possibly rats) sailed to Constantinople, Genoa, Venice, and other Mediterranean ports and are thought to have contributed to the second plague pandemic.

1495. The Spanish try wine infected with leprosy patients’ blood against the French near Naples. Effects are inconclusive.

1650. A Polish artillery general, puts saliva from rabid dogs into hollow spheres for firing against his enemies.

1675. An agreement between the French and Germans, signed in Strasbourg, bans the use of poison bullets.

1710. The Russians cast plague-infected bodies into Swedish-held Reval, Estonia.

1754-1767. French and Indian War. Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander of British forces in North America, suggested the deliberate use of smallpox to "reduce" Native American tribes hostile to the British. An outbreak of smallpox at Fort Pitt results in the opportunity to execute Amherst's plan. On June 24, 1763, Captain Ecuyer, Amherst's subordinate, gives blankets and a handkerchief from the smallpox hospital to the Native Americans and records in his journal, "I hope it will have the desired effect." This was followed by an epidemic of smallpox among Native American tribes in the Ohio River valley, which may also have been spread by contact with settlers. Transmission of smallpox by fomites (on blankets) is inefficient compared with respiratory droplet transmission.

1785. Tunisians throw plague-infected clothing into La Calle, held by the Christians.

1847. The earliest known patent for a protective-mask is filed in the United State by Lewis P. Haslett.

1854. Lyon Playfair, a British chemist, proposes a cacodyl cyanide artillery shell for use against enemy ships. The British Ordnance Department rejects the proposal as a “bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy.”

1861. Union troops advancing south into Maryland and other border states are warned not to eat or drink anything provided by unknown civilians for fear of being poisoned. Despite warnings, there are numerous cases where soldiers think they have been poisoned after eating or drinking.

1863. Confederates retreating in Mississippi leave dead animals in wells and ponds to deny water sources to the Union troops.

1863. U.S. Army General Order No. 100 is issued. It states: “The use of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells, or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern warfare.”

1870’s. Robert Koch (later Nobelist) injects Bacillus anthracic into mice, demonstrating microorganisms as causative agents of disease (also tuberculosis, cholera, and insect-borne diseases). Isolation and production of specific pathogens becomes possible.

1874. International Declaration Concerning the Laws and Customs of War is signed in Brussels and includes a prohibition against poison or poisoned arms.

1899. The First Hague Peace Conference bans the use of poisons and is ratified by the United States.

1907. Second Hague Peace Conference retains the ban against poisons.

1914, 27 October. Germans fire 3,000 105 mm shells filled with dianisidine chlorosulfate, a lung irritant, at the British near Neuve-Chapelle, but with no visible effects. To evade the 1899 international ban, the Germans also put shrapnel in the shell so the “sole” purpose was not gas dissemination.

1914, November. Dr. Hans von Tappen designed a 150 mm howitzer shell containing 7 lb of xylyl bromide and a bursting charge for splintering effect. 18,000 of the shells are fired at Russian positions near Bolimov. Weather comes to the aid of the Russians by providing cold temperatures that prevent the vaporization of the gas. The Germans triy the same shells again on the western front at Nieuport in March, 1915 with equally unsuccessful results.

1915, April. Ypres, the first successful German chemical attack. Pioneer Regiment 35 places 1,600 large and 4,130 small cylinders containing a total of 168 tons of Chlorine opposite the Allied troops defending Ypres, Belgium. The containers are opened and wind blows chlorine gas into allied lines.
   As a weapon, the gas is particularly advantageous when used against soldiers in defensive positions. Being heavier than air, chlorine followed the ground’s contours and sank into the trenches and shell holes allied soldiers used as protection against shrapnel and bullet. This forced them to abandon their defences in favour of higher ground. Those who did stay found it extremely difficult to fight with watery eyes, heaving stomachs and burning lungs. Many allied soldiers die of suffocation or are killed by enemy fire when they abandon the safety of the trenches.

1915. Germans initiate covert biological warfare attacks against the Allies’ horses and cattle on both the western and the eastern fronts. Other attacks included a reported attempt to spread Plague in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1915.

1916, May. Germans start using Trichloromethyl chloroformate (diphosgene), while the French tried Hydrogen cyanide 2 months later and Cyanogen chloride the same year.

1916. Germans infect Romanian sheep being exported to Russia with Anthrax. The plot is discovered when cultures are confiscated from the German Legation in Romania. German agents also infect horses of the French cavalry, Argentinean livestock intended for export to Allied forces, and attempt to infect U.S. cattle feed and horses bound for the front.

1917. Germany is accused of poisoning wells in the Somme area with human corpses, and ofdropping fruit, chocolate, and children’s toys infected with lethal bacteria into Romanian cities.

1917, July. Germans introduce Mustard agent to provide a persistent vesicant that could attack the body in places not protected by gas masks. To further complicate defensive actions, both sides mixed agents and experimented with camouflage materials (dyes) to prevent quick identification.

1918, 26 February. Germans fire 150 to 250 Phosgene and Chloropicrin projectiles against the Americans near Bois de Remieres, France. The Americans suffered 85 casualties with 8 deaths, approximately 33% of their battalion.

1918, 28 June. The U.S. War Department formally establishes the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), under Major General William L. Sibert, as part of the National Army (ie, the war-time army, as distinguished from the regular army). The CWS was organized into seven main divisions.
   The Research Division was located at American University, Washington, D. C. Most of the weapons and agent research was conducted by this division during the war. The Gas Defense Division was responsible for the production of gas masks and had a large plant in Long Island City, New York. The Gas Offense Division was responsible for the production of chemical agents and weapons, with its main facility located at Edgewood Arsenal, Mary-land. The Development Division was responsible for charcoal production, and also pilot-plant work on mustard agent production. The Proving Ground Division was collocated with the Training Division at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The Medical Division was responsible for the pharmacological aspects of chemical defense.
   The offensive chemical unit for the AEF was the First Gas Regiment, formerly the 30th Engineers. This unit was organized at American University under the command of Colonel E. J. Atkisson in 1917, and was sent to France in early 1918.

1920, 1 July. The CWS becomes a permanent part of the Regular Army. Its mission includes development, procurement, and supply of all offensive and defensive chemical warfare material, together with similar functions in the fields of smoke and incendiary weapons.

1922. U.S. destroys all leftover stocks of chemical warfare weapons except for a limited number to be used in testing for defensive measure.

1922. Limitation of Arms Conference, held in Washington, D. C., bans the use of poisonous gases except in retaliation. The United States ratified the limitation, but France declined to ratify the treaty and therefore it was never implemented.

1925. Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare signed by 28 countries, including the United States. The U.S. Senate, however, refused to ratify the Protocol and remained uncommitted by it. The general policy of the U.S. government, tended toward the discouragement of all aspects of chemical warfare, tempered by a policy of preparedness should chemical warfare occur again. The United States does not ratify the Geneva Protocol until 1975.

1929. The Soviets reportedly established a biological warfare facility north of the Caspian Sea.

“In the matter of chemical warfare, the War Department opposes any restrictions whereby the United States would refrain from all peacetime preparation or manufacture of gases, means of launching gases, or defensive gas material. No provision that would require the disposal or destruction of any existing installation of our Chemical Warfare Service or of any stocks of chemical warfare material should be incorporated in an agreement. Furthermore, the existence of a War Department agency engaged in experimentation and manufacture of chemical warfare materials, and in training for unforeseen contingencies is deemed essential to our national defense.” - U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, letter to Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson in 1932.

1933-45. Japan sets up an offensive biological warfare laboratory in occupied Manchuria under the supervision of Dr. Ishii, later designated Detachment 731. Additional biological warfare facilities were established in 1939, the same year that Japanese troops allegedly entered Russia to poison animals with Anthrax and other diseases.
   Japanese Army Unit 731 conducts bio-war experiments on human beings outside Harbin, Manchuria. 11 Chinese cities are later attacked with the agents like Anthrax, Cholera, Shigellosis, Salmonella, and Plague. At least 10,000 die.

1935, 3 October. Benito Mussolini launches an invasion of Ethiopia from its neighbors Eritrea, an Italian colony, and Italian Somaliland. Ethiopia protests to the League of Nations, which imposes limited economic sanctions. Marshal Pietro Badoglio, is ordered to finish the war quickly. He resorts to chemical weapons to defeat the Ethiopian troops led by Emperor Haile Selassie. Unprepared Ethiopian troops are devastated and their army routed.

1936. German chemist Dr. Gerhart Schrader of I. G. Farben Company discovered an organophosphorus insecticide, which was reported to the Chemical Weapons Section of the German military prior to patenting. The military assigned the name Tabun to the new substance. 2 years later, Schrader developed a similar agent, eventually called Sarin, which was reportedly 5 times as toxic as Tabun. The United States later designated this agent GB. During the war they would produce 78,000 tons of chemical warfare agents, including 12,000 tons of it tabun and 1,000 tons of Sarin.

1937. Edgewood Arsenal rehabilitates their mustard agent plant and produced 154 tons of mustard agent to increase their stockpile. The same year, the Phosgene plant was renovated for additional production, and the CWS changed phosgene from substitute standard to standard. It also ramps up production of gas masks to 50,000 per year.

1937. Saddam Hussein is born in 1937 in the Tikrit district, north of Baghdad.

1939. Canada initiates biological warfare research under Sir Frederick Banting at Connaught Laboratories, Ile Grosse, and at Suffield. The Canadians started work on Anthrax, Botulinum Toxin, Plague, and Psittacosis.

1939-45. Hitler reportedly issued orders prohibiting biological weapons development in Germany. However, with the support of high-ranking Nazi party officials, German scientists began biological weapons research. Prisoners in Nazi concentration camps were forcibly infected with Rickettsia prowazekii, Rickettsia mooseri, Hepatitis A virus, and Plasmodia spp and treated with investigational vaccines and drugs.

1940. British establish chemical/biological warfare laboratory at Porton Down.

1941. U.S. Army conducts extensive training maneuvers that include chemical warfare scenarios. U.S. decided on “no first use” policy. By the end of the war the U.S. produces 146,000 tons of chemical weapons, mostly improved Mustard and Cyanogen chloride. None are used.

1942. On Gruinard Island, off the coast of Scotland, the British conduct Anthrax tests on sheep. Today, the uninhabited island is still believed to be infected with Anthrax spores.

“We shall under no circumstances resort to the use of such [chemical] weapons unless they are first used by our enemies.” - President Roosevelt, 1943.

“Any use of gas by any axis power, therefore, will immediately be followed by the fullest possible retaliation upon munition centers, seaports and other military objectives throughout the whole extent of the territory of such axis country.” - President Roosevelt, 1943.

“I have been loath to believe that any nation, even our present enemies... would be willing to loose upon mankind such terrible and inhumane weapons.... Use of such weapons had been ruled out by the general opinion of civilized mankind.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1943.

1943. Ft. Detrick Maryland becomes the head quarters for U.S. Bio Weapons offensive and defensive research. Research is conducted on Anthrax, Botulism, Tularemia, Brucellosis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, and Q Fever over the course of Detrick’s history. While the U.S. prepares to use them if attacked in-kind, the U.S. never uses these weapons during WWII. Research slows after the war, but picks up again in the 1950’s when U.S. Discovers that the Soviets have a “crash” research program underway to develop chemical and biological weapons. U-2 over flights identify several large testing facilities and outdoor test ranges Research on vaccines against possible and known enemy bio-weapons is also conducted at Detrick.

1943, 2 December. The SS John Harvey, loaded with 2,000 M47A1 Mustard agent bombs, was destroyed after a German air raid at Bari Harbor, Italy. The only members of the crew who were aware of the chemical munitions were killed in the raid. As a result of the destruction of the ship, mustard agent contaminated the oily water in the harbor and caused more than 600 casualties, in addition to those killed or injured in the actual attack. The harbor clean-up took 3 weeks and used large quantities of lime as a decontaminant.

1945. Iraq joined the United Nations and became a founding member of the Arab League.

1946. Soviets build a factory specializing in Anthrax production. This is spurred by soviet capture of Japanese from germ Unit 731 several years earlier. Others evade Soviet capture and are taken prisoner by the U.S.

1946, August 2. Public Law 607 changed the name of the CWS to the Chemical Corps.

1947. Soviets build a complex for making viral weapons, including Smallpox, just outside Zagorsk.

“It required the experiences of World War II to demonstrate that the most important basic factor in a nation’s military strength is its war production potential and ability to convert smoothly and quickly its industry, manpower, and other economic resources.” - Major General Anthony C. McAuliffe, Chief of the Chemical Corps, 1950.

1950. The Chemical Corps began construction of the first full-scale sarin production complex at the Edgewood Arsenal Plant stays in operation 4 years and is shut down.

1950, June. With the onset of the Korean War, the Army Chemical Corps participates in its first military action.

1950-53. While both sides gear up for possible use of chemical weapons, neither side uses them during the war.

“Today, thanks to Joe Stalin, we are back in business.” - Major General Egbert F. Bullene, the new Chief of the Chemical Corps, 1953.

1955. The Chemical Corps formerly established a new project called Psychochemical Agents. The next year, the program was redesignated "K"-agents. The objective was to develop a non-lethal but potent incapacitants that could be disseminated from airplanes in all environments. The program was conducted at the Army Chemical Center and examined nonmilitary drugs like Lysergic acid (LSD) and Tetrahydrocannabinol (related to marijuana). None of these drugs, however, are found to be of military worth.

1956. Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas. Discovery of Soviet bio-weapons factories spurs to Army build factory for manufacturing of non-lethal bio-weapons using Q-Fever (Coxiella burnetti) and VEE (Venezuelan equine encephalitis). Eggs from nearby farms are injected with the microbes, incubated and then harvested. Arkansas is chosen because it is the nation’s largest egg producer.

1956. The Baghdad Pact allies Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, and establishes its headquarters in Baghdad.

1957. Saddam Hussein joins the Ba'ath Party and becomes one of it’s thugs.

1958, July. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem takes power in coup, during which King Faysal II and Prime Minister Nuri as-Said are killed. Kassem ends Iraq's membership in the Baghdad Pact in 1959 and turns to the Soviet Union for support.

1959. After taking part in a failed attempt to assassinate the Iraqi President, Abdul Karim Kassem, Saddam escaped, first to Syria and then to Egypt. In his absence he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

1959. Iraq's nuclear program was established under the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. Under a nuclear co-operation agreement signed with the Soviet Union in 1959, a nuclear research center, equipped with a research reactor, was built at Tuwaitha, the main Iraqi nuclear research center. The research reactor worked up to 1991. The surge in Iraqi oil revenues in the early 1970s supported an expansion of the research program. This was bolstered in the mid-1970s by the acquisition of two research reactors powered by highly enriched uranium fuel and equipment for fuel fabrication and handling. By the end of 1984 Iraq was self-sufficient in uranium ore. One of the reactors was destroyed in an Israeli air attack in June 1981 shortly before it was to become operational; the other was never completed.

1960, February 18. Full meeting of the National Security Council. Eisenhower is briefed on Soviet and U.S. Bio-weapons research. Eisenhower is briefed on the U.S. focus on non-lethal incapacitation agents that, instead of killing, cause lethargy, irritation, blackout, paralysis, generalized illness and a lack of will to fight--all effects being temporary so as to reduce repercussions in the international community if used. By contrast, it is noted, most Soviet biological agents under development were lethal.
   Eisenhower, who was delighted at the possibilities of non-lethal agents on the battlefield, still worried that their use might be interpreted as full-scale attack by the enemy. Eisenhower and theJoint Chiefs decide that if they ever decide to employ these agents, they will need to immediately notify the world of their non-lethal nature.

1960’s. Vietnam. Viet-Cong smear sharpened punji sticks with human excrement to cause infection in soldiers injured by booby-traps.

“For hundreds of years it has been impossible to carry on war without firing hot metal capable of blasting off legs and arms and of leaving men blind or mindless for life.... Ironically enough, it can be argued that the only known hope for a relatively humane warfare in the future lies in the chemical and biological weapons.” - Brigadier General J. H. Rothschild, "Germ and Chemical Warfare," Survival. March 1962. Quote is in reference to the use of non-lethal agents.

1963, February. Kassem is assassinated when the Arab Socialist Renaissance Party (Ba'ath Party) takes power under the leadership of Gen. Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr as prime minister and Col. Abdul Salam Arif as president.

1963, May. Saddam returns to Baghdad following the coup by the Ba'ath Party. He becomes an interrogator in the Fellaheen and Muthaqafeen detention camps. These are camps where communists and fellow-travellers are kept. The coup against the “Communist” Kassem is assisted by the CIA which receives several Mig fighter jets and Soviet tanks for helping the Ba'ath Party.

1963, October. Arif leads a coup ousting the Ba'ath government and bringing the Communists back into control of the government.

1966, April. Arif is killed in a plane crash and is succeeded by his brother, Gen. Abdul Rahman Mohammad Arif.

1967. Saddam Hussein takes over responsibility for Ba'ath Party security. Saddam sets about imposing his will on the Party and establishing himself at the center of party power.

1968, July 17. A group of Ba'athists and military elements overthrow the Arif regime. Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr re-emerges as the President of Iraq and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). Ba'ath party seeks U.S. help in re-arming Iraqi military but is turned down.

1968. A Czech General defects to the United States and reports that U.S. prisoners of war were used for biological tests by the Russians in North Korea.

1969. Saddam became Vice- Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Deputy to the President, and Deputy Secretary General of the Regional Command of the Ba'ath.

1969
, November 25. Nixon renounces the U.S. Use of Bio-weapons, stating, “The U.S. shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare. The U.S. will confine its biological research to defensive measures.... [The Human Race] already carries in its hands too many of the seeds of its own destruction.” Nixon becomes the worlds leading advocate for a treaty banning such weapons.

“I have decided that the United States of America will renounce the use of any form of deadly biological weapons that either kill or incapacitate. Our bacteriological programs in the future will be confined to research in biological defense on techniques of immunization and on measures of controlling and preventing the spread of disease. I have ordered the Defense Department to make recommendations about the disposal of the existing stocks of bacteriological weapons.” - President Richard M. Nixon, 1969

1971 to 1973. All remaining biological weapons were destroyed at Pine Bluff Arsenal,Rocky Mountain Arsenal, and Fort Detrick.

1971. An outbreak of Plague in Aralsk is attributed to Soviet testing at Vozrozhdeniye island in Kazakhstan.

1971. Iraq begins chemical warfare research at Rashad to the north east of Baghdad. Research is conducted on a number of chemical agents including Mustard gas, CS (tear gas) and Tabun. Iraq starts biological warfare research in the mid-1970s. After small-scale research, a purpose-built research and development facility was authorized at al-Salman, also known as Salman Pak.

1972. Saddam, knowing that the Soviet Union will re-equip the Iraqi Army, travels to Moscow. Iraq and the Soviet Union sign a treaty of “Friendship and Cooperation.” Another reason Saddam signs the treaty is because it obligated the local communist party, which is very strong, to co-operate with the Ba'ath Party, which is not so strong at that time.

1972. The United States, the Soviet Union, and more than 100 other nations sign the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. The accord prohibits the possession of deadly biological agents except for research into such defensive measures as vaccines, detectors, and protective gear. This is the world’s first treaty to ban an entire class of weapons. The Army establishes the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases as successor to its former program at Ft. Detrick.
   Unfortunately, the Convention is only a pledge and lacks provisions for inspections or enforcement--while containing numerous loopholes.

1973. Stanford school of medicine researchers Boyer & Cohen use gene splicing to create a viable, penicillin resistant strain of E. coli.

1973. The Soviet Union establishes Biopreparat, which would become the hub of Moscow’s germ warfare effort. At it’s peak in the 80’s it will employ over 30,000 scientists and technicians at more than 100 facilities across the Soviet Union. Secretly run by the military, it would command annual budgets approaching 1 billion dollars. During its life it would study over 80 different agents and weaponize over a dozen of them, including: Tularemia, various strains of Anthrax, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Botulinum, Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, Glanders, and Marburg (a virus similar to Ebola which cause hemoragic fever).

1973-1989. Czechoslovakia sells Iraq (81) L-39ZO Albatros Jet trainer aircraft; (750) BMP-1 IFVs; (200) BMP-2 IFVs; (400) T-55 Main battle tanks.

1973, October. Yom Kippur War. Following the Yom Kippur War, the Israelis analyze Soviet-made equipment captured from the Egyptians and Syrians. They discover portable chemical-proof shelters, decontamination equipment for planes and tanks, and that most Soviet vehicles have air-filtration systems on them to remove toxic chemicals.
   The indications are that the Soviets are ready for extensive chemical warfare and might actually be planning to initiate chemical warfare in a future war. Soviet division commanders are later thought to already have authority to initiate chemical warfare.

1975. Biological and Toxin Weapons Treaty goes into effect.

1976. The Soviets establish a new germ warfare facility in Siberia known as “Vector”. The largest and most sophisticated facility of its kind ever built, it’s primary purpose is to research viruses for possible weaponization. A large part of its research has to do with using recombinant DNA techniques to produce ultra-deadly “superbugs” impervious to known defensive measures. Research includes germs designed to seize control of the human metabolism, causing the body to self-destruct, and splicing the gene that makes Diphtheria toxin into Plague bacteria, which devastates animal test subjects.

1976. The Secretary of The Army reverses a decision to abolish the Chemical Corps. He cites the heightened awareness of the Soviet Union’s capability to wage chemical warfare as the primary reason, and the need to train Army personnel how to counter chemical threats.

“Chemical weapons can be tailored to fit the exact requirements of the changing situation. They can effect any necessary type of casualties from incapacitation to death in minutes.” - General Frank Stubbs, U.S. Army Chemical Corps.

1970s & 1980s, Biopreparat, an organization under the Ministry of Defense, expands to at least 6 research laboratories, 5 production facilities and employes up to 55,000 military and civilian scientists and technicians. A 1995 report estimated that the Russian program continues to employ 25,000 to 30,000 people.

1977. Last known outbreak of Smallpox occurs in Somalia.

1977-1990. France sell Iraq (23) Mirage F-1C Fighter aircraft; (85) Mirage F-1 Fighter aircraft (various versions); (18) SA-342K/L Gazelle Light helicopters (assembled in Egypt); (5) Super Etendard FGA aircraft for use with AM-39 anti-ship missiles against Iranian warships and oil tankers in the Persian Gulf; (85) AMX-GCT 155mm Self-propelled guns; (100) AMX-10P IFV’s; (150) ERC-90 Sagaie Armoured cars; (115) M-3 VTT APC’s; (2) Rasit Battlefield radars; (113) Roland Mobile SAM systems; (1) TRS-2100 Tiger Surveillance radar (Fitted in Iraq on an Il-76 transport aircraft designated “Baghdad-1”); (6) TRS-2230/15 Surveillance radars; (280) AM-39 Exocet Anti-ship missiles For Mirage F-1E and Super Etendard aircraft; (36) AM-39 Exocet Anti-ship missile For AS-332 helicopters; (450) ARMAT Anti-radar missiles For Mirage F-1E FGA aircraft; (240) AS-30L ASM’s For Mirage F-1E FGA aircraft; (1,000) HOT Anti-tank missile For SA-342K helicopters and VCR-TH tank destroyers; (534) R-550 Magic-1 AAM’s For Mirage F-1C fighter aircraft; (2,260) Roland-2 SAM’s; (300) Super-530F AAM’s For Mirage F-1C fighter aircraft.

