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ASSOCIATED PRESS An Iraqi scientist has told U.S. interrogators that her team destroyed Iraq's stock of anthrax in 1991 by dumping it practically at the gates of one of Saddam's main palaces, but never told U.N. inspectors for fear of angering the dictator. Rihab Rashid Taha's decision in 2003 to remain silent stoked suspicions of those who contended Iraq still harbored biological weapons, contributing to the U.S. decision to invade Iraq two years ago this month. "Whether those involved understood the significance and disastrous consequences of their actions is unclear," the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group says of Mrs. Taha and...

Fearing Saddam, anthrax scientist kept her secret - and chanced warLAST UPDATE: 3/28/2005 12:36:24 PM In early 2003, as war fever built in Washington, an Iraqi scientist faced a fateful choice. Rihab Rashid Taha could try to lower the heat by finally telling U.N. inspectors what happened to Iraq's "missing" anthrax. Or she could remain silent, rather than risk Saddam Hussein's wrath. The microbiologist's dilemma, she has told U.S. interrogators, was that her team 12 years earlier had destroyed the lethal bacteria by dumping it practically at the gates of one of Saddam's main palaces, and the feared Iraqi...

The US has dismissed reports from Iraq's justice ministry that one of two female scientists held in a US-run prison was to be released. A US source told the BBC that both prisoners were in the physical and legal custody of the Americans and would not be freed imminently. Militants have reportedly killed two American hostages and are threatening to kill a third, Briton Kenneth Bigley. They had demanded the release of all Iraqi women held in US-run prisons. The US says it is only holding two women prisoners - Rihab Rashid Taha and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash - that...

BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi lawyer said Friday that one of Saddam Hussein's former top scientists, known as "Mrs. Anthrax," has cancer and is dying in U.S. custody where she has been held for more than a year. A U.S. military spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq refused to comment on the report that Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash has cancer. "I am not able to discuss the health condition of our detainees," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson. "Certainly we have medical care available to take care of any detainee." Ammash, a top Baath party official and biotech researcher who got her...