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What are the consequences? What happens to an America that TWICE elects a leader that is a pathological liar, that has prostituted the American presidency and who now rolls out a red carpet from the White House for a Communist Chinese dictator who oversees the brutal repression of democracy, freedom and human rights for 1/5th of the world's population?! How dare the American people allow this! How dare they bring it about!! Have we no shame!!!
So what happens to America? What happens to freedom when no one stands up for it?! What happens is an utterly tragic loss of everything Americans supposedly believe in...
Enter Saddam Hussein, one of those evil dictators of the East. When Saddam's Iraq steps out-of-line, America is quick to make a supposedly principled stand (of course, cheap oil is truly the main principle for which America makes a stand against Saddam). Why is America so quick to make a stand against the Iraqi dictator while a Chinese dictator is given a hero's welcome in Washington DC? One major reason is because the Iraqi dictator is seemingly isolated and weak such that confronting his evil entails minimum perceived risks and costs. In other words, he seems to be easy to make a stand against, particularly compared to a behemoth power like China.
Thus, Saddam calls for Americans to be removed from U.N. weapons inspections inside Iraq, and the U.S. is ready to go back to war in the Persian Gulf. Unfortunately, however, this time around in confronting Saddam, haughty Western expectations of easy success may be catastrophically upset. Instead of quickly reigning in the Butcher of Baghdad by once again remotely bombing Iraq, this time we're probably going to let loose Saddam "Insane" in a most awful way.
While I've already foreseen a chemical SCUD missile attack against Israel that I believe will set-off a regional war in the Middle East, there's a possibility "Saddam's Revenge" won't stop with striking just Israel with weapons of mass destruction. If renewed U.S. military action against Iraq means Saddam is really going to 'take the gloves off', then we need to seriously consider the possibility that weapons of mass destruction will be used directly against the United States through Iraqi terrorism.
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The Electronic Telegraph
Sunday, 15 September 1996 Issue 480
"Fears grow of germ warfare in US"
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Washington
SADDAM Hussein has a stock of anthrax, botulin and other agents
of germ warfare that could be released with deadly effect in any
major city in Britain or the United States, experts warned this
week.
Whatever the assurances of the British and US governments, there
is a danger that there could be a high price to pay for the
West's arm's-length cruise missile war against the Ba'athist
regime in Baghdad.
"You could spray biological agents from crop dusters, you could
even drive around Washington with the stuff coming out of the
exhaust of a car and it would kill tens of thousands of people,"
said Dr Laurie Mylroie, a former lecturer at the US Naval War
College and now a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
of Philadelphia.
The full extent of Iraq's germ warfare capability was revealed
after the defection of Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamil, in
August 1995. He had been the head of Iraq's "unconventional
weapons" programme. Iraq has since defied the United Nations
Special Commission by refusing to hand over any of its biological
weapons.
The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, has
warned that Saddam Hussein has enough anthrax to "kill every man,
woman and child in the world". But up to now the administration
of Bill Clinton has played down the possibility that Saddam would
ever use germ warfare in terrorist attacks against targets on US
soil.
The loudest cries of alarm have been coming from outside the
government. A small but growing group of experts in Washington
has begun to suspect that Iraq could be the real force behind the
wave of terrorist attacks that has traumatised America in the
1990s. The experts also warn there is a real danger that Saddam
could escalate to biological terrorism.
According to Dr Mylroie, the attempt to blow up the twin towers
of the World Trade Centre in New York on February 26, 1993 -
which killed six people, but could have claimed thousands of
lives if the truck bomb had been parked in the intended spot -
was an act of Iraqi state-sponsored terrorism conducted by
proxies.
After studying the telephone records and document archive from
the trial, she has concluded that the mastermind said to be
behind the bombing, a shadowy figure called Ramsi Yousef, was
working for Iraqi intelligence.
The Justice Department did not address this issue in the official
investigation. It concluded that the bombing was the work of
Islamic fundamentalists loyal to a blind Egyptian cleric. Jim
Fox, then head of the New York FBI office, suspected Iraqi
involvement but says that the Washington headquarters refused to
look at the evidence.