1978-1990. Soviet union sells Iraq (33) Il-76M/Candid-B Transport/tanker aircraft; (37) Mi-17/Hip-H Helicopters; (12) Mi-24D/Mi-25/Hind-D Combat helicopters; (30) Mi-8TV/Hip-F Helicopter; (61) MiG-21bis/Fishbed-N Fighter aircraft; (50) MiG-23BN/Flogger-H FGA aircraft; (30) MiG-25P/Foxbat-A Fighter aircraft; (8) MiG-25RB/Foxbat-B Reconnaissance; (41) MiG-29/Fulcrum-A Fighter aircraft; (46) Su-22/Fitter-H/J/K FGA aircraft; (25) Su-24MK/Fencer-D Bomber aircraft; (84) Su-25/Frogfoot-A Ground attack aircraft; (180) 2A36 152mm Towed guns; (100) 2S1 122mm Self-propelled guns; (100) 2S3 152mm Self-propelled guns; (10) 2S4 240mm Self-propelled mortars; (560) BM-21 122mm MRL; (576) D-30 122mm Towed guns; (576) M-46 130mm Towed guns; (10) SS-1 Scud/9P117M SSM launchers; (100) BRDM-2 Sagger-equipped tank destroyers; (200) PT-76 Light tanks; (60) SA-13/9K35 Strela-10 self-propelled AA systems; (160) SA-9/9P31 self-propelled AA systems; (2,150) T-62 Main battle tanks; (25) SA-6a/2K12 Kvadrat SAM systems; (80) SA-8b/9K33M Osa-AK Mobile SAM systems; (960) SA-13 Gopher/9M37 SAM’s; (100) SA-14 Gremlin/Strela-3 Portable SAM; (250) SA-16 Gimlet/Igla-1 Portable SAM’s; (840) SA-6a Gainful/3M9 SAM’s; (6,500) SA-7 Grail/Strela-2 Portable SAM’s; (1,290) SA-8b Gecko/9M33M SAM’s; (1,920) SA-9 Gaskin/9M31 SAM’s; (800) SS-1c Scud-B/R-17 SSM’s; (40) SS-1c Scud-B/R-17 SSM’s.

1978. Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated using an “umbrella gun” that shoots a Ricin laced BB into his thigh. The attack is carried out by the KGB.

1978-1990. Germany (FRG), sells Iraq (28) BK-117 Helicopters (intended for VIP transport and Search & Rescue); (20) Bo-105C Light helicopters.

1979-1989. Brazil sells Iraq (67) Astros-2 MRL’s; (350) EE-11 Urutu APCs; (280) EE-3 Jararaca Reconnaissance vehicles; (1,026) EE-9 Cascavel Armoured cars; (13) Astros AV-UCF Fire control radars for use with the MRLs.

1979-1989. Switzerland sells Iraq (2) PC-6B Turbo Porter Light transport aircraft; (52) PC-7 Turbo Trainer Trainer aircraft; (20) PC-9 Trainer aircraft.

1979, April. Sverdlosk military industrial complex suffers a major Bio-weapons accident when a lethal cloud of weaponized Anthrax floats over a nearby village. An estimated 1,000 people eventually die. The soviet military seizes control of the area and begins clean-up operations. The incident is first reported the following October in a Frankfurt based Russian émigré newspaper. Later the next year, eyewitness accounts appear in Bild Zeitung, and intelligence sources confirm the accident which is denied by the Soviets, who claim the deaths were due to a minor outbreak of anthrax from infected meat. In 1992 Boris Yeltsin admits there was an accident. The later, “official” death toll is 66.

1979, July. Bakr resignes. Saddam Hussein takes over the Presidency of Iraq. Within days, five fellow members of the Revolutionary Command Council are accused of involvement in a coup attempt. They and 17 others are summarily executed.

1979, December. Soviets invade Afghanistan. Before the war, the Afghan population is estimated to have been somewhat more than fifteen million people. Over five million (a third of the country), became refugees, mostly in Pakistan and Iran; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called this ``migratory genocide.'' Millions more became refugees within the country, swelling the population of Kabul. Another million people are killed, either in fighting, or in massacres by Soviet troops, or by sheer starvation. Land-mines are effectively employed to make much of the countryside uninhabitable; also to make tens of thousands of people cripples. In a display of really macabre ingenuity, the Soviets take to scattering brightly-colored plastic toys, which explode when picked up by children. There is considerable evidence that, at least in some districts, the Soviets engage in deliberate campaigns of extermination, and make use of chemical weapons.

1979. Reports begin to filter out ot Laos of possible soviet bio-weapons use. Hmong tribesmen report that helicopters flown by Soviet-backed forces are spraying villages with a mysterious substance that causes horrific burns and lesions on the skin, and internal bleeding. Refugees call it “yellow rain ” (trichothecene mycotoxins). Later, reports of this same substance and others filter out of Afghanistan. Attacks in Southeast and Central Asia reportedly cause thousands of deaths between 1974 and 1981. Experts are split on the veracity of reports and the type of agent.

1980. Smallpox is considered to have been “eliminated” in the world population.

1980. Denmark sells Iraq (3) Al Zahraa Class Landing ships.

1980-1984. Italy sells Iraq (2) A-109 Hirundo Light helicopters; (6) S-61 Helicopters For VIP transport; 1 Stromboli Class Support ship.

1980’s. Soviet forces in Afghanistan employ chemical weapons against Muhajidin and civilians in areas under their control. Nerve and mico-toxin agents are the prime suspects. Their use is denied.

1980, September. Saddam renounces a border treaty with Iran in 1975. The treaty ceded half of the Shatt al-Arab waterway to Iran.

1980, September 22. The armed forces of Iraq launch an invasion against Iran. The Iraqi army, trained and influenced by Soviet advisers, has organic chemical warfare units and possesses a wide variety of delivery systems. When neither side achieves dominance, the war quickly stalemates. To stop the human-wave attacks by the Iranians, Iraq employs home-produced chemical agents as a defensive measure against the ill-prepared Iranians.
   The first reported use of chemical weapons is in November 1980 (probably CS). For the next several years, reports circulate of additional chemical attacks.

“During the war with Iran, I remember telling someone [that] Khomeini isn't the only person who talks to god. Saddam Hussein thinks he talks to god. He has a message--he has to lead Iraq, make it a model for the Arab countries and then attract the rest of the Arab countries and become the sole Arab leader of modern times.” - Said Aburish, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge.

1980-88. Chemical weapons are used extensively during Iran-Iraq war. Most are used by Iraq. Saddam is also believed to have used them against his own people, primarily Kurdish and Shiia minorities. First use during the war is by Iraq. By 1985 Iraq is producing 1,000 tons of various chemical weapons agents annually.
   During the war, Saddam appoints his cousin, Ali Hasan al-Majid, as his deputy in the north. In 1987-88, al-Majid led the "Anfal" campaign of attacks on Kurdish villages. All villages within 20 kilometers of the Iranian border are ruthlessly destroyed, and many are attacked with chemical weapons. Amnesty International estimates that more than 100,000 Kurds were killed or “disappeared” during this period.
   During the first half of the war the United States provides Iraq with limited military assistance in the form of satelite imagry of Iranian military dispostions and troop concentrations. Assistance is ended when their use of chemical weapons is confirmed.

1981-1984. Romania sells Iraq (150) T-55 Main battle tanks (transferred via Egypt); (256) T-55 Main battle tanks.

1981-1988. China sells Iraq (4) B-6 Bomber aircraft; (40) F-6 Fighter aircraft; (80) F-7A Fighter aircraft (Assembled in Egypt and transferred via Jordan); (50) Type-83 152mm Towed guns; (1,300) Type-59/T-54 Main battle tanks; (25) Type-653 Armored Recon Vehicles; (1,300) Type-69-II Main battle tanks; (650) YW-531C & YW-701/Type-63 APC; (100) CAS-1 Kraken/C-601 Anti-ship missiles For Tu-16/B-6 bomber aircraft; (1,000) HN-5A Portable SAMs.

1981-1988. UK sells Iraq (29) Chieftain Armoured Recon Vehicles; (10) Cymbaline Mk-1 Arty locating radars.

1981-1989. Egypt sells Iraq (80) EMB-312 Tucano Trainer aircraft; (18) SA-342K/L Gazelle Light helicopters; (300) BM-21 122mm MRLs (multiple rocket launcher); (210) D-30 122mm Towed guns; (96) M-46 130mm Towed guns; (300) Sakr-36 122mm MRLs; (250) T-55 Main battle tanks (Ex-Egyptian Army).

1981-1989. Spain sells Iraq (24) Bo-105C Light helicopters; (2) Al Fao Self-propelled guns.

1981. Israeli jets bomb the French-supplied 40-megawatt Osirak research reactor in Iraq. Experts agree that if this had not been done, Iraq would have had a functioning nuclear weapon by the time of the Gulf War. Iraqi scientists had planned, not to divert the existing French-supplied highly enriched nuclear fuel (enough for one bomb), but rather to blanket the reactor with natural or depleted uranium, which would produce plutonium. That would have made it possible to continue producing, eventually allowing repeated bomb production.

1982. The Soviets build a new germ warfare facility in Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan to produce their new, more lethal variant of Anthrax. Named the Scientific Experimental and Production Base, it is the most advanced facility of its type ever built, and the only such facility outside of the Russian heartland. In 1991, Kazakhstan gains independence and in 1995 allows U.S. inspectors access to the abandoned facility.
   Andy Weber, the chief inspector, calculates that at full capacity the plant could produce 300 tons of Anthrax in a single 220 day production cycle. More than enough to wipe out the entire population of the United States. Stepnogorsk is only one of six such facilities operated by the Soviet Union.
   One reason Kazakhstan allows U.S. inspectors to visit, is their anger over the environmental disasters left over from the soviets WMD programs. The Russians used Kazakhstan and neighboring Uzbekistan for open-air tests on advanced chemical, germ and nuclear weapons. These tests have left many in these regions with radiation-related cancers and a host of debilitating diseases.
   Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea was used for open air tests of biological and chemical weapons on thousands of test animals. These tests also killed as many as 30,000 Taiga Antelope on the Usturt Plateau in western Uzbekistan which lies downwind of Vozrozhdeniye, not to mentions thousands of other game animals and livestock in the region.

1982. Austria sells Iraq (200) GHN-45 Towed guns. Officially ordered by Jordan, but illegally delivered to Iraq.

1982. Libya sells Iraq (400) EE-9 Cascavel Armoured cars.

1982. Iraq also establishes Muthanna State Establishment, also known as al-Muthanna, and operated under the front name of Iraq's State Establishment for Pesticide Production. It has five research and development sections, each tasked to pursue different programs. In addition, the al-Muthanna site is the main chemical agent production facility, and took the lead in weaponizing chemical and biological agents--including all aspects of weapon development and testing in association with the military.

1982-1990. Poland sells Iraq (15) Mi-2/Hoplite Light helicopters; (750) MT-LB APC’s; (400) T-55 Main battle tanks; (500) T-72M1 Main battle tanks.

1982, October 27. Iraq's first operational Scud Missile brigade, equipped with 9 launchers, fires its missiles at Iran. During the war, Iraq fires between 333 and 360 Scud missiles at Iran, 183 at Teheran alone. Iraq is known to have purchased over 1,000 Scud missiles from the Soviets during the war. The Iranians return the favor by firing their own Scuds at Baghdad.

1983-1985. USA sells Iraq (31) Bell-214ST Helicopters (Officially bought for civilian use, but taken over by Air Force); (30) Hughes-300/TH-55 light helicopters (Officially bought for civilian use, but taken over by Air Force); (30) MD-500MD Defender light scout helicopters; (26) MD-530F light helicopters. This is the much vaunted sale of U.S. arms to Iraq! Only 26 of these aircraft are military versions and those are light, unarmed scouts.

1983, June. Iraq deploys Mustard Gas and uses it against Iran.

1983. An Army study suggests that Anthrax can be turned into a much easier to control bio-weapon through recombinant DNA by making decay in sunlight. The main drawback to Anthrax is its persistence. U.S. suspects that Soviets are experimenting with recombinant DNA techniques to create Superbugs for Bio-war in violation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Treaty.

1983, November. Iran complains to the United Nations that Iraq is using chemical weapons against its troops.

1984. Congress created the Chemical Warfare Review Commission to look at several issues related to the military’s chemical warfare preparedness. This committee visited numerous sites, interviewed experts, reviewed policy, and examined intelligence reports. Among their findings, the commission concluded:
   “that in spite of the approximately $4 billion that the Congress has appropriated since 1978 for defense against chemical warfare, that defense, measured either for purposes of deterrence or for war fighting utility, is not adequate and is not likely to become so. Chemical combat as it would exist in the late twentieth century is an arena in which defense must be nearly perfect to be effective at all, detection is so difficult, and surprise offers such temptation—the offense enjoys a decisive advantage if it need not anticipate chemical counterattack. Defense continues to be important to pursue, because it can save some lives and preserve some military capabilities. But for this country to put its faith in defense against chemical weapons as an adequate response to the Soviet chemical threat would be a dangerous illusion.”

1984. Dalles, Oregon. Followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh commit a biological attack against the town to eliminate opposition in the city council against re-zoning for their ranch/compound. The agent used was Salmonella typhimurium. The attack was carried out by spraying a Salmonella solution into the salad bars of 35 restaurants along Interstate 84, where most locals ate. Between 750 to 1,000 people were affected and became violently ill. While no one died during the attack (a small miracle), one newborn infant whose mother was a victim suffered permanent damage due to the disease. This incident resulted in 751 cases of enteritis and 45 hospitalizations. After a year long investigation an amateur “bio-weapons lab” was found on the Rajneesh’s compound when an employee admitted the attack and told investigators where to look. Among the virulent cultures found were Francissella tularensis, Sallmonella typhi, Salmonella paratyphi, and Shigella dysenteriae. Had these been used, as was planned in a follow up to the first attack, deaths would have been certain. Several cult members are convicted of these crimes in 1986.

1984. South Africa sells Iraq (200) G-5 155mm Towed guns.

1984. Iraq begins producing the nerve agent Tabun and deploys it within the year for use against Iran.

1984. 4000 prisoners are executed at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Prison. 3000 more prisoners are executed at the Mahjar Prison between 1993 and 1998. Women prisoners at Mahjar are routinely raped by their guards.

1984, 1986, 1987. The United Nations dispatches teams of specialists to the area to verify claims of Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iran. The conclusion from all three trips is the same: Iraq is using chemical weapons against Iranian troops. In addition, the second mission also stressed that the use of chemical weapons by Iraq appeared to be increasing despite the publicity of their use. The reports indicated that Mustard agent and the nerve agent Tabun are the primary agents used, and that they were generally delivered in airplane bombs. The third mission reports the use of artillery shells and chemical rockets, and the use of chemical weapons against civilian personnel. The third mission is the only one allowed to visit Iraq.
   The Iran–Iraq War fails to reach a military conclusion despite the use of chemical weapons by both sides. Roughly 5% (20,000) of the Iranian casualties are caused by chemical weapons. Many remain hospitalized to this day.

1984, April. Reagan goes public about suspected Soviet use of chemical and biological weapons in southeast asia and Afghanistan. A few days later the Wall Street Journal prints interviews from Soviet émigrés who allege that Moscow is, in fact, conducting a whole range of recombinant DNA experiment--including viruses containing cobra venom genes that would create deadly toxins inside the victims body after infection.

“The United States must maintain a limited retaliatory capability until we achieve an effective ban. We must be able to deter a chemical attack against us or our allies. And without a modern and credible deterrent, the prospects for achieving a comprehensive ban would be nil.” - Ronald Reagan.

1985. Jordan sells Iraq (2) S-76 Spirit Helicopters (Ex-Jordanian Air Force).

1985. The U.S. Congress passed Public Law 99-145 authorizing production of binary-chemical weapons. Binary weapons, which use otherwise safe chemicals that only become dangerous when combined are considered safe for storage and disposal, and a necessary deterrent against the Soviet Chemical weapons arsenals. Nuclear deterrence is not considered sufficient, especially in light of soviet treaty violations and chemical warfare military doctrine.

1985. Dr Rihab Taha is selected to head the biological weapons research team at al-Muthanna.

“Dr. Spertzel, it’s not a lie when you are ordered to lie.” - Dr Rihab Taha, response to UNSCOM inspectors when asked why she continued to lie in the face of proof, 1995.

1986. Iraq begins producing Sarin nerve agent.

1986. Baghdad University purchased an assortment of germs from the American Type Culture Collection, for “medical” research.
   The collection serves as a global lending library for scientists doing research to combat infectious diseases to improve global health. Overseas customers were required to obtain a Commerce Department export license for the most virulent strains. These licenses had always been a formality since these germs were intended for peaceful research only, and the courtesy was extended to all who asked for legitimate reasons. Moscow, too has a vast collection of infectious diseases.

1987. After admitting for the first time that they possess chemical agents, the Soviets announced the halting of chemical weapons production.

1987, December 16. Production of the M687 binary projectile begins at Pine Bluff Arsenal. This was no small feat considering modern environmental and general public concerns. To resolve political concerns, the M20 canisters were filled and stored at Pine Bluff Arsenal, while the M21 canisters were produced and filled at Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant. The filled M21 canisters and shell bodies were then stored at Tooele Army Depot, Utah. In time of need, the parts could be combined and would provide the army with a chemical retaliatory capability.
   Additional delivery systems are the BLU-80/B (BIGEYE) bomb and XM135 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Binary Chemical Warhead. Both utilize the binary concept. These systems dispersed the persistent nerve agent VX after mixing two non-lethal chemical agents (designated NE and QL).

1988. Gorbachev orders scientists at Sverdlosk to dispose of the tons of Anthrax it has stored at Zima, near Irkutsk. It is presumed that, in light of his policies of glastnost and perestroika, he nervous that Britain or the U.S. may demand to inspect the facility, revealing Soviet breaches of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. The Anthrax is taken to the Vozrozhdeniye island test range in Kazakhstan where it is soaked in bleach and buried.

1988. While working at the Vector facility in Siberia, scientist Nikolai Ustinov accidentally infects himself with the Marburg virus while trying to perfect it as a weapon. Marburg, like Ebola, causes hemoragic fever. Ustinov dies, but his colleagues harvest the virus from his body and discover that it has mutated into a more virulent form which they designate “Variant U.”

1988. Al-Hakam, a large biological agent production facility, goes into operation in Iraq. Botulinin toxin and Anthrax are its main are its main production. By 1991 the plant produces about 125,000 gallons of agents. After stating for years that the plant was used to produce animal feed, the Iraqis admitted in 1995 that the plant was a biological warfare production facility. The admission come only as a result of a high-level defection. The site is supervised by Dr. Taha’s staff at Muthanna State Establishment.
   In addition to producing biological warfare agents, they also conducted live-agent tests on animals. The Iraqis also later admitted they had prepared about 200 biological missiles and bombs. Still unaccounted for.
   Hans Branscheidt a chemical expert says (in 2003), that Iraq purchased eight mobile chemical laboratories from the Federal Republic of Germany. He says that the construction of an Iraqi research center for missile technology "became almost exclusively the work of German companies." This report is confirmed by the head of Germany's intelligence service, August Hanning.

1988, March 17. The village of Halabja was bombarded by Iraqi warplanes. The raid was over in minutes. A Kurd described the effects of a chemical attack on another village: "My brothers and my wife had blood and vomit running from their noses and their mouths. Their heads were tilted to one side. They were groaning. I couldn't do much, just clean up the blood and vomit from their mouths and try in every way to make them breathe again. I did artificial respiration on them and then I gave them two injections each. I also rubbed creams on my wife and two brothers." (From "Crimes Against Humanity" Iraqi National Congress.)

1988, June. The Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center at Ft. Detrick produces a classified study stating that Iraq is building a “bacteriological arsenal”. Among the agents identified are Anthrax and Botulinin toxin. The report states that they are also producing germs for assassinations and that Hussein Kamal, Saddam’s son-in-law and head of Iraq's Intelligence Agency was personally supervising the program.
   The report stated that the Iraqis had purchased many of their starter germs from the American Type Culture Collection. The scientific supply company that maintains the collection, the largest collection of germ strains in the world, is located in Maryland and is the same place the Rajneeshee Cult purchased the germs for their “pharmacy”, which they used in their Bio-attack in Oregon.
   The intelligence report goes to the State Department, CIA, and various departments of the military. However, no one thinks to tell the Commerce Department or the American Type Culture not to allow any more purchases by Iraq.

1988, July. Iraq tests new helicopters fitted with aerosol generators for dispersing Anthrax.

1988, August. Iraq finally accepts a United Nations cease-fire plan ending the war with Iran. The only result of the war is a colossal loss of life on both sides.

1988, September. Human Rights Watch reports on Saddam’s attacks on the Kurds. Estimates vary, but according to Human Rights Watch up to 5,000 people were killed in the areas they are able to visit.
   Shortly before, there were rumors that Libya had used chemical weapons obtained from Iran during an invasion of Chad. The United States rushed 2,000 gas masks to Chad in response. There were also reports of the Cuban-backed government of Angola using nerve agents against rebel forces.

1988, September 29. Iraq’s Ministry of Trade’s Technical and Scientific Materials Import Division (TSMID), which American intelligence had recently identified as the front for Iraq’s germ warfare program, orders additional germ cultures, one of which was Anthrax strain 11966. In February 1989, further sales to Iraq were banned. The Commerce Department also slammed the door shut on Iran, Libya, and Syria, who were also suspected of trying to develop germ weapons.
   This is the supposed “help” we gave to Iraq. We did not give the Iraqis “germ weapons” or the equipment to make them. The equipment used to manufacture germ weapons can be purchased off the shelf in over a dozen countries. The same equipment used to make animal feed, yogurt, fertilizer, powdered milk, and dozen of other legitimate products can be used to manufacture bio-weapons, which is why bio-weapons manufacturing facilities are easy to disguise.
   Iraq purchased materials and supplies to turn germs into weapons from around the world, but mostly from Europe. Cattle feed stock growing media from Britain, and machinery from France and Germany. Delivery systems from the Soviet Union and others.

1989. South Africa makes the strategic decision to dismantle its covert nuclear weapons program.
   Meanwhile, German Karl Schaab helps Iraq smuggle centrifuges into the country. These centrifuges are used to enrich uranium into fissionable material. After the Gulf War, Usncom inspectors will oversee their destruction, but not before Iraq learns how to make copies of the originals. Centrifuge tubes are made either of steel or aluminum.

1989, February. The last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan, just over nine years after they had arrived.

1989, September. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Between the Government of the United States and the Government of the USSR Regarding a Bilateral Verification Experiment and Data Exchange Related to Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, otherwise known as the Wyoming MOU, started the talks between the two countries for the elimination of chemical weapons.

1989, October. A top Soviet biologist, Vladimir Pasechnik defects to Britain. He reveals that the Soviet Union’s bio-weapons warfare program is far larger than anyone suspected, employing as many as 30,000 scientists and specialists--figures later confirmed by other defectors. Pasechnik claims the Soviets have developed long-range missiles to deliver germs as well as nukes.
   Before defecting, he had been the director of the Institute for Ultra-Pure Biological Preparations in Leningrad, one of many Soviet front organizations. His instutue had employed some 400 scientists doing research in modifying cruise-missles to spread germs. Pasechnik also claims that the Soviets are engaged in the genetic engineering of super bio-weapons, including a "Super" Plague virus.

1990. U.S. intelligence sources detect increased chemical-development activity in Libya. Libya constructs a chemical weapons plant at Rabta that can produce about 100 tons of chemical agents annualy. Libya claims that the plant was destroyed by a fire. New disclosures surfaced in 1996 that Libya is constructing a second chemical production plant at Tarhunah. U.S. intelligence sources claimed that this would be the largest underground chemical weapons plant in the world, covering roughly 6 square miles and situated in a hollowed-out mountain. With Scud missiles having a range of 180 to 300 miles, this creats a significant threat to Libya’s neighbors. Libya strongly denies the accusation.

1990, Spring. Iraq purchases 40 top-of-the-line aerosol generators capable, of disseminating 800 gallons of liquid an hour, from Italy. They are compact enough to fit in the back of a pickup truck, small boat, or single-engined aircraft.

