Posted on 05/12/2003 3:24:06 PM PDT by FairOpinion
AMERICAN forces in Iraq have taken into custody the British-trained scientist known as “Dr Germ” who headed Saddam Hussein’s programme to develop weapons-grade anthrax. Dr Rihab Rashid Taha, who received a doctorate after Saddam sent her to England in 1979 to study microbiology at the University of East Anglia, was being interrogated by the CIA last night over her knowledge of Iraq’s illegal weapons programmes.
Although not on the list of the 55 most-wanted members of Saddam’s former regime, Dr Taha was one of his most senior biological weapons scientists and ran the Iraqi biological weapons facility that developed weapons-grade anthrax, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin during the 1980s.
US Central Command also announced last night the capture of Saddam’s former Armed Forces Chief of Staff. Ibrahim Ahmad Abd al-Sattar Muhammad al-Tikriti was the jack of spades in the US deck of cards of wanted regime officials and No 11 on the Pentagon’s list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis.
Twenty of the 55 have been apprehended and three killed.
US forces have yet to find hard evidence of Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, the existence of which were cited by President Bush as the main justification for the war. But Dr Taha’s capture was seen in Washington as a crucial step in uncovering Iraq’s illicit weapons, which both Mr Bush and Tony Blair insist will be found.
Dr Taha, who had been negotiating her surrender for days, gave herself up to US forces at the weekend, US Central Command said.
Documents seized by United Nations weapons inspectors after the 1991 Gulf war provide a chilling picture of the thoroughness and dedication of her work. In exhaustive reports packed with data, Dr Taha described the successful test-firing of 122mm missiles armed with anthrax-laden warheads into fields full of animals, concluding at one point: “Eighty per cent of the experimental animals have perished.”
In the late 1980s Dr Taha’s weapons were allegedly tested on human beings, first on prisoners taken during the Iran-Iraq War, who were tied to poles in the desert and sprayed with a variety of lethal agents, and later on political detainees at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
Those claims were first made by Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, who became an outspoken opponent of the Iraqi war.
Her capture follows that of two other key top Iraqi scientists, who are also believed to hold vital knowledge of Saddam’s biological and chemical arms programmes. Last week coalition forces reported the capture of Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, known by US intelligence officials as “Mrs Anthrax”. She is the five of hearts on the deck of cards and No 53 on the most-wanted list. Lieutenant General Amir al-Saadi, Saddam’s chief scientific adviser, surrendered on April 12.
Dr Taha’s husband, Amir Rashid Muhammad al-Ubaydi, headed Iraq’s missile development programme in the 1980s and surrendered to US forces on April 28. He was in charge of Saddam’s missile delivery system and eventually became Oil Minister, a euphemistic appointment aimed at disguising his true portfolio.
Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, has called the couple the “most interesting” people for the US to question because of their detailed knowledge of Iraq’s banned weapons programme. They married in the mid-1980s.
Present and former UN weapons inspectors who interviewed Dr Taha in the mid-1990s described her as difficult and dour, especially when confronted with her anthrax reports. One Unscom member who questioned her in the mid-1990s said that she began to cry and wail when put under pressure. “She was great on theatrics,” he said. “None of us liked her. We could find no redeeming features about her.”
Another UN inspector who doggedly unravelled the lies told by Dr Taha during her mid-1990s interviews was Gabrielle Kraatz-Wadsack, a German bioweapons expert. She toured the large al-Hakam facility south of Baghdad where Dr Taha was in charge and concluded that it was being used for the development of biological weapons.
Eventually Dr Taha confessed. In one interview she told Dr Kraatz-Wadsack how she had supervised the production of more than 8,000 litres of anthrax spores, and 19,000 litres of Botulinum toxin for Iraqi missiles, enough to kill millions of people.
Gee, I can't imagine where Bush could possibly have gotten the idea that Iraq has WMD... (/sarcasm)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.