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C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet Smallpox(Do You want To Sleep Well Tonight? ....Dont Read)
N Y TIMES ^
| December 3, 2002
| JUDITH MILLER
Posted on 12/03/2002 2:42:31 PM PST by woofie
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1
posted on
12/03/2002 2:42:31 PM PST
by
woofie
To: woofie
See
here for a look at it from the perspective of the
New Yorker.
2
posted on
12/03/2002 2:45:05 PM PST
by
r9etb
To: woofie; The Great Satan
If it's resistant to vaccines, how does Saddam protect himself and his country from it?
To: aristeides
I never realized that Saddam was interested in protecting his populace. Perhaps he would be short on a supply of people to torture and execute, but then if his number is up, he wouldn't care.
To: r9etb
There was a outright spate of scientists dying in Russia a couple years ago, IIRC. Hmmmm
5
posted on
12/03/2002 2:52:02 PM PST
by
txhurl
To: aristeides
When did Saddam ever worry about his country?
6
posted on
12/03/2002 2:52:16 PM PST
by
woofie
To: aristeides
He probably doesn't care. Its use wouldn't be for deterrence (we won't be blackmailed), but for revenge.
7
posted on
12/03/2002 2:52:45 PM PST
by
mewzilla
To: aristeides
If it's resistant to vaccines, how does Saddam protect himself and his country from it? Do you think he cares about that?
To: woofie
maybe saddam plans to use it in new york city...
To: woofie
Could it be that a warning has been shot over Bush's bow?
To: woofie
I heard Richard Preston speak about his book "The Demon in the Freezer" on C-SPAN the other day. Apparently the CDC is working on a substance that would disable the ability of the variola organism to kill people. This ought to work against all strains of smallpox, resistant or not.
If Iraq is thinking of using a strain that is resistant to vaccines, the U.S. thus has a head start on developing a countermeasure. Iraq would probably be fully vulnerable. Conventional smallpox had a mortality rate of 30%. A more virulent strain would presumably have a higher mortality. If it unleashes this scourge, Iraq may suffer something worse than the Black Death.
To: mewzilla
He probably doesn't care. Its use wouldn't be for deterrence (we won't be blackmailed), but for revenge.Well, if he has it -- which I doubt -- we will be blackmailed, just as we were blackmailed by the Soviet nuclear deterrent. Some problems have no solution.
To: aristeides
Saddam and his cronies probably made a mistake having smallpox around.
Lots of folks will pay for it.
13
posted on
12/03/2002 2:59:24 PM PST
by
muawiyah
To: woofie
This article and the times we are living in have a serious one of the four horsemen, Book of Revelation sorta feel to them. All part of The Plan, I suppose. I wonder how close we really are.
14
posted on
12/03/2002 2:59:58 PM PST
by
GBA
To: Heartlander2
Could it be that a warning has been shot over Bush's bow? Polies been talking publicly about biowar, specifically small pox, from before the anthrax attacks. They haven't been doing this for no reason.
15
posted on
12/03/2002 3:00:02 PM PST
by
Shermy
To: Heartlander2
Last June, experts from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, drawing on those Kazakh records and interviews with survivors, published a report saying the epidemic was a result of open-air tests of a particularly virulent smallpox strain on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea. The island, known as Renaissance Island in English, is between Kazakhstan and another Central Asian country, Uzbekistan. The United States recently spent $6 million to help both countries, which are now independent, to decontaminate anthrax that the Soviet military buried in pits on the island.
Alan P. Zelicoff, co-author of the Monterey report and a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, said the Aralsk outbreak was a watershed because it demonstrated that the smallpox virus was more easily spread than previously thought and that there may be a vaccine-resistant strain.
The organism can indeed be made to travel long distances, city-size perhaps, and there may be a vaccine-resistant strain or one that is more communicable than garden-variety smallpox, he said in an interview.
16
posted on
12/03/2002 3:01:43 PM PST
by
woofie
To: The Great Satan
We won't be blackmailed with a bug. Not this one at any rate. Mortality rate is too low.
17
posted on
12/03/2002 3:01:45 PM PST
by
mewzilla
To: woofie
Ironically, "vozrozhdeniye" means "rebirth".
To: The Great Satan
Some problems have no solution. Yes they do; just give war a chance! Seriously, if we wouldn't go to war with a country because it uses a WMD against us, we might as well wave the white flag right now.
I believe peace in Iraq lies on the other side of war. Saddam must go.
To: woofie
The American officials have also been unable to obtain information [from the Russians] that they believe could help federal investigators with their stalled inquiry into the anthrax attacks of October 2001, in which 5 people died and at least 17 were infected. Interesting last paragraph, left sort of hanging out there, disconnected from everything else in the story. What information are they talking about?
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