1990, June. American intelligence officials identify Iraq’s research center at Al Tuwaitha, near baghdad as a place suspected of engaging in the genetic engineering of bio-weapons. The assessment is made based on the “buying patterns” of the facility and the fact that Iraq’s top military scientists are working there.
   Al-Hakam begins producing Anthrax and by December turns out 2,200 gallons.

1990, June 1. The United States and the Soviet Union sign a bilateral chemical weapons destruction agreement. In support of this agreement, the secretary of defense cancels most of the new chemical retaliatory program, and the army decides to mothball its new binary chemical production facilities in 1990.

1990, August. Iraq starts a crash program to develop a single nuclear weapon within a year. The goal is the rapid development of a small 50 machine gas centrifuge cascade to produce weapons-grade HEU using fuel from the Soviet research reactor, which was already substantially enriched, and unused fuel from the reactor bombed by the Israelis. By the time of the Gulf War, the crash program had made little progress. Iraq's declared aim is to produce a missile warhead with a 20-kiloton yield.

1990, August 2. Iraq invades Kuwait. At this time, Iraq’s bio weapon’s arsenal contains some 8500 liters of Anthrax spores, 19000 liters of Botulinum, 4000 liters of Aphlatoxin, and a quantity of Typhoid. They also possess up to 25 Scud warheads and 160 bombs equipped for BW.

1990, August 6. The Navy sends it’s commanders an intelligence assessment on Iraq’s bio-weapons capability warning that Iraq’s germ weapons may be effective against ships at distances of up to 25 miles. It also stated that Iraq has substantial amounts of Botulinin toxin, Anthrax, Cholera, and Staphylococcus--among other agents. The CIA warns that Saddam has a significant number of artillery shells, missiles, bombs, rockets and high-performance aircraft equipped with sprayers for dispensing these agents. All modified Soviet equipment.
   War planners worry about how to deal with these weapons.

1990, November. CIA analysts warn that if Saddam thought his personal position was hopeless, this could convince him to use bio-weapons against a major Saudi oil facility, or against troops, to shock the coalition into a cease-fire.
   Air force planners start targeting all know or suspected chemical weapons production and storage facilities. Plans are made to use bombs that will cause these structure to “implode” and then follow-up with incendiary bombs to destroy any escaping agents in an effort to reduce civilian casualties near the targets.
   Troops are to be immunized against Anthrax, the most likely of his bio-weapons. There is no effective vaccine for Botulinin toxin.
   An analysis by U.S. Naval Intelligence notes that Baghdad purchased microbial media sufficient for the production of 74 billion human lethal doses of Botulinum. This same growth media is also used for the production of animal feed which the Iraqis would later claim it was purchased for.
   Production of Botulinum toxin begins at the Dawrah veterinary vaccine plant near Baghdad. By December is has produced 1,400 gallons.

1990, December. Iraqi pilots test spray tanks fitted to their fighters at the Abu Obeydi air base. Additional tests are conducted in January ‘91.

1991. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, funding for its germ warfare programs dry up, leaving many facilities, and those that run them unemployed and destitute. Those that remain employed are paid irregularly if at all.

1991, January. US/UK inspection teams visit Russia to inspect 3 bio-war facilities as a part of a 3-way exchange of inspectors. The US/UK teams find evidence of an extensive offensive weapons program that involves biological agents, such as Smallpox, Anthrax, Marburg virus, and Plague.
   In December, Russian inspection teams visit closed U.S. biological facilities and see that the U.S. has ended its offensive program. However, the lead Russian inspector reports back to Moscow that the U.S. continues to have an offensive program and Moscow publicizes this to the world community--apparently as “payback” for the embarrassment they suffered from US/UK findings. Several member of that team later defect to the U.S. and admit that the reports were a deliberate lie for political reasons.

1991, January 15. Deadline for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait.

1991, January 16. Operation Desert Storm’s air campaign begins. Initial air attacks concentrate on Iraqi chemical production facilities, bunkers, and lines of supply. Iraq launches its first Scud missile against the coalition.

1991, January 21. Coalition bombers strike what Iraq claims is a baby milk factory in
Baghdad. The United States insists that Iraq is using it as a biological weapons development
site. It appears the facility had briefly functioned as a “baby milk” factory in 1979 and 1980, and then again in the spring and summer of 1990, before the Iraqi regime began to use it as a biological weapons site. The site was defended as a military site at the time of the attack. It is prime example of a dual use facility.

1991, January 28. Saddam Hussein tells Peter Arnett of CNN News that his Scud missiles, which were already hitting Israel and Saudi Arabia, could be armed with chemical, biological, or nuclear munitions. Iraq threatens to use chemical weapons against allied troops if the high levels of bombing against his military continues. He is in turn told that he will be personally targeted if he uses chemical or biological weapons.
   During the course of the war, Iraq fires 46 Scuds at Saudi Arabia, 42 at Israel, and 1 at Bahrain. In Israel the missile attacks cause 1-2 deaths and 208 (mostly light) injuries; 4 people die of heart attack and 7 due to incorrect usage of gas masks. In Saudi Arabia a Scud missile hits a U.S. barracks and kills 27 service men and women. Over 100 are injured.

1991, February 23. The ground war against Iraq to liberate Kuwait begins. On 27 February, Allied troops liberate Kuwait City and finish destroying the Iraqi divisions originally in Kuwait. No known chemical and biological attacks were made by the Iraqis, but there are reports of chemical weapons detectors going off. These are thought to be false alarms at the time.
   A number of reasons surfaced after war as to why the Iraqis had not initiated large-scale chemical and biological warfare. Three reasons are thought to account for this. The first has to do with the fact that at the beginning of the ground war, prevailing winds shifted such that their use would blow them back onto Iraqi troops. Second, that the speed of the ground war was such that it prevented orders to use them from being carried out. Third, that allied bombing destroyed or prevented most of them from being moved forward to operational areas. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Allied forces, mentiones that Iraq might have feared nuclear retaliation.
   The Iraqi army fleeing Kuwait sets fire to over 1,160 Kuwaiti oil wells with serious environmental consequences.
   Later reports of “Gulf War Syndrome” indicate the exposure to chemical or biological weapons may, in fact, have occurred. The intense air-polution on the battle-field is also thought to be a contributor.
   After the Persian Gulf War, General Colin Powell testified to congress that the United States was vulnerable to biological warfare. One reason was that the United States had been unable to standardize a good biological agent detector.

1991, February 27. President Bush orders a cease-fire, effective at midnight Kuwaiti time. Bush orders the cease-fire under pressure from coalition members like Saudi Arabia and Syria who threaten to withdraw support if U.S. troops move on Baghdad to remove Saddam. Democrats Remind Bush that the war resolutions only call for kicking him out of Kuwait.
   Under the Cease-Fire agreement to follow, Saddam agrees to give up all weapons of mass destruction. Later, he would state that his biggest mistake was not waiting till he had a nuclear weapon to attack Kuwait.

1991, March 1. In the wake of the Gulf War, riots break out in the southern city of Basra, spreading quickly to other cities in Shia-dominated southern Iraq. The regime responds by killing thousands. Many Shia tried to escape to Iran and Saudi Arabia. Shii’s in the south and Kurds in the North rebel against Saddam. Iraqi troops put down the rebellions. Estimates of the numbers of dead go as high as 500,000 over the course of the next year.

1991, March 4. At the Kamisiyah arsenal, northwest of Basra, the U.S. Army 37th Engineer Battalion blew up the Iraqi munitions storage bunkers. According to newspaper accounts, the engineers claimed that their chemical agent detectors went off during the explosions. Later the same year, a United Nations inspection team reportedly found the remains of chemical rockets and shells in one of the bunkers and found traces of sarin and mustard agent. In 1996, the department of defense acknowledged that one of the bunkers probably contained sarin- and mustard agent–filled munitions, and that as many as 20,000 U.S. soldiers may have been exposed to chemical agents as a result.

1991, April. UNSCR 687, creates the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) and requires Iraq to accept, unconditionally, "the destruction, removal or rendering harmless, under international supervision" of its chemical and biological weapons, ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150km, and their associated programs, stocks, components, research and facilities. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is charged with destruction of Iraq's nuclear weapons program. UNSCOM and the IAEA must report that their mission has been achieved before the Security Council can end sanctions. They have not yet done so.

1991, April 18. Iraq delivers its first official report to the U.N. on its unconventional weapons. They acknowledge limited production of chemical weapons but do not mention nuclear or biological weapons. It is later learned the top Iraqi official have been ordered by Tariq Aziz to hide all evidence of these weapons, as well their stocks of VX (an advanced nerve agent), from inspectors.

1991, August 2. UNSCOM’s first biological inspections team arrives in Iraq. They are given a one-page statement that acknowledges that they performed biological research for defensive military purposes.
   Between 1991 and 1998 UNSCOM succeeded in identifying and destroying very large quantities of chemical weapons and ballistic missiles as well as associated production facilities. The IAEA also destroyed the infrastructure for Iraq's nuclear weapons program and removed key nuclear materials. This was achieved despite a continuous and sophisticated program of harassment, obstruction, deception and denial. Because of this UNSCOM concluded by 1998 that it was unable to fulfill its mandate. The inspectors were withdrawn in December 1998.
   From Iraqi declarations to the UN after the Gulf War we know that by 1991 Iraq had produced a variety of delivery means for chemical and biological agents including over 16,000 free-fall bombs and over 110,000 artillery rockets and shells. Iraq also admitted to the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) that it had 50 chemical and 25 biological warheads available for its ballistic missiles.
   UNSCOM discovers samples of indigenously-produced highly enriched uranium, forcing Iraq's acknowledgment of uranium enrichment programs and attempts to preserve key components of its prohibited nuclear weapons program.

1991, September. CIA identifies 8 sites suspected of germ production. On the list is Al Hakem which the Iraqis claim is just a warehouse, but is surrounded by security fences spaced 2 miles apart. When inspectors arrive the Iraqis change their story and say that it is a factory for making animal feed. At the time of their visit it is in fact making animal feed, but suspicions are aroused because of medical quality of the equipment and the fact that the plant is staffed by highly trained micro-biologists. It would later be proved that this facility had been one of Iraq's primary bio-weapons production lines, making tons of Botulinin and Anthrax. It is a perfect example of a “dual-use” facility.

1991. A Russian scientist claims that Russia had developed a new, highly toxic, binary nerve agent called "Novichok". According to the scientist, the nerve agent is undetectable by U.S. chemical detectors and may have been used in the Persian Gulf War by Iraq to produce some of the Gulf War Syndrome symptoms.

1991, mid-year. The U.N. Security Council demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary General's high-level coordinator for this issue reported that Kuwaiti, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for--more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.

1991, December. Iran purchases two tactical nukes which have been smuggled out of the Soviet Union. The claim is made by an exiled Iranian scientists who bolsters his claim with documents he smuggled out of Iran. Those same documents indicate that the Iranians cannot use them because they do not know how to remove the safety covers without disabling the devices. The devices, if the Iranians have them, are considered to be non-functional, but a possible source of material for another device or a “dirty” bomb.

1992. Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, former first deputy director of Biopreparat (the civilian arm of the Soviet Union's biological warfare program) defects to the United States (where he changes his name to Ken Alibek). He confirms many of the West's suspicions of Russia's offensive biological program, including the fact that Russia has used its Smallpox stock to make weapons and has used recombinant DNA techniques to produce “super bugs”. One such research project included efforts to combine Ebola with Smallpox. Many of the hybrids are designed to defeat western vaccines and anti-biotics.
   Other revelations by Alibek include the fact that Moscow has secretly produced tons of Anthrax, Smallpox, and Plague germs meant for use against the United States. He also discloses that Biopreparat operated over 40 bio-war research and production sites spread across Russia and Kazakhstan which employed as many as 30,000 scientists and technicians. He also points out that Sverdlosk was the Soviets busiest Anthrax production facility, producing it in “industrial quantities.”
   While working as a researcher at the Stepnogorsk facility, he developed Anthrax strain No. 836. This strain was strain was three times as deadly in both dry and liquid forms than the strains responsible for the Sverdlosk accident, and required fewer spores for infection.

“The Soviet Union has two main directorates responsible for developing and manufacturing biological weapons. Biological weapons were stored at the Minister of Defense facilities. For example, [the] Kirov facility was responsible for storing Plague, about 20 tons of Plague. The Zagorsk facility (now it's Sergiev Posad) was responsible for storing smallpox biological weapons, about 20 tons, as well. And the Ekaterinburg facility (at that time Sverdlovsk) was responsible for continuous manufacturing [of] anthrax biological weapons. The amount of this weapon produced was hundreds of tons.” - Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, First Deputy Director of Biopreparat from 1988 to 1992. Interview with Frontline, 1998.

“According to the Soviet Union's philosophy... smallpox, plague and anthrax were considered strategic operational biological weapons. In future wars, if Marburg was finished, Marburg was to be used as a strategic weapon. But what was complete and ready for application were the smallpox biological weapons, plague biological weapons and anthrax biological weapons.” - Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, First Deputy Director of Biopreparat from 1988 to 1992. Interview with Frontline, 1998.

1992. Sergei Popov defects to britain. Popov worked at both Vector in Siberia and Oblensk. His work included designer germs that casue the symptoms of Lupus and Rheumatiod arthritis, in which the body’s auto-immune system causes the body to self-destruct. His team had inserted into viruses genes that make protein fragments of Myelin (which makes up the sheaths around nerves). The result is a way to rapidly produce Multiple-Sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system, in victims that become infected.
   By splicing myelin into Legionella (Legionnaires’ disease), they created a bug that caused brain-damage, paralysis and death. The recombinant Legionella was very infectious and lethal with only a few a few cells. At Oblensk they had managed to splice into the Plague bacteria the gene that makes Diphtheria toxin, creating a highly virulent and deadly strain.

1992, August. United Nations establishes a no-fly zone along the 32nd parallel after Iraq launches renewed attacks against Shiite Muslims. The United States and its allies begin patrolling the no-fly zone, operations which continue today. In December, the U.S. planes intercept and shoot down an Iraqi MIG-25 that violates the no-fly zone. Since the establishment of the no-fly zones, Iraq has fired on coalition aircraft on a regular basis. Numerous anti-aircraft sites have been destroyed by coalition aircraft.

1993. The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is established. It prohibits the research and production of offensive chemical agents, similar to the BWC.

1993. The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) directs and pursues an attempt to assassinate, through the use of a powerful car bomb, former U.S. President George Bush and the Emir of Kuwait. Kuwaiti authorities thwart the terrorist plot and arrest 16 suspects, led by two Iraqi nationals.

1993, January. The United States accuses Saddam Hussein of moving missiles into southern Iraq. Iraq refuses to remove the missiles. Allied planes and ships attack the missile sites and a nuclear facility near Baghdad. In June, following the discovery of a plot to assassinate former President George Bush, U.S. ships fire 24 cruise missiles at intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.

1993, February 27. A bomb explodes at the World Trade Towers in New York City. Some analysts suspect the bomb was laced with cyanide that failed to ignite. Six people are killed and hundreds injured. Islamic terrorists are responsible.

1994. Saddam Hussein moves troops to the Kuwaiti border. The forces withdraw after the United States deploys a carrier group, warplanes and 54,000 troops to the Persian Gulf region.
   Saddam's son Udayy creates a “militia” which uses swords to execute victims outside their own homes. He has personally executed dissidents. He also maintains a private torture chamber, known as the “Red Room”, in a building on the banks of the Tigris disguised as an electricity installation.

1995. A U.S. citizen is sentenced under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, to 33 months in prison for possession of 0.7 grams of Ricin.

1995. After four years of deception, Iraq finally admits it had a crash nuclear weapons program prior to the Gulf War. Were it not for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993. Iraq still employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians and retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.
   In July, after being presented with proof that they have been lying, Iraq admits that Al-Hakam is, in fact, a bio-weapons facility that had been used to produce Botulinum and Anthrax. They present what they claim is a complete disclosure of their program. In it they claim all stockpiles were destroyed after the war with Iran.
   A month later, Lieutenant General Hussein Kamael, a son-in-law of Saddam, and the man who had run Iraq’s bio-weapons program defects to Jordan. Assuming he is about to spill his guts to the U.N. (incorrectly it turns out), Iraqi officials claim they have “discovered” a new cache of documents on a chicken-farm owned by Kamel. It detailed the weaponization of thousands of liters of Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, and Aflatoxin for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs and aircraft.
   Iraq also admits in that a MIG-21 remote-piloted vehicle tested in 1991 was intended to carry a biological weapon spray system. Iraq perviously denied any connection between UAV programs and chemical or biological agent dispersal.

“We know they [the inspectors] are playing an intelligence role. The way they are conducting their inspections and the sites they are visiting have nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. But we are cooperating with inspection teams in a positive way in order to expose the lies of those who have bad intentions.” - Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan.

1995. Saddam's sons-in-law Hussein and Saddam Kamil had defect. They return to Iraq from Jordan after the Iraqi government announces amnesties for them. They were executed in February 1996. Some 40 of Saddam's relatives, including women and children, have been killed.
   A cousin of Saddam, Ala Abd al-Qadir al-Majid, fled to Jordan from Iraq citing disagreements with the regime over business matters. He returned to Iraq after the Iraqi Ambassador in Jordan declared publicly that his life was not in danger. He was met at the border by Tahir Habbush, Head of the Directorate of General Intelligence (the Mukhabarat), and taken to a farm owned by Ali Hasan al-Majid. At the farm Ala was tied to a tree and executed by members of his immediate family who, following orders from Saddam, took it in turns to shoot him.
   Saddam uses prisoners as test subjects for chemical and biological warfare experiments. 1,600 death-row inmates are transfered to a special unit for this purpose. An eye witness sees prisoners tied down to beds, experiments conducted on them, blood oozing around the victim's mouths and autopsies performed to confirm the effects.

1995. At a scientific conference in Winchester, England, Russian biologists Andrei Pomerantsev and Nikolai Staritsin reveal that they have genetically engineered a more virulent strain of Anthrax by inserting into it virulence genes from Bacillus cereus, a bacteria that attacks blood cells but is not normally deadly. The new pathogen is nearly 100% deadly, even against test subjects (hamsters) vaccinated with Russia’s current Anthrax vaccine. They claim the experiments are not part of a military weapons program.

1995, March 20. The Aum Shinrikyo cult, founded in 1987, and which counts several biochemists among its 50,000 members (some in the U.S.), releases Sarin nerve gas in a Japanese subway--12 people die and over 5,000 are injured. The cult was found to possess rudimentary biological weapons including Anthrax, Botulinum, and Q-fever. Prior to this attack, in 1994, they reportedly release nerve agent in a residential area of Matsumoto, Japan, killing 7 and injuring 500. The cult also staged unsuccessful attacks on American navals bases at Yokohama and Yokosuka and the Japanese Imperial Palace using Anthrax. These attacks had gone unnoticed but were revealed in courtroom testimony.
   They were found to posses B anthracis and botulinum toxin and had sent members to Zaire during 1992 to obtain the Ebola virus for weapons development. The cult had also developed a helicopter to spray toxins, and a drone for unmanned chemical and biological attacks.

1995, April. UNSCOM reports to the UN Security Council that Iraq had concealed its biological weapons program and had failed to account for 3 tons of growth material for biological agents.

1995, April 19. Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred Murrah building kills 95 people. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are convicted of the crime. The Clinton administration asserts they were the masterminds of the incident and denies involvement of foreign terrorists.
   Jayna Davis, a former Oklahoma television reporter, is one of the first reporters on the spot of the bombing. She conducts a major investigation which turns up credible evidence (presented to and discounted by the FBI), that Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran, had ties to, and received help from, Iraqi agents operating in the U.S. who entered as “refugees” after the Gulf War.

1996. Congress tightens control over labs and companies selling pathogens to scientists and medical researchers.

1996, June 25. Islamic militants in Saudi Arabia detonate a truck bomb near the Khobar Towers, an apartment building housing hundreds of American servicemen. 19 Americans are killed and as many as 500 wounded. Saudi officials are accused of hampering the investigation and hunt for the perpetrators.

1996. In August, Saddam Hussein sends forces into northern Iraq and captures city of Irbil, a key city inside the Kurdish haven established above the 36th parallel in 1991. The following month, U.S. ships and airplanes attack military targets in Iraq to punish the Iraqi military and President Clinton extends the no-fly zones closer to Baghdad.

1997. Andrew Weber, a U.S. diplomat involved in arranging inspections and scientific exchanges between Russia and the U.S., talks to two scientists from the Oblensk State Research Center of Applied Microbiology while visiting Moscow. He is told that a delegation of Iranians had recently visited the Oblensk and and Vector facilitie as well as others. The Iranians were on a recruiting mission, offering $5,000 per month salaries to Russian microbiologist willing to come to work in Iran. Similar delegations from Iraq, Libya and North Korea have visited Russia. Several Russian scientists are known to have accepted these offers. The exact number is not known, but the whereabouts of many former Biopreparat employees is unknown.

1997. Soil samples from Vozrozhdeniye island, where the Soviets had disposed of tons of weaponized Anthrax a decade earlier, and where they had tested many chemical and biological weapons, shows that some of the bleach-soaked spores are still alive and potentially dangerous.

1997. UNSCOM discoveres evidence that Iraq is producing Ricin in quantity.

1997, April 25. An envelope marked "antrachs" is discovered in the mailroom of the world headquarters of B'nai B'rith in Washington DC. The fire department seals off the building for what turns out to be a hoax.

1997, May. The Russian ministry of Science and Technology sponsors a biotechnology trade fair in Teheran.

1997, June. UNSCOM reports that one of their Iraqi escorts attempted to wrest the controls of a U.N. helicopter from its Chilean pilots to keep it from flying over a suspected arms site and even threatened to shut off the fuel pump to the engine, stating he would, “do whatever he could to stop the aircraft from flying."
   In another case an Iraqi helicpoter blocked the progress of a U.N. helicopter by flying dangerously close to it.

1997, October. A protracted confrontation with Saddam Hussein begins after Iraq accuses U.S. members of the U.N. inspection teams of being spies and expels the majority of U.S. participants. The U.N. Security Council threatens renewed economic sanctions. The confrontation continues into November as Iraq expels the remaining six U.S. inspectors and the United Nations withdraws other inspectors in protest. Inspectors are readmitted after the United States and Great Britain again begin a military build-up in the Gulf. However, in November, Iraq announces it will not allow inspectors access to sites designated as "palaces and official residences." U.N. officials protest, having long suspected that such sites were being used to conceal possible weapons of mass destruction.

1998, March. The Defense Department begins an vaccination program to immunize all military personnel against Anthrax.

1998, October 31. Iraq cuts off all work by U.N. monitors. The United States and Great Britain warn of possible military strikes to force compliance. A renewed military build-up in the Persian Gulf begins.

1998, November 5. The U.N. Security Council condemns Iraq for violating agreements signed after the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

1998, November 11. U.N. weapons inspectors are kicked out of Iraq by Saddam. Based on the UNSCOM report to the UN Security Council in January 1999 and earlier UNSCOM reports, when the UN inspectors left Iraq they were unable to account for: up to 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agent, including 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent; up to 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, including approximately 300 tons of which, in the Iraqi chemical warfare program, were unique to the production of VX; growth media procured for biological agent production (enough to produce over three times the 8,500 liters of anthrax spores Iraq admits to having manufactured); over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents.
   During their tenure, UNSCOM turns up several “cookbooks” for chemical and biological weapons.

1998, November 14. With B-52 bombers in the air and within about 20 minutes of attack, Saddam Hussein agrees to allow U.N. monitors back in. The bombers are recalled before an attack occurs. Weapons inspectors return to Iraq a few days later.

1998, December 8. Chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler reports that Iraq is still impeding inspections. U.N. teams begin departing Iraq.

1998, December 15. A formal U.N. report accuses Iraq of a repeated pattern of obstructing weapons inspections by not allowing access to records and inspections sites, and by moving equipment records and equipment from one to site another.

