Posted on 10/04/2003 7:23:33 AM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
The vial of botulinum bacteria discovered in Iraq by U.S. arms inspectors which experts call the most poisonous substance known to man is "a weapon of mass destruction," the State Department's top spokesman announced yesterday.
"Botulinum kills people, it kills people in large quantities. Botulinum is a weapon of mass destruction, yes," said State spokesman Richard Boucher," according to an Agence France-Presse report. "Anything that destroys on a massive scale is a weapon of mass destruction."
The botulinum had been stored in a vial discovered in an Iraqi scientist's refrigerator, where it had been stored for safe keeping since 1993.
Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the press the report on ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's weapons program, just released by the government's lead weapons inspector David Kay, justified the decision to invade Iraq.
Kay's "interim assessment" described discoveries of illicit arms programs, as well as evidence Saddam was intent on developing weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, despite United Nations prohibitions.
When reporters grilled Powell as to whether he thought weapons inspectors' efforts would ever yield "weapons of mass destruction," Powell replied rhetorically: "Do you think vials of botulinum should constitute a weapon of mass destruction?"
And President George Bush, before boarding Marine One, claimed the Kay report vindicated the Iraqi war effort:
"The report states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories, a live strain of deadly agent botulinum, sophisticated concealment efforts and advanced design work on prohibited longer-range missiles," said Bush. "These findings already make clear that Saddam Hussein actively deceived the international community, that Saddam Hussein, was in clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 and that Saddam Hussein was a danger to the world."
The president added that Kaye's "Iraq Survey Group" discovered "dozens of WMD (weapons of mass destruction)-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in 2002." He added that Kay and his team found "systematic destruction of evidence of these illegal activities."
The Bush administration had relied on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 as a legal basis for the March invasion. The resolution threatened the Saddam Hussein regime with "serious consequences" for failing to demonstrate that it had ended its WMD program.
Weeks before the invasion, on Feb. 5, Powell laid out the case against Saddam before the Security Council and the world, during which he referred to Iraq's biological weapons programs and its capability of producing deadly botulinum and other toxins.
"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more," Powell said, pointing out Iraq had admitted to producing botulinum. "And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction."
Noting that the vial of live botulinum bacteria had been hidden in an Iraqi scientist's home refrigerator, Kay, testifying before Congress, said the discovery "illustrates the point ... about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons."
According to Agence France-Presse, the Center for Civilian Bio-defense Strategies at Johns Hopkins University says: "Botulinum toxin is the single most poisonous substance known" and "poses a major bioweapons threat because of its extreme potency and lethality, its ease of production, transport and misuse, and the potential need for prolonged intensive care in affected persons."
Kay, a veteran former U.N. weapons inspector, says the investigation he is leading involves over 1,200 staffers, and is likely to take another six to nine months. He asked reporters for "time and patience in the answers you really deserve," noting that the regime of Saddam Hussein had "engaged in extensive deceptions."
In fact, said Kay, his team has found signs that arms may have been moved out of the country before Saddam's fall.
When reporters asked Kay at a telephone press conference whether chemical or biological weapons had been moved out of Iraq before the March invasion, reports AFP, the lead inspector replied: "We have multiple reports from Iraqis of substances being moved across borders." He added: "We've got information indicating movement to Iran, Syria, Jordan, essentially all states that border the north with Iraq, that's not surprising those routes have been long used. At least with regard to Syria and Jordan, certainly senior Iraqi officials, both military and scientific, moved to both countries pre-conflict and during the conflict, and some immediately after the conflict."
Earlier this week, biological and chemical weapons turned up in Kuwait, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyassah.
The pro-government daily reported Kuwaiti security forces foiled an attempted smuggling of $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads from Iraq to an unnamed European country. Citing an unnamed security source, Al-Siyassah said the smugglers had been under surveillance since they arrived in Kuwait and were arrested "in due time."
I disagree, September 11 changed everything. We are not talking about conventional warfare waged by conventional armies. The burden of proof rested on Saddam's shoulders when we could neither conclude he had destroyed his WMD or ended his pursuit of them. And this is not to mention the justification provided by Saddam's violation of the terms of the ceasefire that ended the first Gulf War.