Increasingly, the question being asked in Washington every time
a bomb goes off is which of the pariah states is guilty -Iran or
Iraq?
Ramsi Yousef was recently convicted for plotting to blow up 12 US
jumbo jets in a single day in the Far East. He now faces life in
prison in the US. But it is still unclear whether he was a loner
or a paid agent.
The presumption that he was a religious militant does not bear
scrutiny. Yousef had a Filipina girlfriend and was known to
frequent nightclubs when he was living in Manila. It is also
inconceivable that he was working for the Shi'ite regime in Iran.
Yousef is a Pakistani Baluch of Sunni background, an anti-Iranian
ethnic group that is frequently used by the Iraqi intelligence
services for covert operations.
Separately, there is some suspicion that Iraq could have had a
hand in the bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma
City on April 19, 1995.
The defence team of the leading suspect, Timothy McVeigh, has
been travelling extensively in the Middle East and the
Philippines. It claims to have accumulated evidence of Iraqi
funding for the white supremacist movement in the US.
"I've never seen any evidence of Iraqi involvement in Oklahoma,"
said Vincent Cannistraro, the ex-chief of counter-terrorism
operations for the CIA. "But there are indications that the
Iraqis had a hand in the World Trade Centre bombing."
Last month the FBI announced that it was transferring 500 agents
to beef up its counter-terrorism capability. The move came just
weeks after the crash of TWA flight 800 off New York on July 17 -
widely believed to be the result of a bomb.
It suggests that the Clinton administration is at last beginning
to treat terrorist attacks as potential acts of warfare, carried
out by enemy powers, that must be traced to their source, rather
than as criminal acts that can be left to prosecutors.
Increasingly, the question being asked in Washington every time a
bomb goes off is which of the pariah states is guilty - Iran or
Iraq? And when will it strike next?
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The Wall Street Journal
June 28, 1993
"Saddam's Fingerprints on N.Y. Bombings"
By Laurie Mylroie
Military retaliation from Baghdad was the main administration
concern following Saturday's strike on Iraq. Yet U.S. officials
should start thinking seriously about the question of retaliation
through terror. It is quite possible, for example, that there
was a connection between Saddam and recent attempts to blow up
Manhattan. It is quite possible that New York's terror is
Saddam's revenge.
Speculation about the responsibility for last week's bombing
plot and the earlier World Trade Center bombing has focused on
Iran, Sudan, and the fundamentalist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.
Much energy has been spent linking the terror to Islamic
fundamentalism. Yet Saddam, a secular tyrant, is also suspect.
Information already in the public domain allows us to make
this case. Start with the fact that the most important person in
the Trade Center bombing is an Iraqi, Ramzi Ahmad Yusuf. Known
in New York as Rashid, Mr. Yusuf has 11 aliases. The U.S. press
has reported that he left Iraq in early 1992, transiting Jordan
to Pakistan. He entered New York in early September on Pakistan
Airways. Mr. Yusuf, traveling on his Iraqi passport, passed
through immigration by requesting asylum. The FBI claims the
plot began in August, while Mr. Yusuf was abroad.
-Ordering Chemicals-
Mr. Yusuf soon became the roomate of Mohammed Salameh, the
naive Palestinian who repeatedly returned to the van rental
agency for his deposit. Passionate, but not bright, Mr. Salameh
would appear a ready dupe to an intelligence operative. In trial
documents, an Iraqi-American, Musaab Yassin, has stated that he
had known Mr. Salameh two years. Mr. Yassin moved into Mr.
Salameh's apartment in September 1992, and Mr. Salameh moved
out. Mr. Yassin's younger brother, Abboud, lived with him. An
Arab who knows Musaab Yassin, like Mr. Yusuf, came to the U.S.
in the fall of 1992, seeking medical treatment.