1998, December 16. The United States and Great Britain begin a massive air campaign (Operation Desert Fox) against key military targets in Iraq. Targets include the Castor Oil Production Plant at Fallujah, which was damaged, but has been rebuilt. The residue from the castor bean pulp can be used in the production of the biological agent Ricin

1999, January. The UN Special Commission reports that Iraq failed to provide credible evidence that 550 mustard gas-filled artillery shells and 400 biological weapons-capable aerial bombs had been lost or destroyed.
   UNSCOM concludes that Iraq has not accounted for 1.5 tons of VX, a powerful nerve agent. Former UNSCOM head Richard Butler wrote that “a missile warhead of the type Iraq has made and used can hold some 140 liters of VX... A single such warhead would contain enough of the chemical to kill up to 1 million people.”

1999, March. The Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), Launches project “Bacchus.” Its purpose is to determine if it can set up a working germ-factory by purchasing readily available, off-the-shelf technology in the U.S. and overseas. By buying both new and used equipment they set up a working facility at the Nevada Test Site and produce about 2 lbs. of “simulated” anthrax. None of the purchases are detected by any reporting agency. Later, the site is used to train anti-terrorism teams how to “assault” a bio-weapons lab without causing an outbreak or infecting themselves--a feat that turns out to be much more difficult than first thought.

1999, April. A man claiming to be Saddam’s former personal driver publishes a book in Britain. He quotes Saddam as saying he might one day use the West Nile virus against his enemies.

1999, August. An outbreak of West Nile Virus strikes New York. 62 people become ill and seven die. Most doctors are stumped by the flu-like symptoms, but an astute lab-technician notifies the CDC which confirms West Nile. The Mayor orders spraying the city for mosquitoes, which prevents a wider outbreak. This is the first known outbreak in North America. Experts still don’t know how the virus found its way to New York from the Middle-East.

2000. Iraqi authorities reportedly introduced tongue amputation as a punishment for persons who criticize Saddam Hussein or his family, and on July 17, government authorities reportedly amputate the tongue of a person who allegedly criticized Saddam Hussein. Authorities perform the amputation in front of a large crowd. Similar tongue amputations also reportedly occurred.
   Iraq attempts to procure dual-use chemicals for the “reconstruction” of civil chemical production at sites formerly associated with the chemical warfare program. Iraq also tries to procure dual-use materials and equipment which could be used for a biological warfare program.
   145 male prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib prison. Dozens of women accused of prostitution were beheaded without any judicial process. Some were accused for political reasons. Prisoners at the Qurtiyya Prison in Baghdad and elsewhere are kept in metal boxes the size of tea chests. If they do not confess they are left to die.
   Other methods of torture used in Iraqi jails include using electric drills to mutilate hands, pulling out fingernails, knife cuts, dripping with acid, sexual attacks and 'official rape'.

2000, Spring. George Tenet, director of the CIA reports to a panel of experts that Osama bin-Laden has been training his operatives in the use of chemical and biological toxins.

2000, June. A former Iraqi general reportedly received a videotape of security forces raping a female family member. He subsequently received a telephone call from an intelligence agent who stated that another female relative was being held and warned him to stop speaking out against the Iraqi Government.

2000, May. Federal officials stage the largest emergency-preparedness exercise ever. The scenario is the hypothetical release, by a lone-terrorist, of a Pneumonic Plague virus in Denver. The exercise lasts five days and is ended when the results show that spread of the virus has overwhelmed the ability of emergency worker to respond and it has spread out of control into neighboring states. The death-toll estimates for the period of the exercise range between 1,000 and 2,000. The simulated outbreak not only overwhelms Colorado health services, but the CDC’s ability to respond as well.

2000, October. The U.S.S. Cole, a modern warship is crippled and nearly sunk by suicide bombers piloting a dinghy packed with explosives. 17 Sailors are killed and scores injured.

2001. An Iraqi defector, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, says he has visited twenty secret facilities for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Mr. Saeed, a civil engineer, supports his claims with stacks of Iraqi government contracts, complete with technical specifications. Mr. Saeed said Iraq uses front companies to purchase dual-use equipment with the blessing of the United Nations – and then secretly used the equipment for their weapons programs.

2001. Iraq announces that it will begin renovating the al-Dawrah Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Facility, one of two known bio-containment, level-three, facilities in Iraq that have an extensive air handling and filtering system. Iraq has admitted that this was a biological weapons facility. Iraq starts the plant without UN approval, ostensibly to produce vaccines that it could more easily and more quickly import through the UN.

2001, January. The Department of Defense reports that Iraq has continued to work on its weapons programs, including converting L-29 jet trainer aircraft for the delivery of chemical or biological weapons.

2001, February. Australian scientists announce that they have inadvertently killed dozens of lab mice by making a virus that had cripples their immune system. They had been trying to make mice infertile by inserting into Mousepox the mouse gene that controls production of interleukin-4. Mice injected with the virus become infertile--then die. Researchers find that even mice inoculated against Mousepox die of the new virus. Humans also have the interleukin-4 immune system gene.

2001, March. American and Italian scientists report in the journal of Nature Immunology that they accidentally triggered a mechanism that caused mice to self-destruct in a severe allergic reaction in which the immune system tries to destroy its own tissues. These results are similar to the experiments conducted by Soviet germ warfare researchers and Australian scientists.

2001. August. Amnesty International reports that Saddam Hussein has the world's worst record for numbers of persons who have “disappeared” and remain unaccounted for.

2001, September. The Iraqi Government expels six UN humanitarian relief workers without providing any explanation.

2001, September 11. Al-Qaeda terrorists hijack four passenger jetliners. Two are piloted into the World Trade Towers in New York, bringing them down. A third is crashed into the Pentagon and fourth crashes in a Pennsylvania field when passengers attempt to retake the plane from the highjackers. Al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin-Laden has its base in Afghanistan. Bin-Laden takes credit for the attack. Bin-Laden, like most of the highjackers, is a Saudi national. Approximately 3,000 people are killed and many injured.

2001, October. Anthrax is diseminated through the U.S. mail system. Letters containing powdered anthrax are sent to several politicians. Several postal workers contract the disease. Post offices around the country must be shut down for decontamination, as is the Capitol Building. The clean-up costs millions and panics the nation. The origin of the Anthrax is not confirmed. Genetic markers suggest it may have come from seed germs on file at the American Type Culture.

2001, November 6. Frontline interviews an Iraqi defector Lt. General Sabah Khodada. The general reports that in 1995 and 2000 he witnessed “terrorists” training in a Boeing 707 next to Iraq’s Salman Pak chemical warfare research facility south of Baghdad. The general feels that these exercises may have been training for 9/11. He says they were definitely Islamic extremists, though he cannot say for sure which group they were with. His story is corraborated by former Iraqi Army Captain.
   U.S. Intelligence sources confirm terrorist training at Salman Pak, but do not think the training is connected to 9/11. U.N. Inspectors have confirmed the existence of the Boeing 707 outside the facility.

2001, December. Adnan Saeed al-Haideri, a specialist in Iraq’s nuclear program defects. al-Haideri identifies 300 separate clandestine sites used by Iraq to hide biological and chemical weapons, and nuclear materials. Some of the equipment is hidden in lead containers stored in fake wells lined with concrete. Al-Haideri an advanced epoxies specialist said he was called in to seal cracks in the concrete because the Iraqis feared U.S. surveillance satellites would pick up the slightest radioactive emissions.
   Iraq now is believed to be operating a miniature uranium-enrichment "cascade" at a clandestine location, hermetically sealed to prevent telltale emissions.

2002. A former Iraqi intelligence officer responsible for setting up front companies for illegal overseas purchases claims that Iraq has arranged to purchase nuclear weapons material (including uranium) from Armscor, South Africa’s state armaments directorate. During the Iran-Iraq war Armscor supplied Iraq with advanced 155mm howitzers. These sales are handled through a front company in Jordan.
   For five years he personally ran a procurement network based in Dubai for the Special Security Organization, the elite of Saddam's vast intelligence apparatus, in charge of overseas procurement and responsible for hiding key equipment and material for Saddam's weapons programs. He was arrested by the regime in 1998, viciously tortured, given an injection of thalium and dumped on the street. Bleeding from his nose, mouth and stomach, he managed to escape to Northern Iraq and ultimately to Turkey, where human-rights workers treat him successfully for thallium poisoning Thalium poisonig a favorite method of the regime for executing its enemies, becasue it causes a slow, painful death.

2002, April. Saddam Hussein increases from $10,000 to $25,000 the money offered to families of Palestinian homicide bombers. The rules for rewarding homicide bombers are strict and insist that only someone who blows himself up with a belt of explosives gets the full payment. Payments are made on a strict scale, with different amounts for wounds, disablement, death as a “martyr” and $25,000 for a suicide bomber. Mahmoud Besharat, a representative on the West Bank who is handing out to families the money from Saddam, said, “You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue." Baghdad also trains Palestine Liberation Front members in small arms and explosives.

2002, September. Iraq is again caught trying to import high-quality aluminum tubes. These tubes are required for making uranium enrichment centrifuges. Dr. Hamza (former head of Iraq’s nuclear program), reports that Iraq already has 1.3 tons of low-enriched uranium it purchased from Brazil. Centrifuges will allow it to be enriched into fissile material. Iraq also possesses up to 10 tons of yellow-cake uranium, which has been extracted from large supplies of phosphates dotted around the country. Nuclear inspectors had been shown 162 tons of the material, but Dr Hamza said there were several other phosphate sites that were not inspected.

2002, September 5. An editorial in the Iraqi newspaper “Al-Iqtisadi”, which is owned by Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday, called for the formation of suicide [fidaiyoon] squads to launch broad-based sabotage operations against the United States, its friends, and interests.

2002, September 9. A new report released from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, an independent research organization, concludes that Saddam Hussein could build a nuclear bomb within months if he were able to obtain enough fissile material.

2002, November 29. Pakistani Imam Syed Abdullah Bukhari addresses Delhi's muslims, saying “Islamic countries have to acquire nuclear weapons.” Bukhari is known to have, in the past, made pro-Taliban and pro-Osama Bin Laden statements.

2003, January 1. Six Iraqi women who say they or their families were brutalized by the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein called for the Iraqi leader to be indicted for war crimes and say regime change is the only way to save their desperate nation.
   "The Iraqi people have been living in a state of war for 30 years," said Nazand Beghakani, a founder of the International Kurdish Women Study Network. "I'm calling on the international community to stop this war that has been forced on the Iraqi people."
   The women report numerous horrors, including; the systematic beheading of innocent women belonging to families suspected of opposing Saddam's regime, and rape and the use of torture against opponents and their families as tools of intimidation.

2003, January 16. Previously undisclosed warheads for chemical weapons are discovered by UN inspectors. A joint UNMOVIC/IAEA team also find a significant cache of documents related to Iraq’s uranium enrichment program in the home of Iraqi scientist Faleh Hassan.

2003, January 29. The United Nations announces that Iraq will chair the May 12-June 27 United Nations conference on disarmament. This will be the 25th anniversary session of the conference.

2003, February. Two German nationals are charged with attempting to smuggle over 2,000 missile parts into Iraq.

2003, February 5. Secretary of State Colin Powell address the U.N. He presents to that body proof, in the form of voice intercepts, spy-satalite, U-2 imagery, and eye-witness accounts, of Saddams violations of of U.N. resolutions and his continuing efforts to thwart them. He also provides proof that Saddam is training terrorists, including al-Queada.

At least ten nations reportedly have the ability to create bio-weapons. James Woolsey, former CIA Director, notes that growing biological agents takes little more expertise than brewing beer and is within the reach of countries or terrorists that have the money and access to scientific expertise.

Mustard Gas: Mustard is a liquid agent, which gives off a hazardous vapor, causing burns and blisters to exposed skin. When inhaled, mustard damages the respiratory tract; when ingested, it causes vomiting and diarrhea. It attacks and damages the eyes, mucous membranes, lungs, skin, and blood-forming organs.

Tabun, sarin and VX are all nerve agents of which VX is the most toxic. They all damage the nervous system, producing muscular spasms and paralysis. As little as 10 milligrams of VX on the skin can cause rapid death.

Anthrax: Anthrax is a bacteria. It has a spore form that makes it extremely resistant to the environment. It is highly infectious and lethal when inhaled. The symptoms may vary, but can include fever and internal bleeding. The incubation period for anthrax is 1 to 7 days, with most cases occurring within 2 days of exposure. It is a one-time agent--it does not spread from person to person. An anthrax vaccine does exist, but is not readily available.

Smallpox: Smallpox is a virus. It is highly contagious, transmits through the atmosphere very easily and has a high mortality rate; 10-100 viruses per infective dose. A worldwide vaccination program eliminated smallpox in the 1970s. Both the United States and the former Soviet Union officially maintained small quantities of the virus at two labs. However, there is the suspicion that it may have been or is still researched and developed at other labs either within Russia or in other countries, thus increasing the concern of smallpox being used as a biological weapon. Mortality in 3% of vaccinated and 30% of unvaccinated.

Plague: 100-500 bacteria infective dose, 2-3 day incubation, pneumonic plague highly contagious; antibiotics within 24 hr or 100% fatal (pneumonic form); plague pneumonia, respiratory failure, etc.

Ebola: Ebola is a viral hemoragic fever caused by a virus. It is extremely lethal and its symptoms are profuse bleeding from the orifices. There is no cure or treatment.

Marburg: Marburg is another hemoragic fever caused by a virus. It is extremely lethal and its symptoms are profuse bleeding from the orifices. There is no cure or treatment.

Botulism: One of the deadliest toxins caused known to man, is a by-product of a bacteria; 0.1 microgram lethal to adult, 1-5 days onset (10 times more toxic than Sarin). The first symptoms of poisoning may appear as early as 1 hour post exposure or as late as 8 days after exposure, with the incubation period between 12 and 22 hours. Blocks neurotransmission; paralysis leads to death by suffocation.

Brucellosis: 10-100 bacteria per infective dose, 5-60 day incubation, not contagious unless draining lesions appear; antibiotics but no vaccine; "only" 5% fatalities if untreated (central nervous system infections); recovery may take 1 yr.

Tularemia: Tularemia is a bacteria. It causes non-lethal diseases that are extremely incapacitating such as weight loss, fever, headaches and often pneumonia.

Aflatoxins: Fungal toxins, which are potent carcinogens. Most symptoms take a long time to show. Food products contaminated by aflatoxins can cause liver inflammation and cancer. They can also affect pregnant women, leading to stillborn babies and children born with mutations.

Ricin: Derived from the castor bean and can cause multiple organ failure leading to death within one or two days of inhalation or ingestion.

A typical nuclear fission weapon consists of: fissile material for the core which gives out huge amounts of explosive energy from nuclear reactions when made "super critical" through extreme compression. Fissile material is usually either highly enriched uranium (HEU) or weapons-grade plutonium. HEU can be made in gas centrifuges. Plutonium is made by reprocessing fuel from a nuclear reactor.
   A detonation of a 20-kiloton nuclear warhead over a city might flatten an area of approximately 3 square miles. Within 1.6 miles of detonation, blast damage and radiation would cause 80% casualties, three-quarters of which would be fatal. Between 1.6 and 3.1 miles from the detonation, there would still be 10% casualties.

“Inspectors going in now will have an almost impossible task to discover what’s going on in the nuclear field.... Since the inspectors left, Saddam has had four years at least to hide what needs to be hidden. Now he’s well on the road, his game will be to stall and stall — if America lets him.” - Dr Hamza, Former head of Iraq’s Nuclear development program.

“The contrast to nuclear weapons illustrates why many call germ weapons the ‘poor man’s atom bomb.’ A nation that obtains plans for a crud nuclear device is at the beginning of a complex technical challenges that requires staggering and easily detectible investments in mines, factories, and nuclear reactors. But scientists like Bill Patrick or Ken Alibek say they could teach a terror group how to make devastating germ weapons from a few handfuls of backyard dirt and some widely available lab equipment.” - Judith Miller, Germs, 2001.

“Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it.“ - Dr. Hans Blix.

“Time is on my side.” - Saddam Hussein.

SOURCES:

Germs, by Judith Miller, 2001. (this one I consider a must read).
Breaking With Moscow, Arkady Schevchenko, 1985.
The Collapse of Communism, ed.by Bernard Gwerlzman & Michael T. Kaufman, 1990.
Counter-Terrorist, Sam Hall, 1987.
Inside Spetznaz: Soviet Special Operations, Maj. William H. Burgess III, 1990.
KGB: The Inside Story Of Its Foreign Operations From Lenin To Gorbachev, Christopher Andrew & Oleg Gordievsky, 1990.
Medieval Warfare, H.W. Koch, 1985.
The Middle East Conflicts: From 1945 to the Present, John Pimlott, 1983.
The Mongols, David Morgan, 1986.
The Rape of Kuwait, Jean P. Sassan, 1991.
Saddam Hussein and The Crisis In The Gulf, Judith Miller & Laurie Myloroie, 1990.
Saddam’s Bomb Maker, Dr. Khidhir Hamza, 2002.
Soviet Strategic Deception, Brian D. Daily & Patrick J. Parker, 1987.
Target America, by Yoseff Bodansky, 1993.

http://www.dtic.mil/
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/BB/
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plague/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/
http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v278n5/ffull/jsc7044.html/
http://chemdef.apgea.army.mil/textbook/contents.asp/
http://www.vnh.org/FM8284/
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/bioterrorism.html/
http://www.telemedicine.org/BioWar/biologic.htm/
http://www.cbiac.apgea.army.mil/
http://www.terrorism.com/
http://www.hri.org/docs/USSD-Terror/
http://www.ict.org.il/
http://www.official-documents.co.uk/
http://www.iiss.org/
http://www.defenselink.mil/
http://www.janes.com/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
http://idl.stanford.edu/


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: biological; biowarfare; bioweapons; chemical; chemicalweapons; godsgravesglyphs; gulf; iraq; prewardocs; saddam; saddamhussein; sovietunion; terrorism; un; unitedstates; unmovic; unscom; war; weapons; wmd
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To: PsyOp

Qusay Hussein coordinated Iraq special operations with bin Laden’s terrorist activities

YOSSEF BODANSKY - National Press Club

Now that Saddam’s sons are dead, there is talk the “resistance” againts US troops should decrease.

This makes sense in that these two brothers most likely oversaw the cash to pay those attacking US troops. And it has killed their liason with al Qaeda, Qusay.

Back in 1999 Yossef Bodansky had this to say:

The other state that is rising up — and I’ve elaborated a lot in the book about that — is Iraq. Bin Laden has been dealing with Iraq intelligence since the early 1990s, where they cooperated in Sudan and in Somalia. This has been a love-hate relationship because of the Iraqi secular policies and Saddam Hussein’s disdain for Islamism and even persecution of Iraqi Islamists, including veterans of Afghanistan. But in recent years, Hassan al-Turabi, the spiritual leader of Sudan and bin Laden’s patron, if you want, spiritual patron, mediated a deal between Iraq and bin Laden that has since been cemented and became practical.

The important thing of the recent development that should be a cause of tremendous worry is that Saddam Hussein empowered his son, Qusay to deal with the day-to-day relationship with bin Laden and coordinate the Iraqi special operations with bin Laden’s terrorist activities. Last week, Qusay Hussein has been elevated into the declared successor and had taken a tremendous amount of new powers, particularly in issues of national security, intelligence operations and the like. And that will of course elevate also the standing of bin Laden and the cooperation that they have been working on. And we should be very worried about that development.

Source is Federal News Service, AUGUST 6, 1999, FRIDAY, HEADLINE: PRESS CONFERENCE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB MORNING NEWSMAKER WITH YOSSEF BODANSKY, AUTHOR SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM NATIONAL PRESS CLUB WASHINGTON, D.C.

How soon all the “guerilla attacks”, as they are more and more being referred to as, continue will be reflected in how much Qusay and his also dead brother oversaw the coordination and payment for the attacks and whether or not they have anyone who was a top aide to them who can or will take over.

Dems have been loving the “guerilla attacks”. Flashbacks of their perceived past glory — Vietnam — dance in their heads.

They ignore or downplay any relation or coordination of the Hussein regime with al Qaeda or terrorist groups. They will most likely be disapointed by the decrease in attacks on our troops in the same way the CA legislators were overheard discussing how a crisis in the state would benefit them politically.

Yet it was under the Clinton administration that the info about Iraq and al Qaeda came forth near the end of 1998, early 1999.

It came in wake of the visit of Farouk Hijazi, Iraq’s Ambassador to Turkey at the time, to bin Laden in Afghanistan.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/951911/posts


161 posted on 07/25/2007 8:22:34 AM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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To: PsyOp

The Al Qaeda Connection AND The Al Qaeda Connection, cont.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/ ^ | 5/12/03 AND 7/11/03 | Stephen F. Hayes

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/944617/posts

The Al Qaeda Connection: Saddam’s links to Osama were no secret.

OOPS. In what could go down as the Mother of All Copyediting Errors, Babil, the official newspaper of Saddam Hussein’s government, run by his oldest son Uday, last fall published information that appears to confirm U.S. allegations of links between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. It adds one more piece to the small pile of evidence emerging from Iraq that, when added to the jigsaw puzzle we already had, makes obsolete the question of whether Saddam and Osama bin Laden were in league and leaves in doubt only the extent of the connection.

In its November 16, 2002, edition, Babil identified one Abd-al-Karim Muhammad Aswad as an “intelligence officer,” describing him as the “official in charge of regime’s contacts with Osama bin Laden’s group and currently the regime’s representative in Pakistan.” A man of this name was indeed the Iraqi ambassador to Pakistan from the fall of 1999 until the fall of the regime.

Aswad’s name was included in something Babil called an “honor list.” Below that heading, in boldface type, came a straightforward introductory comment: “We publish this list of great men for the sons of our great people to see.” Directly beneath that declaration came a cryptic addendum—included by accident?—in regular type: “This is a list of the henchmen of the regime. Our hands will reach them sooner or later. Woe unto them. A list of the leaders of Saddam’s regime, as well as their present and previous posts.”

Then comes the list of regime officials. It is in alphabetical order until, halfway down the page, it starts over with officials whose names begin with the letter “A.” It includes Baath party leaders, military heroes, ambassadors, intelligence chiefs, the commander of the “Saddam Cubs Training Center,” governors of Iraqi provinces, chemical and biological weapons experts, and so on.

U.S. intelligence experts have not conclusively determined what the list means. One possible explanation they have entertained is that part of the list came from an opposition source, and that Babil republished it as a gesture of defiance. This would account for the reference to “henchmen of the regime” whom “our hands will reach”—to say nothing of the candid description of Aswad’s duties.

Sounds plausible. But that explanation leaves unanswered one important question: Why would the regime, at a time when it was publicly denying any link to al Qaeda, publish anything admitting such a link?

Even if the identification of Aswad in the Babil list was nothing more than an embarrassing editorial oversight, several recent developments have bolstered the Bush administration’s case that Saddam Hussein had connections to the al Qaeda leader.

On April 28, senior administration officials announced that the United States had captured an al Qaeda terrorist operating in Baghdad. The operative is believed to have been an associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top al Qaeda figure who plotted the assassination of Laurence Foley, an American diplomat gunned down in Jordan last fall. Zarqawi is also believed to have received medical treatment in Baghdad after he was wounded fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

That arrest came shortly after U.S. troops patrolling the Syrian border captured Farouk Hijazi, long believed to have been an outreach coordinator of sorts between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda. Hijazi, formerly a high-ranking Iraqi intelligence official, has confirmed to U.S. officials that he met Osama bin Laden in Sudan in 1994. He denies meeting with al Qaeda officials in 1998, but U.S. officials don’t believe him. At that time, a leading newspaper in Rome reported that Hijazi traveled to Afghanistan on December 21, 1998, to offer asylum to bin Laden. The Corriere della Sera described Hijazi as “the person who has been responsible for nurturing Iraq’s ties with the fundamentalist warriors since 1994.”

