Posted on 03/27/2003 6:51:31 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, was decidely testy yesterday, saying that his country's firms have not violated sanctions on Iraq. "There is no evidence confirming violations by Russian firms of existing sanctions," he stated, before aiming sharp words at the U.S. He has reason to be so defensive. Russia's involvement in the arming of Iraq goes beyond supplying radar-jamming systems and the personnel to maintain them. Moscow has supported Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction and connived with Baghdad in hiding its role as a main supplier of the materials and know-how to weaponize anthrax, botulism and smallpox.
Russian support for Iraq is not new. Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz's July 2001 article in Commentary notes that inspectors found a 300-page file detailing a 1995 deal for Russian aircraft. The agreement not only included military craft that the embargo banned, but engines and guidance systems for remote-controlled drones, which could deliver gas or germ-warfare agents.
In 1999 Russia agreed to sell Saddam Hussein $100 million worth of military hardware. The deal involved Ahmed Murtada Ahmed Khalil, the transport and communications minister, who ran the biological weapons program at the Salman Pak facility outside Baghdad, and who knew exactly what Iraq would need in order to rebuild its WMD program after the Gulf War. Under his tenure, Russian involvement in the development of Iraq's WMD program has increased. Iraq's Scud-C or al-Hussein missiles were acquired from high-level military officials and Russian arms dealers. The al-Hussein was retrofitted to deliver chemical and biological weapons with Russian technology. In 1998, the U.N. Special Commission was prevented from verifying Iraqi claims that it had destroyed the al-Hussein warheads. At that time, Russia joined with France and Germany in taking up Iraq's campaign to weaken the inspection authority and opposed the Clinton administration's decision to bomb Iraq back into compliance. To this day, inspectors believe that Iraq retains a stock of chemical munitions, including chemical/biological al-Hussein ballistic missile warheads, 2,000 aerial bombs, 15,000-25,000 rockets, and 15,000 artillery shells. Iraq may also retain bio-weapon sprayers for its Mirage F-1s.
Russia appears to be helping Iraq build a better biological and chemical weapons program. Richard Spertzel, the former head of Unscom's biological weapons inspectors, points to negotiations in 1995 between Russia and Iraq for the supply of fermentation equipment, including a 5,000-liter fermentation vessel. He notes that the vessel that Moscow agreed to sell Iraq for use in making single-cell animal protein was 10 times larger than the largest vessel Iraq has admitted using to brew germs. Documents he uncovered call for an agreement between leaders of Iraq's weapons programs and Russian experts for the "design, construction and operation of the plant." The agreement -- which Russia maintains was for the purchase of equipment to manufacture animal feed -- includes the names of the director of Iraq's botulinum toxin program, the chief engineer for the Al Hakam chemical weapons plant, and prominent members of Iraq's military industrial commission. Iraq publicly admitted producing anthrax and botulinum toxin at Al Hakam. Though Russia flatly denied involvement, it refused to allow Mr. Spertzel to interview Russians to determine whether the equipment was actually delivered. Though inspectors decommissioned Al Hakam in 1996, Mr. Spertzel believes that the Russian equipment was delivered and stored elsewhere.
Key Unscom scientists were Russians who had been deeply involved in the Soviet bioweapons program. Tariq Aziz worked with Premier Yevgeny Primakov to pack inspection teams with Russians picked by Moscow. The manipulation paid off. Mr. Spertzel recalls the Russians were "constantly giving the Iraqis the benefit of doubt. They said, 'no way could Al Hakam be a dual-use facility.'" Yet Mr. Spertzel is "100% convinced that Iraq has weaponized smallpox," and that the Russians on the inspection team were "paranoid" about his efforts to uncover smallpox production. They had reason to be, since it is likely that Russia supplied the original virus. The CIA determined that in the 1990s, a Russian scientist, Nelja N. Maltseva, had brought the strain -- named the Aralsk strain after a 1971 smallpox outbreak in the town of Aralsk, at the northern end of the Aral Sea -- to Iraq. The Soviets hushed up the 1971 outbreak; and their successors in Moscow now deny that Maltseva handed any virus over to the Iraqis.