In late November, Mr. Yusuf allegedly ordered chemicals for
the bomb and Mr. Salameh rented a locker to store them. The
plot was underway. In early February, Mr. Salameh notified his
landlord that he and Mr. Yusuf would leave at month's end. On
Feb. 26 the World Trade Center was bombed. Messrs. Salameh and
Yusuf vacated their apartment two days later.
Mr. Salameh was arrested March 4. Musaab Yassin returned
home that day to find the FBI searching his apartment, while
Abboud had been taken for questioning. Abboud Yassin told the
FBI that he taught Mr. Salameh to drive the van that carried the
bomb, that he accompanied Mr. Salameh to an apartment later
identified as the bomb's testing ground; and Abboud Yassin's
information helped lead the FBI to the locker where the chemicals
had been stored. The U.S. press reports that Abboud Yassin then
returned to Iraq, as did Mr. Yusuf. The New York Times reported
that Arabs who knew Mr. Salameh and the second Palestinian
arrested, Nidal Ayyad, said that the two had "close ties with two
Iraqis, one of whom they say was named Rashid, but both of whom
have since disappeared."
This information, although sketchy, indicates Iraqi activity.
If Mr. Yusuf, the key figure, had worked for Iran, Tehran would
not have let him return to Iraq. Given the totalitarian nature
of the Iraqi regime, even Abboud Yassin's return to Iraq is
significant. An innocent man would, arguably, have chosen to
stay in the U.S.- he would have a better chance of a fair hearing
in a U.S. court than before an Iraqi intelligence officer. If
Abboud Yassin was involved in the bombing- but was not acting
under Baghdad's instruction- then it was even more imprudent for
him to return to Iraq. Mr. Yusuf and Abboud Yassin could have
gone to Afghanistan, where they would not have exposed themselves
to the potentially fatal suspicions of Baghdad's intelligence
agencies.
That two men involved came from Iraq and returned there is
reason enough to consider an Iraqi role in the World Trade Center
bombing. What other possible evidence is there? It has been
reported that the bombing suspects received money from abroad: up
to $100,000 from Germany, Iran, and "another Middle Eastern
Country." That country is probably Jordan, shielded by U.S.
authorities who continue protecting Amman for the sake of the
"peace process." Without knowing how much money came from each
country, though, it is hard to exclude Iraq. Last but not least,
it is worth noting that the February bombing occurred on the
second anniversary of Kuwait's liberation.
What about last week's arrests? The FBI arrested five
Sudanese and three others as it broke up a second bombing plot.
The conspirators' first target was the United Nations'
headquarters. Other targets were added, including FBI
headquarters in New York. Additionally, four assassinations were
planned, including that of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and
U.N. secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
Like the Trade Center bombing, much of this operation was
amateurish. The conspiracy instigator, Siddiq Ibrahim Ali, had a
plan to get a car into the FBI building, but it was amateurish
(he proposed shooting the guards). Professional terrorists
divide their organizations into small cells, each devoted to
specific tasks. These planners used a large group in which every
participant was known to the others, so that the entire plot
could quickly unravel once one member was caught. Yet, like the
World Trade Center bombing, this was audacious. Had it suceeded,
thousands could have died.
It's important to note that both the Trade Center bombing and
the later plot represent something new- at least in the West.
Saddam however commits that kind of carnage on a daily basis.
Two of the nations thought to be behind the second plot are
not ideal suspects. Khartoum is suspected, because Sudanese
played a big role in the plot. With Iran, Sudanese has been
involved in a violent campaign to overthrow secular governments
in North Africa, including Mr. Boutros-Ghali's own government in
Cairo. But Khartoum has not sponsored terrorism against U.S.
targets. That it should suddenly support potentially the most
devastating anti-American attack ever makes little sense. A
separate question though is whether Sudanese diplomats could be
bought. This is possible, since Khartoum is broke, and months
behind in paying its diplomats.