Back then, reports about a budding Hussein-bin Laden partnership were not limited to the foreign press. Newsweek magazine, in its January 11, 1999, issue, ran the headline “Saddam + Bin Laden.” The subhead declared, “America’s two enemies are courting.” The article was written by Christopher Dickey, Gregory Vistica, Russell Watson, and Joseph Contreras. The authors cited reports from an “Arab intelligence source” about the alliance.

According to this source, Saddam expected last month’s American and British bombing campaign to go on much longer than it did. The dictator believed that as the attacks continued, indignation would grow in the Muslim world, making his terrorism offensive both harder to trace and more effective. With acts of terror contributing to chaos in the region, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait might feel less inclined to support Washington. Saddam’s long-term strategy, according to several sources, is to bully or cajole Muslim countries into breaking the embargo against Iraq, without waiting for the United Nations to lift it formally.

(Interestingly, after Colin Powell’s presentation last month to the U.N. Security Council linking Hussein and al Qaeda, Dickey reversed course and referred to the evidence of these links as “egregious smokescreens.”)

The timing here is critical. Operation “Desert Fox” began on December 16, 1998, and ended after just 70 hours, on December 19, 1998. Two days later, Hijazi was dispatched to meet with al Qaeda leaders. And the Newsweek report detailing the increased collaboration appeared shortly thereafter. And it wasn’t just Newsweek.

In fact, Time magazine, in an issue also out January 11, 1999, one-upped its competitor by quoting bin Laden himself on the Iraq issue. “There is no doubt that the treacherous attack has confirmed that Britain and America are acting on behalf of Israel and the Jews, paving the way for the Jews to divide the Muslim world once again, enslave it and loot the rest of its wealth. A great part of the force that carried out the attack came from certain Gulf countries that have lost their sovereignty.”

U.S. intelligence officials who have expressed skepticism about a Hussein-bin Laden relationship often point to religious differences as the reason for their doubts. Hussein was secular, they say, bin Laden a fundamentalist. True enough. But, as bin Laden’s comments suggest, there were bigger concerns—that America and “the Jews” might “divide the Muslim world once again”—that would trump these differences and unite the two men against a common enemy.

The Hijazi meeting wasn’t the only Iraq-al Qaeda around that time. Eleven months before bin Laden spoke to Time, then-President Bill Clinton traveled to the Pentagon, where he gave a speech preparing the nation for war with Iraq. Clinton told the world that Saddam Hussein would work with an “unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers, and organized international criminals.” His warning was stern.

We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. . . . They will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein.

The timing, once again, is critical. Clinton’s speech came on February 18, 1998. The next day, according to documents uncovered earlier this week in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein reached out to bin Laden. A document dated February 19, 1998, and labeled “Top Secret and Urgent” tells of a plan for an al Qaeda operative to travel from Sudan to Iraq for talks with Iraqi intelligence. The memo focused on Saudi Arabia, another common bin Laden and Hussein foe, and declared that the Mukhabarat would pick up “all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden.” The document further explained that the message “would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him.” The document also held open the possibility that the al Qaeda representative could be “a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden.”

There is certainly much more to learn about the “contacts with bin Laden” after this meeting. What is clear, though, is that it is no longer defensible to claim there were no contacts. The skeptics, including many at the CIA, who argued that previous evidence of such links was not compelling, ought to be convinced now. They may well argue that, given the timing of the contacts, Saddam reached out to al Qaeda only when he felt threatened. The facts as we know them today are consistent with such a conclusion. But as journalists continue to pore over documents, and military analysts begin to do the same, it would be hasty to imagine that we’ve already uncovered everything there is to find on the bin Laden-Saddam tie.

Whatever the differences between al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime, the two shared a hatred of America. One Iraqi official, some weeks after the September 11 attacks, publicly criticized the United States for rooting out al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The official was quoted in a report in broken English carried on The Pakistan Newswire of October 29, 2001, which said: “He stressed the US to stop bombardment on Afghanistan resulting in death of innocent children, women and elderly people.” The official, who had been in his job since 1999, also expressed doubt that bin Laden was even a terrorist and responsible for 9/11. He “said the US President Bush should knock the door of international court of justice to address the situation because only court had authority to declare Prime suspect of September 11 tragedy ‘Osama Bin Laden’ terrorist or not.’”

You might recognize the official’s name. It was published in Babil last fall: Abd-al-Karim Muhammad Aswad, “intelligence officer, official in charge of regime’s contacts with Osama bin Laden’s group and currently the regime’s representative in Pakistan.”

____________________________________

The Al Qaeda Connection, cont. More reason to suspect that bin Laden and Saddam may have been in league.

by Stephen F. Hayes 07/11/2003 5:45:00 PM

THE INDISPENSABLE Glenn Reynolds has linked to an article in the Nashville Tennessean written by a Tennessee judge who believes he is in possession of documents linking Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

The judge is Gilbert S. Merritt, a federal appeals court judge invited to help Iraqis construct a legal system in postwar Iraq. He is, according to Reynolds, “a lifelong Democrat and a man of unimpeachable integrity.”

Here is an excerpt of his account:

The document shows that an Iraqi intelligence officer, Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, assigned to the Iraq embassy in Pakistan, is ‘’responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group.’’

The document shows that it was written over the signature of Uday Saddam Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein. The story of how the document came about is as follows.

Saddam gave Uday authority to control all press and media outlets in Iraq. Uday was the publisher of the Babylon Daily Political Newspaper.

On the front page of the paper’s four-page edition for Nov. 14, 2002, there was a picture of Osama bin Laden speaking, next to which was a picture of Saddam and his ‘’Revolutionary Council,’’ together with stories about Israeli tanks attacking a group of Palestinians.

On the back page was a story headlined ‘’List of Honor.’’ In a box below the headline was ‘’A list of men we publish for the public.’’ The lead sentence refers to a list of ‘’regime persons’’ with their names and positions.

The list has 600 names and titles in three columns. It contains, for example, the names of the important officials who are members of Saddam’s family, such as Uday, and then other high officials, including the 55 American ‘’deck of cards’’ Iraqi officials, some of whom have been apprehended.

Halfway down the middle column is written: ‘’Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan.’’

The story Judge Merritt relates is similar to an account reported in The Weekly Standard last May. Splashed across the front page of the November 16, 2002, edition of Uday Hussein’s Babil newspaper were two “honor” lists, one of which included Aswod (spelled “Aswad”) and identified him as the “official in charge of regime’s contacts with Osama bin Laden’s group and currently the regime’s representative in Pakistan.”

I stumbled upon this passage doing research for another piece. So I brought the article to the attention of administration officials, who hadn’t yet seen it, and asked for comment. Intelligence analysts were perplexed, particularly because of a passage in the text preceding the list. It read: “We publish this list of great men for the sons of our great people to see.” And below that: “This is a list of the henchmen of the regime. Our hands will reach them sooner or later. Woe unto them. A list of the leaders of Saddam’s regime, as well as their present and previous posts.”

The second description was clearly hostile in tone—”henchmen of the regime” and “woe unto them.” Analysts weren’t sure what to make of the introduction or the list, but suggested Uday Hussein may have simply republished a list of “henchmen” distributed by an Iraqi opposition group without realizing he was publicly linking his father to Osama bin Laden.

That still seems like the most plausible explanation to me. (Although Judge Merritt’s report that the front page of the four-page newspaper carried side-by-side photographs of bin Laden and Saddam is interesting.) Still, some intelligence officials believe that Aswad—who publicly raised doubts after September 11 about whether Osama bin Laden is a terrorist—was an important link between Iraq and al Qaeda.

If the newspaper reports are interesting but inconclusive, two other recent reports are more compelling. Jessica Stern, a Harvard professor and Clinton administration national security official, discusses the links in a fascinating and sober analysis of the Al Qaeda threat in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.

Under the subheading, “Friends of Convenience,” she writes:

Meanwhile, the Bush administration’s claims that al Qaeda was cooperating with the “infidel” (read: secular) Saddam Hussein while he was still in office are now also gaining support, and from a surprising source. Hamid Mir, bin Laden’s “official biographer” and an analyst for al Jazeera, spent two weeks filming in Iraq during the war. Unlike most reporters, Mir wandered the country freely and was not embedded with U.S. troops. He reports that he has “personal knowledge” that one of Saddam’s intelligence operatives, Farooq Hijazi, tried to contact bin Laden in Afghanistan as early as 1998. At that time, bin Laden was publicly still quite critical of the Iraqi leader, but he had become far more circumspect by November 2001, when Mir interviewed him for the third time.

Hijazi has acknowledged meeting with al Qaeda representatives, perhaps with bin Laden himself, even before the outreach in 1998. According to news reports and interviews with intelligence officials, Hijazi met with al Qaeda leaders in Sudan in 1994.

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman, a member of the congressional commission investigating the September 11 attacks, added to the intrigue this week when he flatly declared, “there is evidence” of Iraq-al Qaeda links. Lehman has access to classified intelligence as a member of the commission, intelligence that has convinced him the links may have been even greater than the public pronouncements of the Bush administration might suggest. “There is no doubt in my mind that [Iraq] trained them in how to prepare and deliver anthrax and to use terror weapons.”


162 posted on 07/25/2007 8:25:39 AM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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To: PsyOp

The Western nightmare: Saddam and Bin Laden versus the world

Iraq’s half-built chemical arsenal, and the planet’s most prolific terrorist - Julian Borger and Ian Black on a marriage made in hell
Saturday February 6, 1999

Guardian
It must have been a bitterly cold and uncomfortable journey. In the last days of December, a group of Iraqi officials crossed the Hindu Kush border from Pakistan to Afghanistan on their way to keep an appointment deep in the remote eastern mountains.

At the head of the group was a man by the name of Farouk Hijazi, President Saddam Hussein’s new ambassador to Turkey and one of Iraq’s most senior intelligence officers. He had been sent on one of the most important assignments of his career - to recruit Osama bin Laden.

Thus the world’s most notorious pariah state, armed with its half-built hoard of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, tried to embrace the planet’s most prolific terrorist. It was the stuff of the West’s millennial nightmares, but United States intelligence officials are positive that the meeting took place, although they admit that they have no idea what happened.

This was not the first time that President Saddam had offered Mr Bin Laden a partnership. At least one approach is believed to have been made during the Saudi dissident’s sojourn in Sudan from 1990 to 1996. On that occasion, the guerrilla leader turned the emissaries away, out of a pious man’s contempt for President Saddam’s secular Ba’athist regime.

But this time round Mr Bin Laden’s options have been rapidly diminishing. His hosts, the hardline Taliban militia which rules Afghanistan under Islamic auspices, have vowed publicly to stand by him. But they are at the same time discussing with his worst enemies - the Saudi monarchy and the American government - his eventual departure from Afghan soil.

Mr Bin Laden must surely have felt the noose begin to bite when he heard the news of the Taliban’s meeting this week with a US assistant secretary of state, Karl Inderfurth, in Islamabad.

But the most wanted man in the West may be at his most dangerous when cornered. And the increased pressure makes the prospect of a Saddam Hussein-Osama bin Laden alliance, once an improbable marriage of opposites, seem a more credible threat.

The US has been braced for more bombings since the attacks on its east African embassies in Tanzania and Kenya last August, in which more than 250 people died, most of them Africans. Retaliatory US cruise missile strikes followed, against Mr Bin Laden training camps in Afghanistan and a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant believed (mistakenly as US intelligence now privately admits) to be producing the nerve gas VX on his behalf.

US embassies throughout the Middle East have been on alert since December, when the CIA found what it called ‘strong and credible evidence’ of an imminent attack by members of Mr Bin Laden’s multinational organisation al-Qaeda (the Base).

The CIA also claimed to have foiled a plot last September by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group, an al-Qaeda affiliate, to bomb the US embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, The Egyptian suspects were deported to Cairo.

The US government has spent $2 billion (£1.2 billion) on counter-terrorist measures since the August embassy bombings. The Pentagon has set up national guard rapid response teams in 10 states around the country.

Overseas, US embassy windows are being coated with protective film to prevent them disintegrating into lethal shards under the impact of a blast. And the FBI is kitting out a Gulfstream 5 long-range business jet to fly specialist teams of agents at short notice to a terrorist incident anywhere in the world.

Amid these preparations are signs that the threat of non-conventional terrorist attacks looms ever larger on the American horizon. The justice department has distributed equipment and training grants to local fire departments to help them deal with possible chemical or biological weapons incidents, and it recently organised a huge multi-agency operation, codenamed Poised Response, to rehearse a co-ordinated reaction to such an attack on Washington.

But it is not just the US which finds itself in the putative firing line. Since RAF bombers took part in air strikes on Iraq in November, British citizens have also become primary targets.

Talking to the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat a month after the air strikes on Iraq, Mr Bin Laden explicitly added British civilians to his ‘divinely-ordained’ list of targets.

‘The British and American people have widely voiced their support for their leaders’ decision to attack Iraq, which makes all those people, in addition to the Jews who occupy Palestine, into people warring [against God],’ he warned.

As Mr Bin Laden plans more attacks on the ‘infidels’ he regards as a contaminating presence at the Islamic holy sites of his home country, American and British intelligence services plot their own strategy. They aim to block his moves and contain him while waiting for a chance to strike themselves.

It is an unending game of chess between terrorism and counter-terrorism in which last year’s multi-million dollar cruise missile strikes are merely the bluntest of weapons.

Even before the embassy bombings in Africa, US special forces had been rehearsing daring ‘grab raids’ aimed at fighting their way into Mr Bin Laden’s mountain lair in Afghanistan and either abducting or assassinating him. But such an operation would almost certainly involve high American casualties and - like missile attacks - would require highly accurate information about the whereabouts of Mr Bin Laden.

According to journalists who visited him in December, the ascetic Saudi radical is these days more cautious than ever, continually shifting between tented camps and caves and never using satellite phones lest they betray his position to the US spy satellites that constantly hover overhead.

There has been at least one assassination attempt in recent months, carried out by Saudi intelligence.

Mr Bin Laden accused the governor of Riyadh, Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz (whom he also blamed for stripping him of Saudi citizenship in 1994) of offering $267,000 to three men to carry out the execution.

The terrorist financier told a Pakistani journalist that one of the would-be assassins, Siddiq Ahmed, had confessed, but did not say what had happened to him.

Prince Salman denied the accusation, saying that he had never heard of Siddiq Ahmed. But Vincent Cannistraro, the former head of CIA counter-terrorist operations, who maintains close contact with US and Middle Eastern intelligence networks, said an assassination bid did indeed take place.

‘The Saudis hired someone among his followers to poison him, probably in November. He suffered kidney failure but recovered, at least partially,’ Mr Cannistraro said.

Whether as a result of the assassination attempt or not, Mr Bin Laden is unwell, said Mr Cannistraro.

‘There is definitely something wrong. The intelligence people here described him as gravely ill.’

Mr Bin Laden has denied such reports and claimed that he remains sufficiently vigorous to play football and ride horses. But the journalists who met him in December said he was walking stiffly and leaning on a walking stick. And when a Pakistani reporter, Rahimullah Yusufzai, filmed him hobbling, Mr Bin Laden’s aides erased the tape.

While waiting for a chance to grab Mr Bin Laden or get a clear shot at him, his enemies are constantly striving to narrow his room for manoeuvre and fold up his sprawling financial network one bank account at a time.

‘He’s certainly feeling the pinch; he can’t use his satellite phone and he can’t travel for fear of being kidnapped,’ said one British counter-terrorism expert.

‘He’s pretty much in a box and there are signs that action against his financial resources may have started to work.’

Mr Cannistraro believes that Mr Bin Laden’s financial resources (originally estimated at up to $300 million) are dwindling fast.

‘He went through his personal fortune long ago,’ he said. ‘He gets some income from trading through his companies. But his major source of income these days is fundraising, mostly among religious businessmen in the Gulf.’

The Saudi royal family, presumably stirred into action by last year’s bloodbaths in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, have closed down a number of Mr Bin Laden’s front charities, and have been tightening the screws on their erstwhile Taliban clients, whose ‘embassy’ in Riyadh was closed down in September.

The Taliban’s guiding light, Mullah Omar, has also rejected the entreaties of Prince Turki al-Faisal, the head of Saudi general intelligence, who visited Afghanistan twice last year in an attempt to lever Mr Bin Laden out of his hiding place.

‘Prince Turki also returned empty handed,’ Mr Bin Laden crowed soon after the last attempt in November.

‘It is none of the business of the Saudi regime to come and ask for handing over Osama bin Laden, who was stripped of his identification card, which is his right by birth, and whose assets were frozen, and who was forced to sever all relations with his kin.’

The Taliban’s reluctance to surrender Mr Bin Laden is understandable. An estimated 300 of the multi-ethnic volunteers under his command are thought to have died in the war against the Soviet Union, turning the Saudi guerrilla leader into a legend in Afghan hearts - and in his own mind. He once claimed to have ‘reduced the Soviet Union to a myth’.

But even the fanatics of the Taliban are dependent on a steady supply of funds, if only to wipe out their adversaries’ last remaining pockets of resistance. And in the last few months the Saudis have cut the flow of cash to a trickle.

Mamoun Fandy, a politics professor at Washington’s Georgetown University, believes that the pressure will eventually take effect. In his new book, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent, to be published later this month, Mr Fandy writes: ‘The Taliban protection is not likely to continue forever. Taliban as a movement is subject to global pressures, especially from the United States and Saudi Arabia. Previously, under pressure from both, Sudan expelled Bin Laden from its territory. Under similar pressure, the Taliban may find it profitable to do likewise.’

In fact, in recent interviews with Mr Fandy, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah said he had won the personal assurances of Mullah Omar that Mr Bin Laden’s welcome was not indefinite.

‘Omar promised Crown Prince Abullah that ‘once things settled down’ in Afghanistan, it would be no place for Osama. It is a matter of time,’ Mr Fandy said.

This week’s meeting between US and Taliban officials in Islamabad shows how the sands can shift, less than a year after Mullah Omar sent Bill Richardson (who was then the US ambassador to the United Nations) away empty handed from secret talks about Mr Bin Laden in Kabul last April.

It is at this moment, with Mr Bin Laden increasingly vulnerable, that the Iraqi offer of shelter materialised from the mysterious figure of Farouk Hijazi.

Mr Hijazi’s arrival as Iraqi ambassador to Ankara last year was seen by Western intelligence analysts as President Saddam’s attempt to beef up his espionage and weapons procurement network in the region.

Despite being Palestinian born, the secret policeman won the Iraqi ruling family’s favour by the zeal with which he went about executing their opponents, both in Iraq and abroad. In the past decade he rose to become the head of external operations in the special security organisation run by President Saddam’s son Qusay.

An attempt to place him in North America failed when Canada refused to accept him as ambassador. After a few months’ hesitation, Turkey consented to his nomination late last year.

In a telling sign of the true function of the embassy, the outgoing ambassador, Rafi Daham al-Tikriti, was made head of the Iraqi mukhabarat intelligence service on his return to Baghdad.

Ahmed Allawi, who has been keeping tabs on Hijazi for the opposition Iraqi National Congress, said: ‘Turkey is the Iraqis’ biggest intelligence station abroad, and Hijazi is deeply involved in the secret overseas operations of the mukhabarat. He is the perfect man to send to Afghanistan.’

Mr Fandy believes that if Mr Bin Laden had to leave his Afghan stronghold he would prefer to seek refuge in the mountains of Yemen.

Although he was born in Riyadh, his family came from the Hadramout region of southern Yemen, and he has since cultivated contacts with the influential Sanhane tribe.

But Mr Fandy argues that even Yemen would not offer an entirely safe haven if the Saudi monarchy was determined to root him out. ‘Saudi Arabia can threaten the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh more than Bin Laden can threaten the Saudis.’

If Mr Bin Laden can be winkled out, it will be a significant victory for the West’s billion-dollar counter-terrorism machine, but no one on either side of the Atlantic believes it will spell the end of hostilities with radical Islamic groups.

‘It’s dangerous to characterise him as the be all and end all of this problem,’ said one British-based expert. ‘Political Islam is on the rise and terrorist groups will continue to organise in spite of all the security measures. And Bin Laden has faithful lieutnants so even if he’s assassinated the phenomenon isn’t going to go away.’

The paradox of the Bin Laden manhunt is that its target is, in many ways, the joint creation of the Saudi and Western intelligence services, a result of their covert war to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.

Even then, some had qualms about cultivating that sort of client. ‘We did worry then about these wild bearded men,’ admits one British official. ‘But there was a lot of naivety around.’

Under the great organising principle of the cold war, with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan doing their double act against the evil empire, their enemy’s enemy was their friend.

Yet after the Soviet army left Afghanistan, it soon became clear that a dangerous genie had been let loose, as thousands of Egyptians and Algerians, Saudis and Yemenis, fired up by their victory over a superpower, went home to give a critical edge to indigenous Islamic fundamentalist movements which had yet to turn violent.

Now, while trying to undo the mistakes of the past, the US and Britain have to steel themselves for Mr Bin Laden’s promised next move.

If his flirtation with Baghdad is consummated, the struggle with the implacable zealot from Saudi Arabia could be drifting towards an exceedingly bloody end-game.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,3818220-111026,00.html

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007


163 posted on 07/25/2007 8:27:54 AM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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Saddam link to Bin Laden
THE GUARDIAN ^ | 2/6/1999 | Julian Borger

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/866105/posts

Saddam Hussein’s regime has opened talks with Osama bin Laden, bringing closer the threat of a terrorist attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, according to US intelligence sources and Iraqi opposition officials.

The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Kandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad’s ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam’s most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq.

The Saudi-born fundamentalist’s response is unknown. He is thought to have rejected earlier Iraqi advances, disapproving of the Saddam Hussein’s secular Baathist regime. But analysts believe that Bin Laden’s bolthole in Afghanistan, where he has lived for the past three years, is now in doubt as a result of increasing US and Saudi government pressure.

News of the negotiations emerged in a week when the US attorney general, Janet Reno, warned the Senate that a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction was a growing concern. “There’s a threat, and it’s real,” Ms Reno said, adding that such weapons “are being considered for use.”

US embassies around the world are on heightened alert as a result of threats believed to emanate from followers of Bin Laden, who has been indicted by a US court for orchestrating the bombing last August of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which 259 people died. US delegations in Africa and the Gulf have been shut down in recent weeks after credible threats were received.

In this year’s budget, President Clinton called for an additional $2 billion to spend on counter-terrorist measures, including extra guards for US embassies around the world and funds for executive jets to fly rapid response investigative teams to terrorist incidents around the world.

Since RAF bombers took part in air raids on Iraq in December, Bin Laden declared that he considered British citizens to be justifiable targets. Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of CIA counter-terrorist operations, said: “Hijazi went to Afghanistan in December and met with Osama, with the knowledge of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. We are sure about that. What is the source of some speculation is what transpired.”

An acting US counter-intelligence official confirmed the report. “Our understanding over what happened matches your account, but there’s no one here who is going to comment on it.”

Ahmed Allawi, a senior member of the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), based in London, said he had heard reports of the December meeting which he believed to be accurate. “There is a long history of contacts between Mukhabarat [Iraqi secret service] and Osama bin Laden,” he said. Mr Hijazi, formerly director of external operations for Iraqi intelligence, was “the perfect man to send to Afghanistan”.

Analysts believe that Mr Hijazi offered Mr bin Laden asylum in Iraq, most likely in return for co-operation in launching attacks on US and Saudi targets. Iraqi agents are believed to have made a similar offer to the Saudi maverick leader in the early 1990s when he was based in Sudan.

Although he rejected the offer then, Mamoun Fandy, a professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, said Bin Laden’s position in Afghanistan is no longer secure after the Saudi monarchy cut off diplomatic relations with, and funding for, the Taleban militia movement, which controls most of the country.