In 2002, Alan Zelicofff, an adviser to inspection teams and a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories who has run a hepatitis C monitoring program with Russian epidemiology units, uncovered a Soviet-era secret report about the Aralsk outbreak. When forced to admit its occurrence, Dr. Zelicoff's Russian counterparts claimed it was a natural outbreak triggered by the "garden variety" smallpox virus. But after interviews with victims and an analysis of the outbreak's timing and trajectory, Dr. Zelicoff determined that it was caused by "a new and lethal strain of smallpox that traveled at least 20 miles from a secret biological weapons testing site on an island in the Aral Sea to infect people downwind on a ship." Of the six adults who were exposed to the strain, five contracted smallpox despite being immunized. Dr. Zelicoff and others believe that the strain is more communicable, and might be vaccine-resistant. He asked colleagues in Russia to help him locate the strain last summer and to determine if the current smallpox vaccine can protect people from infection. They replied curtly that no such strain existed, a stance they maintain to this day.
Other countries have -- through carelessness or complicity -- provided Iraq with the materials and equipment needed to build up its biological and chemical weapons program. But none have done more to rebuild Saddam's arsenal, and none have been more aggressive in helping hide the truth, than Russia. If these weapons are deployed against our troops, or wind up in terrorist hands, Vladimir Putin might find that he never gets asked to the Bush ranch again.
Mr. Goldberg is a writer specializing in bioterrorism and medical innovation.
On that we're in full agreement. As for my distrust of Putin, I have grounds for that beyond rumor.
11 years in the U.S. Army. Military Intelligence officer. Degree in Political Science with an emphasis on Soviet and Eastern European politics and affairs. I have done my homework on your country and its history.
I have a great deal of respect for Russia and Russians in general, but a great deal of distrust of Soviet holdovers. Putin may or may not be one of those, the jury is still out, but recent behavior is suspicious.
Of all the old world countries, I feel that, ironically, Russians and Americans have the most in common outside of the Brits. I want to see the Russians become fast allies of America. But your country is still suffering from a communist hangover, and seems to be allying itself with the new socialists of europe. That is not a good thing for Russia.
I don't think I've ever said Russia is irrellevent. But it will be if it sides with countries like France and supports people like Saddam, which it has and continued to do up until last week. France, Germany, and Russia all signed oil deals with Saddam to develop Iraqi oil fields as soon as sanctions could be lifted.
We're not looking for a client state in Russia. Just an ally that can be counted on to deal honestly and fairly with us. We have been quite generous in providing funds and loans to Russia. A little reciprocity would be nice. And, I would point out, when terrorists took over the Moscow theater, we were not one of the ones that jumped on her for accidently killing a large number of hostages. We thought we had a partner in the war on terrorism, but where Iraq is concerned, Russia has dropped the ball and reverted, in part, to its old Soviet era playbook.
Like the distribution of blankets from smallpox victims to American Indians (allegedly unintentional), earlier in American history, this would have greatly reduced a threat to Soviet security and economic development at the same time.
BD, You have hit the nail on the head. The U.N. only provides cover for this nefarious kind of trade, while nations such as our own are castigated.
More evidence of the Orwellian world we are living in.
My politicians were evil. Some unknown but certainly great body like the UN was great! I went thru grade school being told that we were a nation of slave traders, Native killers, evil industrialists, poisoners of water, air, and destroyers of everything that would have been.
I was told every horrible detail like erased tapes, McGovern being spiked with LSD, Presidents who killed people with golf balls, and really cool guys like Hunter S. Thompson were on something called an enemies list(whatever that was?), but it was on my news every night along with phrases like "christmas bombing, Leitenant Callie, Mi-Lai, plumbers, Kent State, Love Canal, and Karen Silkwood. This all came from my country and that was bad. Nothing bad came from the UN. They made skinny black kids smile with milk mustaches right?
To this day we have no idea how the UN runs. That means it must be great right? I mean Dan Rather seems to think quite highly of it. "Backing by the UN" has become something bigger than a blessing from God, or Karl Marx, which ever you prefer. Little o'l Shirley Temple was a UN person thingy.....How could someone like that even want to be affiliated with anything that wasn't lolipops and puppies? The UN was almost as good as Speed Racer and Crusader Rabbit.
Man was I hoodwinked and lied to.
Better late than never, as they say.
Besides, you're not THAT old -!
Yes, the left did tremendous damage to this country. We have a lot of work to do. Now we have some great leadership and a great president to help.
Thank God for His Providence for the election of 2000.
ping to an older thread.
ditto
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