On every count, from a human rights standpoint, to the international community's voice as expressed in multiple UN resolutions, to the evidence in Kay's interim report, the United States had justification to topple Saddam. But here is the real question that the President faced, do we trust Saddam not to arm a terrorist with a chemical or biological weapon or to otherwise hold the region hostage to these weapons leaving the US no choice but to intervene or submit to blackmail? I answered no then and nothing has moved me from that conclusion.
Screw the WMD.
These reasons are sufficient to do it again.
The regime thumbed it's nose at the U.N. for some thirteen years. A dozen or so U.N. decrees and agreements were all broken and had consequences.
Sanctions were not working and were killing the innocent while Saddam built palaces and bought weapons with oil for food money.
Saddam was sending money (some $35,000 to each family of the Palestinian suicide bombers in order to encourage more of the same, causing Israel to bull doze the homes purchased with the money and further incite the situation.
Genocide on a mass scale was occurring throughout the 13 years and showed no signs of letting up. it was even worse than we knew at the time.
With all this in mind, the chances that the regime might furnish weapons to some terrorist group that would do us or our allies harm was a real present danger and had to be addressed.
Not to forget that the Middle East has been in turmoil and he has attacked Kuwait and continued to threaten all in the region if he did not get his way.
If I forgot anything, please chime in, and I have not mentioned WMD a single time.
What do you mean by "immediate"? Are you saying that if Saddam was merely an ongoing threat, a source of threats that would materialize in 5-10 years, then we should have done nothing?
When you imploy a doctrine of preemption, you must provide convincing evidence that your attack would prempt an attack by an ememy,
You misunderstand. It was not "an attack" (meaning, an attack that Saddam was about to launch - because nobody ever said this was the case) which we were trying to pre-empt. It was the possibility of attacks in the future using Saddam's arsenal. Even if those attacks wouldn't have come for 5 or 10 years.
Even as blind as conservatives are, they must volunteer that Saddam wasn't planning an attack at the start of the war.
Well I don't know what Saddam was "planning" or not planning but you are right, as far as it goes, that we didn't fight the war because we thought Saddam was About To Attack Us per se. We fought it because we wanted to prevent the possibility of future attacks, like I said.
One vial of botulinum toxin does rise to level of immediate threat
So what? No one ever said it was an "immediate threat" to begin with. You apparently simply did not understand what the President was trying to communicate to you. Go read his State of the Union address.
Saddam deserved what he got, and I don't cry for his passing, but please stop scrambling for justification.
Nobody's scrambling. The war was justified no matter what the Kay report says.
You won't find because this war wasn't necessary, and it was ill timed.
Those are your opinions and you're entitled to them.
Conservatives have trapped us in quakmire
What the hell is a "quakmire". Do you mean "quagmire"? Anyway, this is not a "quagmire". Do you know what that word means? Please go look it up.
One gram of weaponised botulinum can kill hundreds of thousands. Care to revisit your unifomed opinion?
Here's a roadmap for the botulinum landing a city near you.
Uday to Fedayeen Saddam to Ansar al Islam to Al Qaeda proper to New York Harbor and into the waiting hands of the next Zacharias Moussoui.
By the way, hiding your head under the covers is not a sufficient response to jihadists who have been killing Americans unimpeded for the past twenty years.
Eat it, Carl.
And how many of those college students are using it to kill a whole lot of people???
When would you consider an immediate threat??
You know .. I recall the Liberals & the UN telling us that Bin Ladin wasn't a treat to us in the USA.
I also recall the liberals & the UN telling us that N. Korea wouldn't make nukes because Jimmy Carter got an agreement with them
I also recall the Liberals & the UN telling us the Arafat was a peaceful man ..
And I also recall the Liberals & the UN telling us that Iran wasn't working on getting nukes either
I'm sorry .. I'll put my faith behind a real leader thank you
It only takes one. Any bets on whether there is at least one inclined to do it?
BRRRRRRRRR! Makes my skin crawl!
The Libs scream that it should be so easy to find the WMD's, as if they'll be huge items, like 55 gallon drums or something. And that since we haven't, they don't exist. B.S.! This report confirms what I've thought all along.....that So-Dammed has "nasties" stashed around the country, hidden in scientists' homes. Not in large drums but in small vials. One has to wonder just how many more vials are stashed in refrigerators around Iraq.
Of course, if they find a working hydrogen bomb then the democRATs will say that Bush planted it.
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