Mr Fandy said senior members of the Saudi royal family told him in recent weeks that they had received assurances from the Taleban leader, Mullah Mohamed Omar, that once the radical Islamist movement secured control over Afghan territory, Bin Laden would be forced to leave. “It’s a matter of time now for Osama.” He said Bin Laden would have a strong ideological aversion to accepting Iraqi hospitality, but might have little choice.


164 posted on 07/25/2007 8:29:44 AM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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US Government - Bin Laden and Iraq Agreed to Cooperate on Weapons Development

New York Times, Facts on File World News Digest | Novemeber 1998 | BENJAMIN WEISER

Breaking News from 1998. The US released an indictment on November 4, 1998 stating bin Laden and al Qaeda were working with the Saddam and the Iraqi regime to develop weapons of mass destruction.

From New York Times and Facts on File — articles from November 1998.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

November 5, 1998, Thursday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 2; Foreign Desk

HEADLINE: SAUDI IS INDICTED IN BOMB ATTACKS ON U.S. EMBASSIES

BYLINE: By BENJAMIN WEISER

BODY:
A Federal grand jury in Manhattan returned a 238-count indictment yesterday charging the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden in the bombings of two United States Embassies in Africa in August and with conspiring to commit other acts of terrorism against Americans abroad.

Government officials immediately announced that they were offering two rewards of $5 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Mr. bin Laden and another man charged yesterday, Muhammad Atef, who was described as Mr. bin Laden’s chief military commander.

Mr. bin Laden is believed to be living in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist movement that rules that country.

Mr. Atef’s whereabouts are unknown.

It is uncertain whether Mr. bin Laden will ever stand trial in the United States. But if he does, prosecutors said, he could face life in prison or the death penalty if he is convicted.

Prosecutors also unsealed an earlier indictment, issued in June, that included similar but less detailed charges against Mr. bin Laden.

That indictment was returned before the embassy bombings and resulted from a two-year grand jury investigation of his activities in Somalia and Saudi Arabia, as well as reports that he had connections to a circle of Islamic militants in Brooklyn.

The new indictment, which supersedes the June action, accuses Mr. bin Laden of leading a vast terrorist conspiracy from 1989 to the present, in which he is said to have been working in concert with governments, including those of Sudan, Iraq and Iran, and terrorist groups to build weapons and attack American military installations. Excerpts, page A8.

But the indictment gives few details of Mr. bin Laden’s alleged involvement in the embassy attacks. The indictment does not, for example, specify whether prosecutors have evidence that Mr. bin Laden gave direct orders to those who carried out the attacks.

Nothing in the document indicates why the original indictment was kept secret for months. But the secret charges were returned about the time that American officials were plotting a possible military attack into Afghanistan to arrest Mr. bin Laden.

Mary Jo White, the United States Attorney in Manhattan, said, “It’s very common to have sealed indictments when you’re trying to apprehend those who are indicted.”

Both indictments offer new information about Mr. bin Laden’s operations, including one deal he is said to have struck with Iraq to cooperate in the development of weapons in return for Mr. bin Laden’s agreeing not to work against that country.

No details were given about whether the alleged deal with Iraq led to the development of actual weapons for Mr. bin Laden’s group, which is called Al Qaeda.

The Government said yesterday that Mr. bin Laden’s group had made use of private relief groups “as conduits for transmitting funds” for Al Qaeda.

The groups were not identified.

Prosecutors also said Mr. bin Laden’s group had conducted internal investigations of its members and their associates, trying to detect who might be acting as informants, and had killed those who had been suspected of collaborating with enemies of the organization.

The Government indicated earlier that its knowledge of Mr. bin Laden’s activities stemmed in part from the cooperation of one such informant, who it said yesterday had worked for Mr. bin Laden, transporting weapons to terrorists, helping to buy land for his training camps and assisting in running his finances.

The June indictment against Mr. bin Laden suggested that the Government had a considerable amount of knowledge of his dealings in the months before the attacks on the embassies, one in Tanzania and one in Kenya.

But the new charges are an indication of how quickly the Government has worked to solve the embassy attacks, which occurred just three months ago.

Ms. White said that Mr. bin Laden was charged with “plotting and carrying out the most heinous acts of international terrorism and murder.”

Citing the more than 250 people killed in the embassy attacks and the more than 1,000 wounded, she added, “In a greater sense, all of the citizens of the world are also victims whenever and wherever the cruel and cowardly acts of international terrorism strike.”

The investigation of Mr. bin Laden is continuing, said Ms. White and Lewis D. Schiliro, assistant director of the F.B.I. in New York, whose agents have fanned out around the world to investigate the embassy attacks.

“Our investigative strategy is clear,” Mr. Schiliro said.

“We will identify, locate and prosecute all those responsible, right up the line, from those who constructed and delivered the bombs to those who paid for them and ordered it done.”

In charging Mr. Atef, the Government reported new details about what it called his role as Mr. bin Laden’s military commander, referring to his “principal responsibility for the training of Al Qaeda members.”

Mr. Atef was a member of a committee under Mr. bin Laden that approved all terrorist actions by Al Qaeda, the indictment said, and he also played a major role in coordinating attacks on United States and United Nations troops in Somalia in October 1993.

In those attacks, 18 American soldiers and hundreds of Somalis were killed. Americans were shocked by the images of the body of one of the Americans being dragged through the streets, and the violence provoked a furor over the United States role in Somalia as part of the United Nations effort to pacify the country and supply food and medicine to the Somalis.

At the time, the battle was seen as one with Somali warlords. But yesterday’s charges made clear that the Government now contends that Mr. bin Laden had a critical role in instigating the fighting.

In late 1992 and 1993, when Mr. bin Laden’s group was based in Sudan, Mr. Atef went to Somalia to determine “how best to cause violence to the United States and United Nations military forces stationed there,” and reported back to Mr. bin Laden at his headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, the indictment said.

Prosecutors said that in the spring of 1993, Mr. Atef and other members of Al Qaeda, including Haroun Fazil and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, both of whom have been charged in the embassy attacks, traveled to Somalia and trained Somalis opposed to the United Nation’s intervention.
On Oct. 3 and 4, 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, Somali soldiers trained by Al Qaeda took part in the attacks on the soldiers, according to the June 10 indictment that was unsealed yesterday.

GRAPHIC: Photos: Mary Jo White, a United States Attorney, at a news conference yesterday with a portrait of Osama bin Laden, a Saudi exile indicted on charges of conspiracy in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. (Ruby Washington/The New York Times); Prosecutors say this photo shows Osama bin Laden, left, and Muhammad Atef, who were indicted yesterday on terrorism charges. (United States Attorney’s Office)(pg. A8)


165 posted on 07/25/2007 8:36:22 AM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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Copyright 1998 Facts on File, Inc.
Facts on File World News Digest

November 12, 1998

SECTION: UNITED STATES

HEADLINE: Saudi Millionaire Indicted In African Embassy Blasts ; —Bin Laden Also Linked to Other Attacks; Other Developments.

BODY:
A federal grand jury in New York City November 4 issued a 238-count indictment against fugitive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, charging him in the August bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The indictment also charged five members of bin Laden’s alleged international terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, in the bombings. (See p. 710E1)

Federal prosecutors charged bin Laden and four Al-Qaeda members with murder for all of the more than 200 victims killed in the embassy bombings. Bin Laden allegedly had planned and financed the attacks, which were then carried out by his followers. Prosecutors also charged the suspects with conspiracy for their alleged roles in those attacks, as well as for their alleged participation in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Somalia. One of the Al-Qaeda members charged was Muhammed Atef, who was described as bin Laden’s top military commander.

Federal prosecutors had brought conspiracy and murder charges against other Al-Qaeda members in September and October. As of the November 4 indictment, five Al-Qaeda members had been indicted in the U.S. on charges of murder and conspiracy in the embassy bombings, and four others had been charged with conspiracy. Four of the nine were in custody in New York. One suspect was to be extradited from Germany, and one from Britain. Three were fugitives. Bin Laden was thought to be hiding in Afghanistan. (See p. 666A1; 1993, p. 743B2)

Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney for the Southern Distict of New York, at a November 4 news conference said that bin Laden was charged with “plotting and carrying out the most heinous acts of international terrorism and murder.”

Accused of Terrorism Campaign— The November 4 indictment charged bin Laden with leading an extensive terrorist conspiracy that started in 1989. Bin Laden allegedly worked in collusion with governments—including those of Sudan, Iraq and Iran—as well as with terrorist groups, to construct weapons and carry out attacks on American military installations.

The indictment also alleged that Al-Qaeda had tried to obtain nuclear and chemical weapons; supported extremists in more than 20 countries; trained Somalis who killed 18 American soldiers in Mogadishu in 1993 and carried out the two U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.

Federal presecutors November 4 also made public a sealed indictment that had been returned June 10—before the embassy blasts—naming bin Laden and members of Al-Qaeda in many of the broad conspiracy charges listed in the November document. The June indictment, which indicated that the U.S. government had known a considerable amount about bin Laden’s activities before the embassy bombings, had been returned after a two-year grand jury investigation into the Saudi millionaire’s activities in Saudi Arabia and Somalia, as well as into his reported connections to a New York group of Islamic militants. The grand jury was set up after 19 U.S. military personnel were killed in the 1996 bombing of a military complex in Saudi Arabia. (See p. 608B3)

The November 4 indictment incorporated and expanded upon charges made in June, which would be added to the current case. The later indictment did not explain why the June charges, which were returned at approximately the time that American officials were considering the use of military force to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan, had been kept a secret. The November indictment superceded the previous one.

The November indictment also alleged that bin Laden provided training camps and housing for members of Al-Qaeda, ran money and guns worldwide, recruited American citizens to work for him and established companies as fronts to allow Al-Qaeda to obtain arms and explosives.

The November 4 document named as co-conspirators, but did not indict, several Islamic extremists, including Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 on conspiracy charges stemming from failed plots to bomb targets in New York City and to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. (Prosecutors had accused Abdel Rahman of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but he was not convicted on those charges.) The indictment did not specify the extremists’ exact links to Al-Qaeda. In an attempt to link Al-Qaeda to the Alkifah Refugee Center in New York, a now-defunct mosque that Abdel Rahman and his followers dominated in the early 1990s, the indictment alleged that Alkifah was an “office” of an earlier incarnation of Al-Qaeda. The indictment gave no details about such an alleged link and did not mention the World Trade Center bombing. (See p. 237B3; 1996, p. 20F1; 1994, p. 376B2)

The November 4 indictment included new charges that Al-Qaeda had shipped weapons and explosives to the Arabian peninsula from Sudan in the mid-1990s during a period of attacks on Americans in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The indictment made no direct allegations, however, that bin Laden had played a role in attacks on American soldiers in those countries.

The indictment also charged that Al-Qaeda had reached an arrangement with President Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq whereby the group said that it would not work against Iraq, and the two parties agreed to cooperate in the development of weapons.

The indictment did not offer a precise description of bin Laden’s alleged role as sponsor of global terrorism or give many details about bin Laden’s alleged role in the embassy bombings. It did not indicate whether prosecutors had proof that the embassy attacks occurred on bin Laden’s direct orders.

Al-Qaeda Accused of Conspiracy— The November 4 indictment also charged that bin Laden and Al-Qaeda had played a crucial role in instigating fighting in Somalia during a 1992-93 United Nations relief mission. The indictment alleged that during that operation, at which time Al-Qaeda was allegedly based in Sudan, Atef had traveled to Somalia to determine how best to attack U.S. and U.N. forces there. According to prosecutors, in the spring of 1993, Atef and other members of Al-Qaeda, including Haroun Fazil and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh—both charged in the embassy attacks—traveled to Somalia and trained Somalis who opposed the intervention by the U.N. According to the June indictment, Al-Qaeda-trained Somali soldiers participated in the October attacks on U.S. and U.N. soldiers in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

The indictment disclosed new information about Atef’s alleged role as bin Laden’s top military commander. In addition to the key role he was said to have played in the Somalia attacks, he allegedly had “principal responsibility” in the training of members of Al-Qaeda.

U.S. Offers Record Reward— The State Department November 4 announced rewards of $ 5 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of bin Laden and Atef. The reward was the largest sum of money the U.S. had ever offered for the capture of a terrorist.

Kenya Embassy Warning Confirmed— U.S. intelligence officials had received a detailed warning about the Nairobi embassy attack nine months before it occurred, the New York Times reported October 23, citing unidentified U.S and Kenyan officials. In November 1997, Mustafa Mahmoud Said Ahmed, an Egyptian who stood accused of participating in the Dar es Salaam bombing, went to the Nairobi embassy and warned officials of a planned attack on the building. According to U.S. officials, Ahmed reportedly said that a group of Islamic radicals would detonate a truck filled with explosives inside the building’s underground parking garage—which is what happened in the August bombing.

The Times article reported that in a separate interrogation by Kenyan intelligence officials, Ahmed had said that he had taken surveillance photographs of the embassy in preparation for the attack.

The U.S. State Department had officially denied since the bombings that it had received specific threats regarding the attacks. However, an unidentified official late October 22 said that the State Department had received from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) two reports about Ahmed, according to the Times article. The official said that the reports resulted in several weeks of heightened security at the embassy, but because there was no attack, the extra security precautions were removed.

Tanzanian officials had arrested Ahmed after the twin bombings, and local prosecutors September 21 charged him with the Dar es Salaam attack. The Times article said that the U.S. had not sought to extradite Ahmed, but that officials would not say why. It also said that U.S. officials believed Ahmed to be involved in both embassy bombings, although CIA analysts had not been able to link Ahmed to any terrorist group. (See p. 668G2)

The article said that, in its two warning reports to the State Department, CIA officials had said that they believed that Ahmed might have fabricated the threats. (The Washington Post October 31 quoted an unidentified U.S. diplomat in Nairobi as saying that Ahmed had a history of fabrication and that his warning was a generalized description of any terrorist attack.) The CIA, however, also said in the report that it had not ruled out that the threats might be serious, the Times reported. CIA officials had suggested that Ahmed’s warning might have been a ploy by the terrorists to allow them to observe the defense measures the embassy would take in the event of a terrorist attack.

Ahmed denied involvement in the bombings. His lawyer, Abdul Mwengela, said that Ahmed had overheard details of the bomb plot in the lobby of a Nairobi hotel in 1997.


166 posted on 07/25/2007 8:37:08 AM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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Salman Pak: The Saddam/Iraq-Al Qaeda connection - YouTube
167 posted on 08/06/2007 9:55:43 AM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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‘Dozens died in Syrian-Iranian chemical weapons experiment’
Jerusalem Post ^ | 9/18/2007 | Staff

Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane’s Magazine report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.

According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.

Reports of the accident were circulated at the time, however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection.

The report comes on the heels of criticism leveled by the Syrains at the United States, accusing it of spreading “false” claims of Syrian nuclear activity and cooperation with North Korea to excuse an alleged Israeli air incursion over the country this month.

According to Global Security.org, Syria is not a signatory of either the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), - an international agreement banning the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons, or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Syria began developing chemical weapons in 1973, just before the Yom Kipper War. Global Security.org cites the country as having one of the most advanced chemical weapons programs in the Middle East.


168 posted on 09/18/2007 12:57:57 PM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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To: PsyOp

Syria’s WMDs
Waterbury Republican-American ^ | September 20, 2007 | Editorial

While Americans fret over Britney’s child-custody troubles, Sally’s “censored” anti-war rant and O.J.’s encounters with Las Vegas police, some very scary and troubling reports are seeping almost unnoticed from the Middle East.

The French news agency AFP and others reported this week that dozens of Iranian weapons engineers and Syrian troops were killed in a July explosion in northern Syria. Jane’s Defense Weekly, a reputable British journal, quoted Syrian military sources as saying “VX and Sarin nerve agents and mustard blister agents” were involved in the explosion, which occurred as engineers were installing a warhead on a Scud missile.

Meanwhile, details are slowly emerging about an Israeli air raid in northeastern Syria. Reports indicate the target was a nuclear-weapons installation being built by Syria in cooperation with North Korea, which is known to have nuclear bombs and know-how. Another possibility is the Israeli raid destroyed conventional weapons intended for Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.

Amid this talk about nuclear and chemical weapons, we couldn’t help but wonder: Where did Syria get them? Jane’s says Damascus has been buying the stuff by the ton from Iran since 2004. That’s frightening enough on its face, but a little hard to swallow because the Israelis have been known to intercept illicit weapons shipments, and they’ve never scored VX, sarin or mustard blister agents, let alone nukes.

Before the Iraq war, every intelligence agency in the world believed Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, but no weapons of mass destruction were found after U.S. and British armies toppled his regime in 2003. At the time, there was speculation and even some evidence that Hussein had trucked the materials across Iraq’s western border to Syria. The possibility the warhead that exploded was one of Hussein’s missing WMDs should not be discounted, especially when one considers that such weapons grow increasingly unstable as they age.

More to the point: If Syria is trying to get nuclear bombs, already has weapons of mass destruction and is mounting them on missiles, and if Iran and North Korea are cooperating in this endeavor, what do the civilized nations of the world intend to do about it?

http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2007/09/21/opinion/285725.txt


169 posted on 09/21/2007 12:06:49 PM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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Ali Al-Timimi, al-Qaeda and Anthrax

"A colleague of famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey, a prolific Ames strain researcher, has been convicted of sedition and sentenced to life in prison. He worked in a program co-sponsored by the American Type Culture Collection and had access to ATCC facilities, as well as facilities of the George Mason University Center for Biodefense. The Center for Biodefense was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Center was run by Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey. The bionformatics grad student once had a high security clearance for mathematical support work for the Navy. In the 1990s, Ayman Zawahiri had Ali Mohammed infiltrate the CIA and US Army, and dupe the FBI. He did it all over again with Ali Al-Timimi. If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it."

170 posted on 11/02/2007 8:26:34 AM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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To: PsyOp

BTT


171 posted on 11/02/2007 8:50:17 AM PDT by BIGLOOK (Keelhauling is a sensible solution to mutiny.)
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To: PsyOp
Iraqi WMD Mystery Solved...

"On the tapes, you hear Saddam discussing the assistance of Russia and Brazil in dealing with the United Nations. He laughs off inspections, as his son-in-law who later defects, Hussein Kamil, reports how as late as 1995 their chemical and biological programs were being hidden from the world. They also discuss keeping the ingredients for these weapons separate, so that should they be found, they will be looked at as innocent dual-use items. They were not destroyed in 1991 as the Duelfer Report concludes. There are even indications on the tapes that Iraq may have had a role in the 2001 anthrax attacks...."

"It has been confirmed across the board that 18-wheelers were seen going into Syria before the war, crossing the border soon after Iraqi intelligence replaced the border guards and cleared nearby areas for their passage. There are also eyewitness reports of the trucks going into Syria, and eyewitness reports of their burial in Lebanon."

"The trucks with the weapons were tracked to three locations in Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, currently controlled by the Syrians, Iranians and Hezbollah. Sources I've spoken with that have seen satellite photos of the movements confirm that the WMD in Syria are at military bases, while the ones in Lebanon are buried. A fourth site in Syria, the al-Safir WMD and missile site, should also be looked at. From spring to summer 2002, there was a lot of construction here involving the expansion of underground complexes.

172 posted on 01/03/2008 8:04:59 AM PST by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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To: PsyOp

bump


173 posted on 01/03/2008 8:06:59 AM PST by woofie
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To: PsyOp

bump


174 posted on 01/03/2008 8:07:05 AM PST by woofie
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To: PsyOp; Calpernia; Velveeta; DAVEY CROCKETT; Founding Father; LibertyRocks; milford421

The list has 600 names and titles in three columns. It contains, for example, the names of the important officials who are members of Saddam’s family, such as Uday, and then other high officials, including the 55 American ‘’deck of cards’’ Iraqi officials, some of whom have been apprehended.

Halfway down the middle column is written: ‘’Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan.’’

The story Judge Merritt relates is similar to an account reported in The Weekly Standard last May. Splashed across the front page of the November 16, 2002, edition of Uday Hussein’s Babil newspaper were two “honor” lists, one of which included Aswod (spelled “Aswad”) and identified him as the “official in charge of regime’s contacts with Osama bin Laden’s group and currently the regime’s representative in Pakistan.”

From post #162............above.

Interesting thread, with all you will ever want to know about WMD in Iraq.

Thank you to Psyop for pulling this thread into a valuable resource about WMD.


175 posted on 01/04/2008 4:52:28 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1886546/posts?page=4972#4972 45 Item Communist Manifesto)
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Salman Pak: The Saddam/Iraq-Al Qaeda connection Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybvc2RcbZKw&feature=related


176 posted on 01/04/2008 1:03:34 PM PST by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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To: PsyOp

Salman Pak: Saddam’s Al Qaeda Connection (more details)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cSSKsUOVjE&feature=related


177 posted on 01/04/2008 1:08:31 PM PST by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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Ken Alibek, Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of The Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program In The World—Told by The Man Who Ran It, 1999.

Biopreparat, we believed, was our Manhattan Project.
p.14.

The third floor was home to our "First Department," the unit responsible for maintaining our secret files and all communications with Biopreparat facilities around the country. The only people allowed in, besides security personnel, were Kalinin and myself. It was administered by the KGB.
p.14.

At the height of the U.S. offensive biological weapons program, American scientists restricted themselves to developing armaments that could be countered by antibiotics or vaccines, out of a concern for protecting troops and civilians from potential accidents. The Soviet government decided that the best agents were those for which there was no known cure. This shaped the entire course of our program and thrust us into a never-ending race against the medical profession. Every time a new treatment or vaccine came to light somewhere, we were back in our labs, trying to figure out how to overcome its effects.
p.18.

Trafficking in germs and viruses was legal then, as it is today. In the name of scientific research, our agents purchased strains from university research laboratories and biotech firms around the world with no difficulty. Representatives of Soviet scientific and trade organizations based in Europe, as well as in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, had standing instructions to look out for new or unusual diseases. It was from the United States, for instance, that we obtained Machupo, the virus that causes Bolivian hemorrhagic fever. We picked up Marburg, related to the Ebola virus, from Germany.
     The KGB was our most dependable supplier of raw material. They were known within Biopreparat by the code name "Capturing Agency One." Vials arrived in Russia almost every month with exotic fluids, powders, and cultures gathered by our intelligence.
p.18.

The skittish behavior of microorganisms leads many experts to question their effectiveness as weapons. One of the problems has always been to find a reliable means of delivery, one that prevents biological agents from losing virulence when they are dispersed. It is the equivalent of what biologists call a "vector" for the transmittal of disease.
p.20

Over the centuries, armies have often used primitive methods to spread pestilence. The Romans dropped poison into wells to contaminate their enemies' water supplies. The English gave blankets smeared with smallpox to Indians in the eighteenth century during the French and Indian Wars. Confederate troops in the American Civil War left corpses of animals to rot in ponds along the path of Union forces. And during World War II, Japanese planes dropped porcelain bombs containing billions of plague-infected fleas over Manchuria.
p.20

The most effective way of contaminating humans is through the air we breathe, but this has always been difficult to achieve. Soviet scientists combined the knowledge gained from postwar bio-chemistry and genetic research with modern industrial techniques to develop what are called "aerosol" weapons—particles suspended in a mist, like the spray of an insecticide, or a fine dust, like talcum powder.
     Temperature and weather conditions will determine the success of an aerosol's dissemination. Bacteria and viruses are generally vulnerable to sunlight; ultraviolet light kills them quickly. Heavy rain or snow, wind currents, and humidity impede their effectiveness.
     Such obstacles complicate the planning of a biological attack, but they are not insurmountable. A bioweaponeer will know to strike at dusk, during periods when a blanket of cool air covers a warmer layer over the ground—a weather condition called an inversion, which keeps particles from being blown away by wind currents. We packed our biological agents in small melon-sized metal balls, called bomblets, set to explode several miles upwind from the target city. Meticulous calculation would be required to hit several cities at the same time with maximum effectiveness, but a single attack launched from a plane or from a single sprayer perched on a rooftop requires minimal skill.
pp.20-21

Tularemia is a debilitating illness, rife among wild animals and common in the Rocky Mountains, California, Oklahoma, parts of eastern Europe, and Siberia. It is a hardy organism, capable of surviving for weeks, sometimes months, in decaying animal corpses. Tularemia is primarily transmitted to humans by ticks, mosquitoes, and wild rabbits, though squirrels, sheep, cats, and dogs have also been identified as carriers. While highly infectious, it almost never spreads directly from one person to another.
     Victims can be laid up for weeks with chills, nausea, headaches, and fever. If left untreated, symptoms usually last two to four weeks, but they can continue for months. Francisella tularensis is lethal in 30% of untreated cases.
p. 25.

