Posted on 05/06/2003 11:13:01 AM PDT by TLBSHOW
U.S. rounds up Chemical Sally
WASHINGTON -- A top Iraqi scientist known as 'Chemical Sally' has been taken into custody, according to U.S. officials who say they suspect she has information about a banned biological weapons program.
Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, who has advanced degrees from two U.S. universities, was taken into custody Sunday, said a Defence Department official who had no other details.
With Ammash's detention, 19 of the 55 Iraqis listed as the most wanted by U.S. officials have been reported captured.
In a deck of playing cards with photos of the 55 that troops are using to hunt leadership figures, she is the five of hearts and is pictured at left.
Officials have not yet found any weapons of mass destruction -- which President George W. Bush cited as justification for the war in Iraq -- and have said they need information from Iraqis to help find them.
Other high-ranking Iraqi officials have denied under interrogation there have been banned chemical or biological weapons programs in recent years.
U.S. intelligence officials said Ammash, 49, is believed to have played a key role in rebuilding Baghdad's biological weapons capability since the first Gulf War in 1991.
She was born in 1953 in Baghdad, and her father was Salih Magdi Ammash, a former vice-president, defence minister and member of the Baath party's leadership.
Saddam Hussein reportedly ordered his execution in 1983.
Ammash was trained by Nassir al-Hindawi, described by UN inspectors as the father of Iraq's biological weapons program, officials said.
She has served as president of Iraq's microbiology society.
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