Iranian sponsorship of the plot is also unlikely. Iran has
no big quarrel with the U.N.- it benefits from the U.N.'s
disarmament of Iraq. The U.N. is not the obvious target for
Muslim extremists. Their quarrel is with the U.S. They could
have easily chosen an American target. Explaining why
fundamentalists would bomb the U.N. is possible, but the
explanation is strained- that they see the U.N. as a U.S.
surrogate; that their violence is caused by anger at many issues
involving the U.N., including Bosnia, Somalia and the
Palestinians. The Trade Center suspects issued a set of demands
that the U.S. stop aiding Israel and stop interfering in the
internal affairs of Middle Eastern countries.
Saddam by contrast has every reason to attack the U.N. Saddam
also hates Egypt's Mubarak and wants him dead, no less than he
wanted George Bush dead. Baghdad Radio threatened Mr. Bush
personally during the Gulf War and Mubarak as well, "Does he
(Mubarak) think that the crime he committed against the people of
Iraq will go unpunished?...Prepare yourself for it and shiver at
the thought."
-More To Come-
Attention has focused on the Iranian-Sudanese relationship.
But Baghdad could as easily recruit Sudanese as Tehran.
For Saddam, Iraqi sponsorship would be vengeance with a
twist. Baghdad wants Washington to blame Iran for the terror
striking America's shores. If it doesn't and fundamentalists are
caught, that too is fine, because it promotes a hysteria about
Islamic fundamentalism and Iran which, Saddam calculates, would
eventually benefit Iraq. If Saddam is behind the attacks, more
will surely follow.
The focus of the New York investigations should shift to the
question of state sponsorship. If considerable evidence points
to Saddam, then President Clinton must fulfill his Saturday
pledge: "We will combat terrorism. We will deter aggrssion. We
will protect our people."
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Defense News
September 23, 1996 / September 29, 1996
"Limited U.S. Action May Boost Iraqi Biological Threat"
By PHILIP FINNEGAN, Defense News Staff Writer
The limited military action taken by the United States against
Iraq could make Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein more willing to use
his stockpiles of biological weapons, which are abundant and
potent enough to easily wipe out Kuwait or Middle Eastern and
U.S. cities, according to some experts.
"This may have made the use of biological weapons more
probable," said David Kay, the former chief nuclear inspector for
the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM). "You want
Saddam Hussein to be deathly afraid of you. But there is a
danger now that Saddam will think he can get away with anything."
Following the Aug. 31 Iraqi attack on Irbil in Kurdistan, the
United States responded by expanding the southern no-fly zone
from the 32nd to the 33rd parallel and hitting Iraqi air defense
sites with 44 cruise missiles over two days.
"This relatively weak response -- and not bringing up weapons
inspections to find and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass
destructionÝ -- encourages Saddam to do more horrible things,"
Laurie Mylroie, an analyst at the Philadelphia-based Foreign
Policy Research Institute, said Sept. 19. That includes the
possible use of biological weapons for military or terrorist
actions in the Persian Gulf or the United States, she said.
Other experts suggest Saddam's survival would need to be at
stake before he would order the use of biological weapons.
"Unless he is really desperate, he won't do it," said Amatzia
Baram, a professor at Haifa University and Israel's leading
expert on Iraq.
Even with a terrorist action, "the suspicion would
automatically fall on him." Retaliation from the United States or
Israel, would be devastating, Baram said Sept. 20.
Regardless of any opinion about their potential use, Iraq has
stockpiles of biological weapons and the capability to use them,
said Kay, now a vice president at Science Applications
International Corp.'s McLean, Va., headquarters.
Before the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Iraq had mounted a massive
development effort that created what was probably the second
largest biological weapons program in the world behind that of
the former Soviet Union, Kay said.
Iraq had missiles, bombs and airplanes equipped to dispense
deadly biological agents. It even tested remotely piloted
vehicles as a way of disseminating the agents.
Although the biological agents that had been put into weapons
likely were destroyed by the Iraqis, and almost all of its
missiles also were destroyed by Iraq and U.N. inspectors, a
threat from a limited missile stockpile remains.