The first victims of tularemia were German panzer troops, who fell ill in such large numbers during the late summer of 1942 that the Nazi campaign in southern Russia ground to a temporary halt. Thousands of Russian soldiers and civilians living in the Volga region came down with tularemia within a week of the initial Ger- man outbreak. The Soviet high command rushed ten mobile military hospitals into the area, a sign of the extraordinary rise in the number of cases…. Seventy percent of those infected came down with a pneumonic form of the disease, which could only have been caused by purposeful dissemination…. Soviet troops must have sprayed tularemia at the Germans. A sudden change in the direction of the wind, or contaminated rodents passing through the lines, had infected our soldiers and the disease had then spread through the region.
pp.30-31.

The moral argument for using any available weapon against an enemy threatening us with certain annihilation seemed to me irrefutable. I came away from that assignment fascinated by the notion that disease could be used as an instrument of war. I began to read everything I could find about epidemiology and the biological sciences…. Over time, carefully, so as not to draw attention, I managed to find out more through conversations with old-timers who remembered what the records did not, or would not, say. This is how I learned that the Soviet Union's involvement with biological warfare began long before World War II.
pp.31-32.

A year after taking power in 1917, the Bolshevik government plunged into a savage conflict with anti-Communist forces determined to bring down the fledgling workers' state. Red and White armies clashed from Siberia to the Crimean Peninsula, and by the time hostilities ended in 1921, as many as ten million people had lost their lives. The majority of the deaths did not result from injuries on the battlefield. They were caused by famine and disease.
p.32.

In 1928, the governing Revolutionary Military Council signed a secret decree ordering the transformation of typhus into a battlefield weapon. Three years earlier the fledgling Soviet government had signed an international treaty in Geneva banning the use of poison gas and bacteriological weapons. The weapons program was placed under the control of the GPU (the State Political Directorate), one of the predecessors of the KGB. It would continue to be supervised by state security organs until the early 1950s.
p.33.

The first Soviet facility used for biological warfare research was the Leningrad Military Academy. Small teams of military and GPU scientists began to explore ways of growing significant quantities of typhus rickettsiae….
     The biological weapons program soon expanded to harness other diseases. The Leningrad Military Academy sent some of its scientists and equipment one hundred miles north to the White Sea, a barren Arctic expanse flecked with tiny islands used to house political prisoners. By the mid-1930s Solovetsky Island, one of the largest, was the second major site of the Soviet biological warfare program.
     At Solovetsky, a Soviet prison which later became the hub of Stalin's "Gulag Archipelago" concentration-camp system, scientists worked with typhus, Q fever, glanders, and melioidosis (an incapacitating disease similar to glanders). Solovetsky's large laboratory compound was built by prison labor. Many of the prisoners may also have been involuntary participants in our earliest experiments with biological agents.
     The summary reports compiled by the Ministry of Defense describe several dozen cases of melioidosis from that period. The material I saw was intentionally vague as to whether humans were involved, but the way the case reports were arranged—with nineteen in one group, eleven in another, and twelve in yet another—suggested an irregular pattern not usually associated with animal testing. And the symptoms described could only have been experienced by human subjects. There have been repeated allegations in the West about Soviet germ warfare experiments on humans, but I have seen no other reports to indicate that these took place after the 1930s.
pp.34-35.

…an outbreak of Q fever among German troops on leave in Crimea in 1943 was the result of an attempt to use another one of the biological warfare agents developed by [the Kirov] facility. I was never able to investigate this further, but Q fever was practically unheard of in Russia prior to that outbreak.
p.36.

The Soviet Union's approach to biological warfare took a new turn in September 1945, when Soviet troops in Manchuria overran a Japanese military facility known as Water Purification Unit 731.
     Unit 731 operated Japan's secret germ warfare program. Ru- mors of the unit's activities in northern China had been circulating in Russia and the West since the late 1930s, but the details finally emerged through captured documents and the testimony of Japan- ese prisoners of war. The unit, commanded by Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii, experimented with anthrax, dysentery, cholera, and plague on U.S., British, and Commonwealth paws. During the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, porcelain canisters of fleas infected with plague and other primitive biological weapons were used in air raids that killed thousands of rural Chinese.
     The captured Japanese documents were sent to Moscow, where they made absorbing reading. They included blueprints for biological warfare assembly plants, far larger and more complex than our own. Japan's program had been organized like a small industry, with a central production facility fed by continuous research and development.
     Stalin ordered his most trusted aide, the sadistic KGB chief Lavrenty Beria, to match and if possible surpass what the Japanese had accomplished. In 1946, a year after the war ended, a new army biological research complex was established at Sverdlovsk. Construction engineers followed the designs laid out in the captured Japanese blueprints.
pp.36-37.

Smirnov was an impassioned advocate of biological weapons. He believed that they would dominate the battlefield of the future. A physician who had served briefly under Stalin as minister of health, he transformed the program into a strategic arm of the military and remained a dominating presence in the Soviet biological warfare program for the next twenty years. Smirnov worked so swiftly that Defense Minister Marshal Georgi Zhukov could announce in 1956 that Moscow was capable of deploying biological as well as chemical weapons in the next war—an announcement that set off a flurry of new offensive research in the West. Few Soviet citizens were aware of it.
p.37.

Scientists at the agriculture ministry developed variants of foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest for use against cows, African swine fever for pigs, and ornithosis and psittacosis to strike down chickens. Like anti-personnel biological weapons, these agents were designed to be sprayed from tanks attached to Ilyushin bombers and flown low over a target area along a straight line for hundreds of miles.
     This "line source" method of dissemination could cover large stretches of farmland. Even if only a few animals were successfully infected, the contagious nature of the organisms ensured that the disease would wipe out agricultural activity over a wide area in a matter of months.
     Many of the ministry's facilities were installed in the centers of towns and cities, to keep their military connection camouflaged. This suggests how little those who ruled our lives worried about our health.
     Across the street from the apartment block where I grew up in Alma-Ata (now Almaty), the former capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan, a large, rusting factory served as a makeshift playground for children in the neighborhood. It was a fantastic world of hulking machinery and cavernous tunnels, made all the more alluring by the large Keep Out signs posted conspicuously on the property. We would crawl through the fence on afternoons after school and, shifting through piles of metal, would occasionally stumble on odd-smelling canisters, painted in army green. Luckily, we never managed to open them.
     Many years later, going through some old reports, I discovered that the factory was used by the Ministry of Agriculture until the early 1960’s to make anti-crop and anti-livestock agents. It was called Biokombinat.
p.38.

Lysenko came to national attention in the late 1920s, when he reported a successful experiment breeding winter peas in a remote farm station in Azerbaijan. His cultivation of several generations of plants resistant to cold temperatures led him to conclude that genetic theories about humans were wrong: rather than being a slave of his genes, man was capable of changing his essential traits through exposure to different environmental conditions…. Calling genetics a bourgeois discipline that insulted the proletariat, he emerged as a paragon of the “new” Soviet science based on Marxist materialism. By the late 1940’s Lysenko was a confidant of Stalin…. Dissenting scientists were condemned to prison camps or publicly humiliated.
pp.39-40.

Launched by a secret Brezhnev decree in 1973, the program aimed to modernize existing biological weapons and to develop genetically altered pathogens, resistant to antibiotics and vaccines, which could be turned into powerful weapons for use in intercontinental warfare. The program was called Enzyme.
     The 1973 decree led that same year to the founding of Biopreparat. The nation's best biologists, epidemiologists, and biochemists were recruited in an effort that would soon absorb billions of rubles from the state treasury and spawn the most advanced program for genetically engineered weapons in the world.
     The Enzyme project focused on tularemia, plague, anthrax, and glanders—all diseases that had been successfully weaponized by our military scientists but whose effects had been undermined by the development of antibiotics. But there were many other agents under review, including viral agents such as smallpox, Marburg, Ebola, Machupo, Junin, and VEE.
     The Soviet Union's biowarfare research was concentrated at army factories in the cities of Sverdlovsk, Kirov, and Zagorsk. These were the only sites classified as "hot mode"—sufficiently insulated for work with highly infectious organisms.
     Over the next decade, dozens of biological warfare installations disguised as centers of pharmaceutical or medical research were built throughout the country. In Leningrad, the Institute of Ultra-Pure Biopreparations was created to develop new techniques and equipment for cultivating pathenogenic agents.
pp.41-42.

When [the Soviet] biological warfare program was operating at its peak level, in the late 1980s, more than sixty thousand people were engaged in research, testing, production, and equipment design throughout the country. This included some thirty thousand Biopreparat employees.
p.43.

Ovchinnikov had rescued Soviet biology from the morass of ideological politics, only to harness it to Soviet militarism. Although his name now graces a prominent Moscow science institute, he is remembered by many of us as the father of our modern biological warfare program. As Ovchinnikov recognized, such a program can only be as good as its scientists. The challenge was to find scientists willing to lead secret lives.
p.44.

Bacteria are cultivated identically whether they are intended for industrial application, weaponization, or vaccination. Working first with harmless microorganisms, we were taught how to make nutrient media, the broths in which they multiply. Making these potions is an art in itself. Bacteria require highly specialized mixtures of proteins, carbohydrates, and salts—often culled from plant or animal extracts—to achieve the most efficient growth rate.
p.53.

Rumyantsev and I built a microbiology lab from scratch. We planned the layout of the room from the sterile working tables to the sinks and water pipes. Gradually unpacking the boxes, we pulled out microscopes, test tubes, ovens, and a collection of equipment gathered from every part of the world. There were U.S. and Japanese fermenters, Czechoslovak reactors, French-made flasks. The bulk of our equipment came from the United States and Great Britain. We owed a lot more to our old allies than anyone could publicly concede. The fact that we could use standard fermenting machinery was a vivid illustration of the dual nature of the tools of our trade.
p.60.

It was a world of invisible perils. One false step, a fumble, an unthinking gesture, could unleash a nightmare. We all knew enough to fear the hazards of the two hot zones, but we were young and felt invincible. We saw ourselves as custodians of a mystery that no one else understood, warriors or high priests of a secret cult whose rituals could not be revealed.
p.63.

The story went public a few months later—In a way. In November 1979, a Russian magazine published by anti-Soviet emigres in what was then West Germany reported that an explosion in a military facility in the southwest section of Sverdlovsk had released a cloud of deadly bacteria the previous April. It claimed that as many as a thousand people had died. Western news agencies picked up the story, quoting U.S. intelligence officials who claimed that the accident was clear evidence of Soviet violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
     Moscow denied the reports. On June 12, 1980, a statement published by the official Soviet news agency TASS declared that there had only been a "natural outbreak of anthrax among domestic animals" in the Sverdlovsk region…. This was a lie, of course.
p.72.

On the last Friday of March 1979, a technician in the anthrax drying plant at Compound 19, the biological arms production facility in Sverdlovsk, scribbled a quick note for his supervisor before going home. "Filter clogged so I've removed it. Replacement necessary," the note said.
     Compound 19 was the Fifteenth Directorate's busiest production plant. Three shifts operated around the clock, manufacturing a dry anthrax weapon for the Soviet arsenal. It was stressful and dangerous work. The fermented anthrax cultures had to be separated from their liquid base and dried before they could be ground into a fine powder for use in an aerosol form, and there were always spores floating in the air. Workers were given regular vaccinations, but the large filters clamped over the exhaust pipes were all that stood between the anthrax dust and the outside world.      After each shift, the big drying machines were shut down briefly for maintenance checks. A clogged air filter was not an unusual occurrence, but it had to be replaced immediately.
     Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Chernyshov, supervisor of the afternoon shift that day, was in as much of a hurry to get home as his workers. Under the army's rules, he should have recorded the in- formation about the defective filter in the logbook for the next shift, but perhaps the importance of the technician's note didn't register in his mind, or perhaps he was simply overtired.
     When the night shift manager came on duty, he scanned the logbook. Finding nothing unusual, he gave the command to start the machines up again. A fine dust containing anthrax spores and chemical additives swept through the exhaust pipes into the night air.
     Several hours passed before a worker noticed that the filter was missing. The shift supervisor shut the machines down at once and ordered a new filter installed. Several senior officers were informed, but no one alerted city officials or Ministry of Defense headquarters in Moscow….
     The Soviet Union later claimed that 96 people were stricken with the disease and 66 died. The scientist who was working in the Sverdlovsk facility at the time told me the death toll was 105, but we will probably never know for sure. What is certain is that it was the worst single outbreak of inhalational anthrax on record this century.
     There could have been no illusions in Moscow as to the cause of the outbreak. Chernyshov's lapse in judgment was reported as soon as the first deaths occurred….
     No one wanted to set off a panic or to alert outsiders. Sverdlovsk residents were informed that the deaths were caused by a truckload of contaminated meat sold on the black market. Printed fliers advised people to stay away from "unofficial" food vendors. More than one hundred stray dogs were rounded up and killed, on the grounds that they represented a danger to public health after having been seen scavenging near markets where the meat was sold. Meanwhile, military sentries were posted in the immediate neighborhood of the plant to keep intruders away, and KGB officers pretending to be doctors visited the homes of victims' families with falsified death certificates.
     Whether resident suspected the truth or not, military and KGB control ensured that the city remained orderly.
pp.73-75.

Sverdlovsk's anthrax was the most powerful of the dozens of the strains investigated over the years by army scientists for their weapons potential. It was called Anthrax 836 and had been isolated, ironically, after another accident.
     In 1953, a leak from the Kirov bacteriological facility spread anthrax into the city's sewer system. Vladimir Sizov, the army biologist who discovered the strain, came to work for Biopreparat years later and told me the story.
     According to Sizov, an unknown quantity of liquid anthrax was accidentally released by a defective reactor at the Kirov plant. Army workers disinfected the sewer system immediately but soon found evidence of anthrax among the rodent population. Disinfections were ordered regularly after that, yet the disease continued to lurk underground for years. In 1956, Sizov found that one of the rodents captured in the Kirov sewers had developed a new strain, more virulent than the original. The army immediately ordered him to cultivate the new strain. It was eventually used as the basis for the weapon we planned to install in the SS-18s targeted on Western cities.
     …The Communist Party chairman of Sverdlosk at the time of the accident was Boris Yeltsin, the first leader of post-Soviet Russia.
     … The truth about Sverdlovsk, or at least some of it, finally emerged in Russia during an interview granted by Boris Yeltsin to a Komsomolskaya Pravda reporter, published on May 27, 1993.
pp.78-86.

On May 8, 1980, the World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been eradicated from the planet. The last naturally occurring case was reported in Somalia in 1977, and no new cases had been detected in three years. The WHO recommended the discontinuation of smallpox immunization programs, observing that there was no longer any need to subject people to even the negligible risk connected with vaccination….
     Soon after the WHO announcement, smallpox was included in a list of viral and bacterial weapons targeted for improvement in the 1981-85 Five- Year-Plan.
     Where other governments saw a medical victory, the Kremlin perceived a military opportunity. A world no longer protected from smallpox was a world newly vulnerable to the disease. In 1981, Soviet researchers began to explore what the Kremlin hoped would be a better version of a smallpox weapon that had been in our arsenal for decades. The work was at first cursory. Military commanders were reluctant to devote energy and resources to an enterprise that promised no immediate results. The Soviet Union, they reasoned, had already gone further with smallpox weapons than any other country.
pp. 110-111.

In the 1970s, smallpox was considered so important to our biological arsenal that the Soviet military command issued an order to maintain an annual stockpile of twenty tons. The weapons were stored at army facilities in Zagorsk. Annual quotas of smallpox were required as it decayed over time. We never wanted to be caught short.
p.112.

The Five-Year Plan, signed in his characteristic scrawl by Mikhail Gorbachev, outlined the most ambitious program for biological weapons development ever given to our agency. It included a three-hundred-million-ruble viral production plant (then equivalent to four hundred million dollars) at Yoshkar-Ola in the autonomous republic of Mordovia. The plan established a new military facility at Strizhi, near Kirov, for the production of viral and bacterial weapons and, most significantly, it funded the construction of a 630-liter viral reactor to produce smallpox at the Russian State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, a facility known within The System as Vector. Our military leaders had decided to concentrate on one of the toughest challenges of bioweaponeering—the transformation of viruses into weapons of war.
     Gorbachev's Five-Year Plan-and his generous funding, which would amount to over $1 billion by the end of the decade—allowed us to catch up with and then surpass Western technology.
     When I went to Vector in 1987, our new smallpox project was just getting off the ground. The facility, founded by Biopreparat in the early 1970s to specialize in viral research, was located in the small Siberian town of Koltsovo. It had been left to stagnate while we focused on improving our bacterial weapons, but Gorbachev's decree gave it a new lease on life.
pp.117-118.

Sandachiev was determined to protect his employees. He repeated time and again that he would not sacrifice the health of a single worker to the pressure of a deadline. But running a biological weapons plant was not like managing a small research facility. New rules had to be enforced, and there were higher expectations. To keep the country—and our program—safe from exposure, Moscow imposed quarantine conditions on all Vector employees engaged in smallpox research. The staff was confined to special dormitories near the compound and guarded around the clock by security police. In a compromise, we granted them periodic leave to visit their families.
     Considering that outsiders might be suspicious if they saw hundreds of people with the distinctive marks of fresh smallpox inoculations on their arms years after the Soviet Union had discontinued all immunization, we decided, after some deliberation, to issue a directive that workers be inoculated on their buttocks. We assumed this part of their anatomy was safe from prying foreign eyes.
     …We calculated that the production line in the newly constructed Building 15 at Koltsovo was capable of manufacturing between eighty and one hundred tons of smallpox a year. Parallel to this, a group of arrogant young scientists at Vector were developing genetically altered strains of smallpox, which we soon hoped to include in this production process.
pp.119-122.

A strain of Marburg arrived in the Soviet Union a decade after it was first isolated, during one of our periodic global searches for promising material. It wasn't clear from the records whether we obtained it from the United States or directly from Germany, but it was immediately added to our growing collection of viral warfare agents. We were already investigating a number of microorganisms that weaken blood vessels and cause hemorrhagic fevers, such as Junin from Argentina and Machupo from Bolivia. Marburg quickly proved to have great potential.
p.126.

A virus grown in laboratory conditions is liable to become more virulent when it passes through the live incubator of a human or an animal body. Few were surprised, therefore, when samples of Marburg taken from Ustinov's organs after his autopsy differed slightly from the original strain. Further testing showed that the new variation was much more powerful and stable.
     No one needed to debate the next step. Orders went out immediately to replace the old strain with the new, which was called, in a move that the wry Ustinov might have appreciated, "Variant U."
     At the end of 1989, a cryptogram from Sandakchiev arrived in my office with the terse announcement that Marburg Variant U had been successfully weaponized. He was asking for permission to test it.
     Construction at Vector was running far behind the schedule set out in Gorbachev's last decree, and test chambers were still not ready. There were only three other spots where Marburg could be tested: Omutninsk, Stepnogorsk, and a special bacteriological facility at Obolensk, in the Moscow region. Obolensk had to be ruled out because it was too close to the capital, and Omutninsk was just embarking on tests for a new plague weapon. That left Stepnogorsk….
     A brace of bomblets filled with Marburg and secured in metal containers was sent on the long journey by train and truck from Siberia to Kazakhstan, accompanied by scientists and armed guards. It took nearly twenty-seven hours for the shipment to reach Stepnogorsk. Another caravan with twelve monkeys followed shortly afterward….
     After testing the weapon in explosive chambers, we applied it to the monkeys. Everyone of the twelve monkeys contracted the virus. They were all dead within three weeks.
     In early 1990, Marburg Variant U was ready for approval by the Ministry of Defense.
pp.132-133.

In 1988, a year before congressional hearings into biological warfare began in Washington, Gorbachev signed a decree, prepared by the Military-Industrial Commission, ordering the development of mobile production equipment to keep our weapons assembly lines one step ahead of inspectors.
p.145

We were told at Biopreparat that the Americans and British had agreed to keep the Pasechnik affair quiet in return for a "full" Russian response to the diplomatic demarche. Our response was anything but full, but they kept their side of the bargain. Pasechnik's defection became public only after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
     Why did our rivals cooperate in guarding our secret? Disclosure of the information Pasechnik gave them would have caused us more harm than a dozen Sverdlovsks. After I settled in the United States, a senior official who had served in President Bush's administration told me American and British leaders believed that a public quarrel would endanger progress in other areas of arms control and perhaps weaken Gorbachev. They were also convinced that their covert pressure would force us out of the biological warfare business.
     The West's diplomatic tact may have seemed sensible at the time, but it gave us unexpected breathing space. We continued to research and develop new weapons for two more years.
p.152.

Scientists have spent decades trying to manufacture killing agents from the venom of snakes and spiders and the poisonous secretions of plants, fungi, and bacteria. Most nations with biological weapons programs, including the Soviet Union, eventually gave up on harnessing the toxins produced by living organisms. They were considered too difficult to manufacture in the quantities required for modern warfare. In the early 1970s the Soviet government was persuaded to try again, following a remarkable discovery by a group of molecular biologists and immunologists at the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
p.154.

The rabbits all developed high temperatures and symptoms commonly associated with pseudotuberculosis. In one test, several rabbits also displayed signs of another illness. They twitched and then lay still. Their hindquarters had been paralyzed—evidence of myelin toxin.
     The test was a success. A single genetically engineered agent had produced symptoms of two different diseases, one of which could not be traced.
     The room was absolutely silent. We all recognized the implications of what the scientist had achieved.
     A new class of weapons had been found. For the first time, we would be capable of producing weapons based on chemical substances produced naturally by the human body. They could damage the nervous system, alter moods, trigger psychological changes, and even kill. Our heart is regulated by peptides. If present in unusually high doses, these peptides will lead to heart palpitations and, in rare cases, death.
     The mood-altering possibilities of regulatory peptides were of particular interest to the KGB—this and the fact that they could not be traced by pathologists. Victims would appear to have died of natural causes. What intelligence service would not be interested in a product capable of killing without a trace?
     It was a short step from inserting a gene of myelin toxin into Yersinia pseudotuberculosis to inserting it into Yersinia pestis, or plague. In the process, we would have a new version of one of mankind's oldest biological weapons.
p.164.

The earliest recorded use of Y. pestis in war was in the fourteenth century, when Tatar army conquered Kaffa, in present-day Crimea, by catapulting the bodies of plague victims over the walls of the town. During WWII, leaders of the Japanese bacteriological warfare program turned to plague because an attack could be concealed as a natural outbreak. But there were drawbacks: when they tried to drop bombs filled with plague from aircraft, the explosion killed the bacteria. The commanders finally settled on a more effective method of delivery: they blanketed the target area with billions of plague-infected fleas.
     Americans tried to develop a plague weapon but found that its virulence deteriorated quickly. The bacteria lost virulence so rapidly—sometimes in less than thirty minutes—that aerosols were useless. U.S. bioweaponeers eventually lost interest, but we persevered. Plague can be grown easily in a wide range of temperatures and media, and we eventually developed a plague weapon capable of surviving in an aerosol while maintaining its killing capacity. In the city of Kirov, we maintained a quota of twenty tons of plague in our arsenals every year.
p.166.

