Posted on 12/03/2002 2:42:31 PM PST by woofie
The C.I.A. is investigating an informant's accusation that Iraq obtained a particularly virulent strain of smallpox from a Russian scientist who worked in a smallpox lab in Moscow during Soviet times, senior American officials and foreign scientists say.
The officials said several American scientists were told in August that Iraq might have obtained the mysterious strain from Nelja N. Maltseva, a virologist who worked for more than 30 years at the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow before her death two years ago.
The information came to the American government from an informant whose identity has not been disclosed. The C.I.A. considered the information reliable enough that President Bush was briefed about its implications. The attempt to verify the information is continuing.
Dr. Maltseva is known to have visited Iraq on several occasions. Intelligence officials are trying to determine whether, as the informant told them, she traveled there as recently as 1990, officials said. The institute where she worked housed what Russia said was its entire national collection of 120 strains of smallpox, and some experts fear that she may have provided the Iraqis with a version that could be resistant to vaccines and could be more easily transmitted as a biological weapon.
The possibility that Iraq possesses this strain is one of several factors that has complicated Mr. Bush's decision, expected this week, about how many Americans should be vaccinated against smallpox, a disease that was officially eradicated in 1980.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Hatfill's secret connections to ex-KGB rogues? Tell Babs!
Seriously, could be that the atx came from Soviet stashes, given corruptly to Saddam, and developed in Iraq, or just acquired by them in Prague. Prague seems to be a place all sorts of weapons can be procured.
Might be just tying up loose ends...might be trying to find out if Russia has the tech for the specific way the atx was concocted.
Maybe resistant to existing vaccines? Existing stocks are no more effective than last year's flu shot is against this year's strain?
Hereby nominated for Quote of the Day. :)
But Iraq hasn't used WMD against us -- unless you count airliners filled with jet fuel as WMD. So you are avoiding the real issue. In the past, when facing a deadly adversary armed with doomsday weapons, US policy has been conditioned by the unacceptable losses that would attend a direct confrontation. Saddam can play that game too. He's been trying to get into the club since the 1980s, and he's been at least a borderline member of the club since the Gulf War. Why do you think he's still there?
It is protection for Saddam to have biological and chemical weapons, because, in the final analysis, if pressed, if he is surrounded in Baghdad, he will threaten to use them. He's capable of that. This is a sort of Samson complex--if you push me too hard, I'll bring the house down, on myself and on everyone else. Washington realizes that this is a possibility. For obvious reasons, it's not talked about openly. No one in Washington wants to tell the American people that Saddam is still capable of blackmailing us. They're acting as if he is capable of blackmailing them, but they are not going to admit it openly.Said K. Aburish, author of Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge
PBS Frontline: The Survival of Saddam, January 2000
That's the only thing that makes sense, if there is any truth to this report. I don't think Russia would know anything about how Saddam got his hands on the Ames strain, but it's conceivable that ex-Soviet scientists might have been the source of the aerosolization know-how.
30% dead, even more incapacitated? And that's natural smallpox, not the tricked out stuff. Normally, a proper bio-attack involves multiple pathogens. Smallpox chimera mixed with marburg and Alibekov anthrax would bring this country to its knees.
Whats the ratio of farmers to urbanites? 1000 to 1? How long do you think food would hold out if the transportation infrastructure was disrupted? You could also kiss the financial system goodbye and the world economy that depends on it.
Oh great, the CDC. The people who consider fatty foods and firearms the nations greatest health risk.
When are they going to publish the paper that shows HIV causes AIDS. Its been over a decade since their HIV media blitz, and I still haven't seen a serious scientific paper on the subject.
The geezers are the ones that were vaccinated...Its the 0-30 year olds that haven't received a jab.
Somehow, I don't think killing off the 0-30's will help the SS problem.
Nuclear, Biological, & Chemical Warfare- Survival Skills, Pt. II
The Poor-Boy Nuke-- Bioterrorism***
...you will eventually find "The Demon in the Freezer," articles about the woman doctor who was Saddam's top bioterror expert, etc.
This tells me getting ready to take on Saddam. We're checkmating his threat, first.
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