UNSCOM inspectors are concerned Iraqi officials still may not
have accounted for about 12 Scud launchers, Rolf Ekeus, UNSCOM's
executive chairman, said in a Sept. 17 interview. Before the
war, Iraq had 25 Al-Hussein extended-range Scud missiles equipped
with biological weapons.
UNSCOM is charged with dismantling Iraq's biological,
chemical, nuclear and missile programs.
The concern now is that Saddam could use relatively low-
technology methods to mount a deadly biological attack. Among
the scenarios of most concern to experts, based on Saddam's
stockpiles and level of technical expertise, are:
* Trucks driving along Iraq's border with Kuwait to spray
biological agents during a period of high winds, wiping out much
of the Kuwaiti population.
* Small dhows in the Persian Gulf using agricultural sprayers
to hit U.S. allies or U.S. military facilities.
* A car driving along the George Washington Parkway in
Washington spraying anthrax spores or another biological agent
from its exhaust pipe. Along the road is CIA headquarters and
the Pentagon on one side and the White House on the other.
* Biological agents are sprayed from an aerosol can into a
major city's subway, with the trains moving them through the
tunnels.
In each case, it would take time for the symptoms to appear.
For example, two days are needed for the results of an anthrax
attack to show.
It would be almost impossible for the United States to prove
that it was Iraq and not another country that had carried out the
attack, Kay said.
There is even a danger a country like Iran might mount an
attack with a strain of anthrax known to have been developed by
Iraq, according to another biological weapons expert.
Iraq still has not adequately accounted for massive stockpiles
of biological weapons, according to UNSCOM. Figures revealed by
the Iraqi government show that before the 1991 gulf war, it had
produced 19,000 liters of botulinum, 8,500 liters of anthrax and
2,500 of aflatoxin.
Those production figures seem suspiciously low, Ekeus said.
It is the anthrax that is of particular concern, Ekeus said.
If anthrax is dried, it can be stored for decades. A mere 4
kilograms could kill the population of Washington, Kay said.
The 2,000 liters of anthrax that was not filled in weapons and
still could be available in Iraqi stockpiles would be enough to
kill 45 million to 60 million people.
The danger goes beyond unaccounted-for Iraqi stockpiles.
Despite U.N. efforts to dismantle Iraq's biological weapon
capabilities, "they keep a production capability that can be
reactivated if we leave the country," Ekeus said.
That production capability could be reconstituted in eight to
12 weeks, according to an Aug. 26 study by Anthony Cordesman,
titled "Iraqi Military Forces in the Year 2000."
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Los Angeles Times
October 10, 1997, Friday
"SADDAM'S SECRET WEAPON IS WORSE THAN IMAGINED;
ARMS: A MYSTERIOUS MISSILE FIRED AT ISRAEL
HAD ONLY TO HINT AT BIOLOGICAL
WARFARE TO PERSUADE BUSH TO END THE GULF WAR."
BY AVIGDOR HASELKORN
(Avigdor Haselkorn, a strategic analyst, has recently completed
a, book on the role of mass destruction weapons in the Gulf War.)
In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the spread of mass
destruction weapons and long-range missiles in the Middle East
has accelerated. The buildup of chemical and biological weapons
arsenals by rogue regimes is readily observed and is directly
traceable to Operation Desert Storm. This is the real, undeniable
Gulf War syndrome.
How can we explain such adverse results from a war fought
under the banner of the "new world order" and aimed to disarm the
nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities of a dangerous
dictator?
Recent information indicates that the Middle East came
remarkably close to the brink of disaster in 1991. In the early
morning hours of Feb. 25, a strangely armed Iraqi missile landed
in southern Israel. It was an Hijarah, an Iraqi variant of the
Soviet Scud B, topped with a concrete and metal warhead. Israeli
military intelligence suspected that it might have been a
primitive biological warhead.
The incident left U.S. decision makers, especially Gen. Colin
Powell, in a quandary. Although there was no agreement among
intelligence analysts as to the meaning of the "stone age" Scud,
the possibility that it was a warning shot on Saddam Hussein's
part could not be dismissed. President Bush knew that if an
unconventional warhead fell inside an Israeli city, the
retaliation would be swift, possibly even with nuclear weapons.