The myelin toxin report was the last in a series of successes reported that day. Another team had developed a genetically altered strain of anthrax resistant to five antibiotics. And there was a new drug-resistant strain of glanders.
p.167.

In the late 1940s, a powdered version of plague was manufactured for use in a tiny toiletry container, like talcum powder. An assassin could approach a target from behind, spray the lethal powder, and vanish before his victim knew there had been an attack. The assassin would of course have to be vaccinated against plague beforehand to protect him from stray particles.
     This device was to be used against Marshal Tito, the Communist partisan who became head of postwar Yugoslavia.
     Tito provoked Stalin's anger in 1948 with his plan for a Balkan federation that would dramatically reduce Moscow's control over the region. At the last moment, Stalin decided against assassina- tion. Tito lived to take Yugoslavia down the road of nonalignment and died an old man in 1980.
     "Why did Stalin change his mind?" I asked. Butuzov laughed.
     "The only person who knows that is Stalin," he said. Laboratory 12 was kept busy during the 1970s. In September 1978, Georgy Markov, a Bulgarian dissident, was taken to a hospital in London suffering from a mysterious ailment. Before he died, he casually mentioned that a stranger had grazed him with the tip of an umbrella while walking across Waterloo Bridge. Puzzled doctors were unable to trace the cause of death until a Bulgarian emigre in Paris reported falling sick after a similar scrape with an umbrella. When a second autopsy was performed on Markov, the coroner found the remains of a tiny pellet with traces of ricin, a toxin made from castor beans.
     The ricin came from Laboratory 12.
p.173.

One of the principal advantages of biological agents is that they are almost impossible to detect, which complicates the task of tracing the author of a biological attack. This makes them as suitable for terrorism and crimes as for strategic warfare.
     Many former KGB intelligence agents have been hired by the Russian mafiya. Some run their own criminal organizations. They would have ready access to the former colleagues and to the techniques and substances we developed in the Soviet era. The “achievements” of the Flute program would command a good price on Russia’s private market.
     On August 3, 1995, Ivan Kivelid, chairman of the Russian Business Roundtable, was rushed to a Moscow hospital from his office, where he was suddenly taken ill. His secretary, Zara Ismailova, was brought to the emergency room a few hours later with a similar unexplained illness. The secretary died that night, and Kivelidi the next day.
     Kivelidi was an outspoken critic of several high-ranking officials in the Yeltsin government, whom he accused of corrupt dealings. The Business Roundtable was composed of leading bankers and entrepreneurs who had banded together to put an end to mafiya control of the burgeoning private sector. Of the original nine member, only Kivelidi was left. The others had all been murdered in mob-style shootings, joining a list of more than five hundred victims of contract killings in 1995.
p.176.

As part of my duties at Biopreparat I reviewed our budget regularly with Gosplan, the state economic planning agency. Every time I visited the block-long building on Gorky Street, the resources available to us seemed to increase. General Roman Volkov, the balding, scholarly official in charge of funding Ministry of Defense programs, practically begged me to look for ways to spend money.
     "I've got three hundred million rubles for you in this year's budget," he told me in 1990. "You still haven't supplied me with programs on which to spend them."
     When I suggested civilian medical projects, he brushed me off irritably.
     "If you give me more suggestions like that, you'll never get any money," he said.
     This made little sense to me. Our health-care system was getting worse every day, and conditions in our hospitals were abysmal. The previous year, Biopreparat had shipped boxes of disposable plastic syringes to medical facilities around the country in response to an AIDS scandal in Elista, a small city on the northern steppes of the Caspian Sea. Two hundred and fifty children at the city's main pediatric hospital had been diagnosed with HIV after having been infected by contaminated syringes. Nurses complained that shortages of equipment and staff prevented them from employing adequate sterilization methods. Stories like these were rife throughout the country.
pp.184-185.

Russia's army is demoralized. The disastrous war in Chechnya exposed the shortcomings of conscript troops, and officers have gone without pay for months at a time. Yet the weakened Russian military machine confronts a greater variety of challenges than it ever faced during the cold war. These include armed separatist movements in the Caucasus, civil wars in central Asia, the spread of Muslim fundamentalism from Iran and Afghanistan, and pressure from a resurgent China. The late-twentieth-century specter of "total war" has been replaced by the growth of ethnic, nationalist, and religious conflicts. Biological weapons can play an important part in such conflicts, often compensating for the weakness or ineffectiveness of conventional forces.
     Several months before Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, I was told by a senior officer in the Fifteenth Directorate that the Soviet Union used biological weapons during its protracted struggle with the mujaheddin. He said that at least one attack with glanders took place between 1982 and 1984, and there may have been others. The attack, he claimed, was launched by llyushin-28 planes based in military airfields in southern Russia.
     It was a casual remark, but the officer was evidently proud of the operation, and of the fact that he could tell me a secret about a project I knew nothing about.
     When I mentioned this conversation during one of my debriefing sessions, an American intelligence official in the room was visibly startled. She told me there had been periodic reports of disease outbreaks among guerrilla groups in Afghanistan during the war. No one had ever come up with an explanation.
     I grew more convinced after reading an April 1998 article in Top Secret that disclosed that the army facility in Sverdlovsk had manufactured "anti-machinery" biological weapons in the 1980s for use in Afghanistan. I knew of no projects involving such agents when I became deputy director of Biopreparat, but one of the bacterial strains investigated in the 1970s for its corrosive properties came from a bacterial genus known as Pseudomonas. The source for Top Secret's report could have unwittingly, or intentionally, confused it with glanders, which was then classified as part of the same genus.
p.268.

The services of an ex-Biopreparat scientist would be a bargain at any price. The information he could provide would save months, perhaps years, of costly scientific research for any nation interested in developing, or improving, a biological warfare pro- gram. It is impossible to know how many Russians have been recruited abroad, but there is no doubt that their expertise has been attracting bidders. At least twenty-five former specialists in the Soviet Union's biological warfare program are now in the United States. Many more have gone to Europe and Asia or have simply dropped out of sight. I've heard that several went to Iraq and North Korea. A former colleague, now the director of a Biopreparat institute, told me that five of our scientists are in Iran. The New York Times reported in December 1998 that the Iranian government dispatched a "scientific advisor" attached to the office of the presidency to Moscow to recruit former scientists from our program. In May 1997, more than one hundred scientists from Russian laboratories, including Vector and Obolensk, attended a Biotechnology Trade Fair in Tehran. Sandakchiev told me soon after that Iranians had visited Vector a number of times and were actively promoting scientific exchanges. Last year, Top Secret reported that a Biopreparat official turned up at the Chinese embassy in Moscow to offer his services.
     The disastrous economic conditions in Russia have driven many of our brightest scientists and technicians to seek work wherever they can get it. In some labs, scientists haven't been paid for months. I know of one leading researcher who sold flowers on the Arbat Mall in Moscow to feed his family.
pp.271-272.

To our knowledge, none of our satellites in Eastern Europe ran biological weapons programs, though some of our fermenting and drying equipment was manufactured in East Germany. Espionage reports provided evidence of a biowarfare program in Iraq as of 1988 and identified a large biological warfare research complex near Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. In northwestern China, satellite photos detected what appeared to be a large fermenting plant and a biocontainment lab close to a nuclear testing ground. Intelligence sources found evidence of two epidemics of hemorrhagic fever in this area in the late 1980s, where these diseases were previously unknown. Our analysts concluded that they were caused by an accident in a lab where Chinese scientists were weaponizing viral diseases. A "BW related" facility was identified in Germany (in Munster) and two in France, but much slipped by unnoticed by our intelligence gatherers.
p.273.

When Yury Ovchinnikov died in 1987, I joined a group of Biopreparat scientists at his funeral services in Moscow. The conversation eventually turned to Cuba's surprising achievements in genetic engineering. Someone mentioned that Cuban scientists had successfully altered strains of bacteria at a pharmaceutical facility just outside of Havana.
p.273.

The situation in Cuba illustrates the slippery interrelation between Soviet support of scientific programs among our allies and their ability to develop biological weapons. We spent decades building institutes and training scientists in India, Iraq, and Iran. For many years, the Soviet Union organized courses in genetic engineering and molecular biology for scientists from Eastern Europe, Cuba, Libya, India, Iran, and Iraq, among others. Some forty foreign scientists were trained annually. Many of them now head biotechnology programs In their own countries. Some have recruited the services of their former classmates.
     In July 1995, Russia opened negotiations with Iraq for the sale of large industrial fermentation vessels and related equipment. The model was one we had used to develop and manufacture bacterial biological weapons. Like Cuba, the Iraqi’s maintained the vessels were intended to grow single-cell protein for cattle feed. What made the deal particularly suspicious was an additional request for exhaust filtration equipment capable of achieving 99.99 percent air purity—a level we used only in our weapons labs.
     Negotiations were called off by the time reports of the deal surfaced in the Western press, but a United Nations employee told me Iraq obtained the equipment it needed elsewhere. United Nations Special Commission inspection teams, established after the Gulf War to monitor the dismantlement of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons program, had not been able to find this equipment by the time they were ejected from Iraq in late 1998. Many similar deals have gone ahead undetected.
     One of the Russian officials involved in negotiations with Iraq was Vilen Matveyev, formerly of the Fifteenth Directorate and later a senior deputy at Biopreparat. Matveyev specialized in developing weapons-manufacturing equipment. He is still working as a technical adviser to the Russian government.
     In 1997 Russia was reported to be negotiating a lucrative deal with Iran for the sale of cultivation equipment including fermenters, reactors, and air purifying machinery. The equipment was similar to that which was offered to Iraq.
pp.275-276.

Nations engaged in chemical or nuclear weapons programs almost invariably add biological weapons to their inventory. This is particularly true in cases when a country is bent on doing everything possible to protect itself against its neighbors. India faces two hostile neighbors on its borders—China and Pakistan—with whom it has fought repeatedly over the last fifty years. Its decision to conduct nuclear tests in May 1988 showed it was willing to defy international opinion for the sake of national security.
p.277.

A report submitted by the US Office of Technological Assessment to hearings at the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in late 1995 identified seventeen countries believed to possess biological weapons—Libya, North Korea, South Korea, Iraq, Taiwan, Syria, Israel, Iran, China, Egypt, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Bulgaria, India, South Africa, and Russia. More have joined the list since.
p.277.

Ordinary intelligence and surveillance techniques cannot prove the existence of a biological warfare program. Even the highest resolution satellite imagery can't distinguish between a large pharmaceutical plant and a weapons complex. The only conclusive evidence comes from firsthand information. Western suspicions about the Soviet program were only confirmed with Pasechnik's defection. South Africa's efforts to develop biological assassination agents were first revealed when the program's director testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a government appointed panel investigating the abuses of the apartheid era. It was not until Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected in 1995 that the West came to know the extent of Iraq's germ warfare program. Kamel confirmed that Iraq had begun its program a decade earlier at the Muthanna State Establishment, eighty miles northwest of Baghdad, where researchers were cultivating anthrax, botulinum toxin, ricin, and aflatoxin, a poison that can be found in corn, pistachio nuts, and other crops. By the time the United Nations inspectors identified and destroyed Iraq's principal germ warfare facility at Al Hakun in 1996, Iraq had amassed hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquid anthrax and many other pathogens. Iraq is still suspected of harboring germ weapons and continues to resist all attempts to probe further.
     Some Western analysts maintain that evidence of biological warfare research is not proof that viable weapons are being produced. They argue that countries with "low-tech" scientific establishments often can't make weapons or delivery systems matching their ambitions. But even the most primitive biological weapons lab can produce enough of an agent to cripple a major city.
pp.277-278.

On March 20, 1995, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. sprayed sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. Twelve people were killed and over fifty-five hundred were injured. Subsequent testimony at the cult leaders' trial revealed that Aum Shinrikyo had tried nine times between 1990 and 1995 to spread botulinum toxin and anthrax in the streets of Tokyo and Yokohama. Seiichi Endo, a onetime graduate student in genetic engineering who headed the cult's "Ministry of Health and Welfare," testified that their delivery methods—spraying the agents from a rooftop or from the back of a van—had proven faulty, and their strains were not sufficiently virulent. But it is not difficult to find better strains….
     Six weeks after the Aum Shinrikyo attack, Larry Harris, a member of a white supremacist group in Ohio, ordered three vials of plague from the American Type Culture Collection catalog. R quests must be made on the letterhead of a university or laboratory, so Harris designed his own stationery. The order was being processed when he phoned less than two weeks later to ask why it was taking so long. Company officials grew suspicious—legitimate medical researchers would have known it normally takes more than a month to fill an order—and eventually turned him in.
pp.278-279.

Viruses and bacteria can be obtained from more than fifteen hundred microbe banks around the world. The international scientific community depends on this network for medical research and for the exchange of information vital to the fight against disease. There are few restrictions on the cross-border trade in pathogens.
     I was told by American biowarfare experts that Iraq obtained some of its most lethal strains of anthrax from the American Type Culture Collection in Rockville, Maryland, one of the world's largest "libraries" of microorganisms. Iraqi scientists, like ours, discovered which strains to order by reviewing American scientific journals. For thirty-five dollars they also picked up strains of tularemia and Venezuelan equine encephalitis once targeted for weaponization at Fort Detrick.
pp.278-279.

Partly as a result of this incident, Congress passed a law in April 1996 requiring germ banks and biotech firms in the United States to check the identity of all prospective buyers. This is a useful deterrent, but it has not closed off opportunities for trade. Whether cultured by state-run organizations, terrorist groups, or crazed individuals, biological weapons have moved from a closely held secret of the cold war to the international marketplace.
p.279.

On December 27, 1998, in Pomona, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, 750 people were quarantined after police received a call claiming that anthrax had been released in the Glass House nightclub. It turned out to be a hoax, but the men and women in the club were quarantined for four hours. This was the last in a series of anthrax hoaxes—more than a dozen over the previous two weeks, the last two weeks of December 1998. How much worse will things be in December 1999?
p.279

Few terrorists will choose to warn us of their activities. A small amount of Marburg or Ebola released in the subway system of Washington, D.C., Boston, or New York, or in an airport, shopping mall, or financial center, could produce hundreds of thousands of victims.
p.281.

In the past twenty years, scientists have created antibiotic- resistant strains of anthrax, plague, tularemia, and glanders. Biopreparat research proved that viruses and toxins can be genetically altered to heighten their infectiousness, paving the way for the development of pathogens capable of overcoming existing vaccines. The arsenal of a determined state or terrorist group could include weapons based on tularemia, anthrax, Q fever, epidemic typhus, smallpox, brucellosis, VEE, botulinum toxin, dengue fever, Russian spring-summer encephalitis, Lassa fever, Marburg, Ebola, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever (Machupo), and Argentinean hemorrhagic fever (Junin), to name a few of the diseases studied in our labs. It could also extend to neurological agents, based on chemical substances produced naturally in the human body.
p.281.

It is easier to make a biological weapon than to create an effective system of biological defense. Based on our current level of knowledge, at least seventy different types of bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, and fungi can be weaponized. We can reliably treat no more than 20 to 30 percent of the diseases they cause.
p.281.

Few Americans are aware that they are living under a state of national emergency relating to weapons of mass destruction. On November 14, 1994, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12938, asserting that the potential use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons by terrorist groups or rogue states represented "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States." The order made it illegal for Americans to help any country or entity to acquire, design, produce, or stockpile chemical or biological weapons and placed the country in a state of emergency. It has been renewed every year since. In 1998, it was amended to include penalties for trafficking in equipment that could indirectly contribute to a foreign germ warfare program.
p.281.

[A] determined state is likely to find ways to circumvent [international rules]. Consider Iraq, where the United Nations Special Commission has been given virtually unlimited authority to monitor every aspect of the disarmament program imposed by the U.N. Security Council since the Gulf War. These measures are far tougher than any contemplated under the ad hoc process and constitute an intrusion into national sovereignty that would not be tolerated by most countries. Yet despite the periodic threat (and implementation) of military strikes, Iraq has defied U.N. inspections at will. How likely are we then to impose a similar degree of compliance on larger and less isolated world powers, such as China, India, or Russia?
     In America, the loudest protests have come from commercial biotechnology companies, who argue that open-ended inspections of their labs and production facilities will leave them vulnerable to industrial espionage. Biotechnology is a multi-million-dollar industry. Between 1989 and 1996 the number of firms in the United States developing new-generation drugs soared from 45 to 113. Today's medical, industrial, and agricultural research often involves work with the same pathogens used in the development of weapons.
pp.284-285.

Vaccines work by inducing the creation of antibodies that fight specific diseases. Some are given orally, but most are injected into the muscle to insure maximum efficacy. Vaccines made of live but weakened microorganisms are generally more effective than those made of nonliving cellular or subcellular components. Both types are usually benign, but in rare cases they can trigger significant changes in the blood and endocrine systems. Some have been known to affect the functioning of the heart, lungs, kidneys, and other organs. It is not medically advisable to combine too many different courses of vaccination.
     There are currently no known vaccines for brucellosis, glanders, and melioidosis or for many viral diseases, such as Ebola and Marburg. The plague vaccine was found to be ineffective against aerosol dissemination in animal studies. The tularemia vaccine is difficult to culture and potentially dangerous. Of the four possible strains available for viral encephalitis, the first and most potent (a live vaccine) produces adverse reactions in 20 percent of all cases and is ineffective in 20 percent. The second is of restricted effectiveness (it only works against three subtypes of the disease), and the third and fourth are poorly immunogenic and require multiple immunizations. The smallpox vaccine, only available in the United States to lab workers and military personnel, can be administered either before or after infection. It requires periodic boosters and wears out after ten years, though revaccination is required after three years in case of infection. Skin testing is recommended for Q fever and botulinum toxin.
p.286.

Despite American efforts and expenditures, vaccines have limited value for the protection of civilians. Who would be deemed vulnerable? And which agents should they be protected against? A crash program to increase the available doses of smallpox vaccine in the United States (currently seven million) might deter a country or a terrorist group from launching a smallpox attack, but there are plenty of other options. And who would get those seven million doses if several cities are attacked at once? The city of New York alone has a population of over seven million. Will each city have its own stockpile?
p.288.

The discovery of cytokines and other elements of nonspecific immunity represent an important step forward for medicine. Scientists in America have developed a treatment for AIDS that includes interleukin-2, another cytokine, and research into the effects of cytokines on tuberculosis and other diseases is under way in the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Canada. At least eighteen interleukins are well known to scientists today, and each year more are discovered.
     Nothing will replace the long-term protection provided by vaccines against specific diseases, but boosting our nonspecific immune system may offer at least temporary protection from pathogenic agents and possibly could go even further. If administered in the crucial first hours after an attack—when authorities are still trying to identify which agent was used and organize a medical response—such a booster could help contain the crisis. It is a long shot, but everything I know about biological weapons tells me that this is far more promising than attempts to rig office buildings and public monuments with detection devices or to stockpile vaccines.
p.290.

On May 20, 1998, I had presented to the U.S. Congress a proposal for developing nonspecific immunological defense against biological weapons. At the time, national efforts were devoted almost exclusively to detection and vaccination—a week later president Clinton would propose a reserve stockpile of vaccines—and this unconventional approach was greeted with widespread skepticism.
p.291.

In helping my adopted country create a new system of defense against the weapons I once made, I often remember Russia, which I loved and continue to love. I want this country to have a different fate. In an interview with a Russian paper, one of my friends called me a betrayer. I am certain he is not alone in thinking this. As I return to this question again and again, I have come to the conclusion that I did not betray Russia so much as it has betrayed its people. As long as it makes heroes of the people who create prohibited weapons, as long as it continues to help foreign dictators who murder civilians and to wage wars against its own people, as long as it trains its physicians and teachers to kill and considers as criminals those who try to speak against this—to call what is immoral by its name—as long as this continues, there can be no hope for a better future. We talk about economic and structural reform, but what is needed in Russia is moral reform, and until that happens, Russia will not change.
p.292.

178 posted on 02/15/2008 10:17:08 AM PST by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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To: All
BEvidence of ricin, botulinum at Islamic militants’ camp
By EXCLUSIVE By Preston Mendenhall
MSNBC

SARGAT, Iraq, April 4 - Preliminary tests conducted by MSNBC.com indicate that the deadly toxins ricin and botulinum were present on two items found at a camp in a remote mountain region of northern Iraq allegedly used as a terrorist training center by Islamic militants with ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The field tests used by MSNBC.com are only a first step in the evidentiary process and are typically followed by more precise laboratory testing that MSNBC.com has not conducted. U.S. intelligence agents were conducting their own tests in the same area and had not yet released their results, according to officials in northern Iraq.

MSNBC.COM CONDUCTED the tests over a two-day period at Sargat, an alleged terrorist training camp a mile from the Iraq-Iran border. MSNBC.com purchased the test kits commercially. The field tests, developed by Osborn Scientific Group in Lakeside, Ariz., are regarded by some experts as very effective and have been used by U.N. weapons inspectors and federal government agents around the Sept. 11, 2001, attack site in New York City.

The Sargat camp, set back in an isolated valley and surrounded by snow-capped peaks, was home to the radical Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which counts among its some 700 followers scores of al-Qaida fighters.

In a Feb. 5 speech to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell showed a satellite photo of the Sargat camp and described Ansar al-Islam as “teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons.” U.S. officials have repeated the allegations in recent weeks.

In an operation timed to coincide with the war on Iraq, U.S. special operations forces have targeted Ansar al-Islam’s militants in northern Iraq. Hundreds of Islamists, including al-Qaida fighters who took refuge in northern Iraq after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, have been killed.

Although U.S. officials for months have leveled charges that the Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaida militants were producing poisons in northern Iraq, it wasn’t until this week that specialist U.S. teams were able to gain access to the Sargat camp to test for traces of biological and chemical weapons.

Experts believe the Islamic group was producing the substances in the camp. Both toxins can be created from everyday products and simple procedures.

TERRORISTS TEMPTED BY TOXINS *****************************************

And from today's Flopping Aces:
MSNBC Confirms Pre-War Al Queda Camp in Iraq Tests Positive For Bio/Chem weapons
********************EXCERPT**********************
24 Jun 2008

Posted by: Scott @ 6:28 am in Bush Derangement Syndrome, Fanatical Islam, Iraq/Al-Qaeda Connection, Middle East, Moonbats, Politics, Pre-Invasion, Saddam Documents, The Iraqi War, The Shadow Party, WMD, War On Terror Positive test for terror toxins in Iraq Evidence of ricin, botulinum at Islamic militants’ camp

EXCLUSIVE By Preston Mendenhall MSNBC

Now, let’s face it…Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews aren’t gonna change their minds and suddenly face the reality that Saddam’s regime was willing to work with AQ groups, did work with AQ groups and leaders, and the threat of the so-called “Nexus of Evil” connection even existed.

Captured members of Al Queda groups from this same camp claim that they were assisted, trained, supplied, and funded by Saddam’s IIS as well as taking orders from Saddam’s IIS. Captured documents confirm their claims.

Captured regime members confirm their claims. Now even highly anti-war/pro-Democrat MSNBC confirms the claim itself.

Al Queda leaders confirm the claims (Zawahiri and Zarqawi specifically).

Why believe “Bush Lied”? Because it’s easier to believe that the solution to today’s problems can be solved by changing a circle to a dot on a ballot than it is to face the real and scary threat as well as own up to the failures of the past.

179 posted on 06/24/2008 3:22:52 PM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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To: PsyOp

Do you doubt there were links between Saddam and Bin Laden? ABC says there were....

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016745.php


180 posted on 06/26/2008 1:10:35 PM PDT by PsyOp (Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. - Clauswitz, On War, 1832.)
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