If the missile carried a biological warfare payload of, for
example, anthrax agent, it could have caused heavy casualties. It
was unclear whether the Iraqis had the warhead technology to
spray the spores in the air as an invisible aerosol, which could
be inhaled. But, U.S. defense intelligence warned, "effective
dissemination of the agent was not even necessary if a biological
weapon warhead were to be used as a terror weapon against
civilian populations."
The president knew that even if he allowed the Israelis to
intervene in western Iraq to neutralize the Scud threat, there
was no guarantee that they would be completely successful.
Moreover, the missile appeared to have been fired from deep
inside Iraq, which would have greatly expanded the search area.
Under these circumstances, Bush had little choice but to
abruptly order the "suspension" of hostilities, in effect
submitting to Iraqi strategic blackmail.
Bush can blame his military planners for this sorry outcome of
the war. Not only was there an almost catastrophic intelligence
failure in the Gulf, for example with regard to locating Iraq's
chemical/biological weapons cache, but the missiles kept coming
despite claims by coalition pilots of total kills that amounted
to 300% of the entire Iraqi inventory. After the second salvo
into Israel, the CIA warned, "We cannot rule out that Iraq will
escalate to strategic i.e., countercity, including civilian
targets chemical attacks--perhaps during its next strike."
Saddam Hussein did not resort to his mass destruction option
because those were last-resort weapons. However, intelligence in
both Israel and the U.S. estimated long before the war had
started that when the chips were down, Saddam would use those
weapons without hesitation.
When the ground war started on Feb. 23 and Iraq's defenses
crumbled, the door to Baghdad was wide open. Jerusalem and
Washington both expected that Saddam would take drastic action.
Israel's defense minister Moshe Arens on Feb. 27 phoned Richard
Cheney, his American counterpart, to warn that Saddam could
resort to chemical warfare against Israel "exactly now."
Accordingly, Arens said, "Israel must take action to neutralize
this threat." This assessment and Israel's preparations to enter
the war undoubtedly played a major role in Bush's decision later
that day to end the fighting.
In hindsight, the intelligence conception of Saddam's last-
resort strategy, the prevalence of which was unaffected by the
controversy over the Hijarah, seems to have been vindicated.
Before Desert Storm, Saddam armed 191 weapons, including 25
warheads, with anthrax agent, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin. Rolf
Ekeus, then chairman of the U.N. Special Commission for the
disarmament of Iraq, said: "Their use, which seemed to have been
possible at any time, would have killed millions of people."
Unless the war ended when it did, unless Bush heeded Powell's
warning against fighting past the "rational calculation," the
Middle East would have likely plunged into a full scale mass
destruction exchange between Iraq and Israel.
But stopping the war entailed a steep price. The conflict left
Saddam on his throne, and it also convinced Iran, Syria, Libya
and North Korea that mass destruction weapons and long-range
missiles are the new praetorian guard. Increasingly, low-
tech/low-cost chemical and biological arms are seen as
instrumental for exercising political blackmail and shielding
terrorist activity. Little wonder that a "Club MAD" (for mass
destruction) has emerged with rogue countries helping each other
develop the most deadly capabilities and the means to deliver
them. They aim not only to hold Israeli, Saudi and South Korean
cities hostage, but in due course Japanese and European as well.
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Defense News
September 30, 1996 / October 6, 1996
"Saddam's Bio-Chem Arsenal Could Snarl U.S. Gulf Plans"
By PHILIP FINNEGAN, Defense News Staff Writer
Iraq could use its cache of deadly chemical and biological
agents to contaminate U.S. equipment prepositioned in the Persian
Gulf region and thwart any future U.S. or allied buildup there.
Iraq's potent stockpile of chemical and biological weapons
include as much as 300 tons of the highly toxic chemical VX and
2,000 tons of anthrax, a biological agent.
"The use of either VX or anthrax would seriously constrain a
buildup," David Kay, the former chief nuclear inspector for the
United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), said Sept.
27.
The limited number of facilities used by U.S. forces in the
Persian Gulf create an inherent vulnerability, said Kay, now a
vice president at Science Applications International Corp.,
McLean, Va. U.S. prepositioning facilities, airfields and ports
all could be vulnerable targets in any future confrontation with
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
If these targets were hit with VX, it would take several weeks
before it would dissipate, Kay said. Just a drop of the VX on the
skin or inhaled as vapor would kill.
"To present serious problems, Iraq could use anthrax or
another serious biological agent," Anthony Cordesman, author of
numerous books on Middle Eastern military affairs, said Sept. 26.
Anthrax has a higher lethality and greater longevity than VX.
An attack with either agent would slow any U.S. buildup in
theater. U.S. troops would be forced to wear protective gear and
concentrate on detoxification of facilities. Some facilities
would be unusable for at least several weeks due to
contamination.
"To the extent it causes delay it is a problem," said another
expert on chemical and biological weapons. "In the context of a
campaign it could be meaningful."
In addition, the terror caused by an attack on U.S. facilities
or the civilian population of a host country also might threaten
the steadfastness of regional allies, Kay said, which might be
unwilling to allow U.S. troops to mount operations against Iraq.
Experts say Iraq has produced stockpiles of both agents,
including a stable form of VX, known as VX-hydrochloride or VX-
salt, that can be stored for many years. Anthrax, after being
dried, also can last for decades.
UNSCOM, however, has not been able to fully account for either
known stockpiles or the production equipment of either agent
despite five years of inspection in Iraq, Rolf Ekeus, UNSCOM's
executive chairman, said Sept. 17.
The approximately 2,000 tons of anthrax that has not been
accounted for is enough to kill 45 million to 60 million people
assuming optimal distribution in urban areas. Iraq's as yet
undiscovered caches of chemical precursors would be sufficient to
produce 200 to 300 tons of VX, according to one expert.
Iraq is not known to have put VX in weapons. But Baghdad has
considerable experience in weaponizing other chemical and
biological agents, experts said. Iraq also put anthrax in
longrange Scud missiles before the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Although Iraq lost almost all of its missiles following the
war, it still could use terrorist means to disseminate both VX
and anthrax, according to experts. A tanker filled with VX or a
crate of anthrax exploding at a port could wreak havoc. Trucks
or dhows spraying anthrax spores could contaminate port
facilities.
"Effective dissemination has been the weak link in Saddam's
program," Michael Eisenstadt, a military analyst with the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Sept. 26. "
Saddam could touch only a fraction of U.S. equipment."
Battlefield use of the agents would have uncertain results,
said Cordesman. It would require massive amounts of VX to
contaminate a facility and it is not clear how quickly it would
dissipate in the heat of the Middle East.
Ensuring that anthrax spores are large enough to fall to the
ground but small enough to be inhaled is another challenge,
another expert said.
Experts differ over whether the prospects of a massive U.S.
counterattack, possibly including nuclear weapons, would deter
the threat of such an attack by Iraq on U.S. facilities.
"Yes it is a potential risk, but it is a massive risk for the
Iraqis if we counter-escalate," said Cordesman.
Still, in a situation in which Saddam's survival is at stake,
he might use the weapons, Laurie Mylroie, an expert on Iraq at
the Foreign Policy Institute in Philadelphia, said Sept. 27.
"There is an apocalyptic scenario," she said. If Saddam feels
power slipping away, "he will take everyone with him."
It is critical the United States publicly outline retaliatory
steps to be taken in the event of a chemical or biological
attack, Amatzia Baram, an expert on Iraq at Haifa University,
Israel, said Sept. 24. The United States should threaten
specific attacks, including areas populated by Iraq's elite
forces, to encourage Saddam's officials to disobey the attack
order, Baram said.
Iran's biological and chemical programs are becoming
increasingly sophisticated as well, Kay said. Iran has followed
Iraq's path of producing mustard gas and sarin, and VX is a
likely next step, he said.
Iraq's VX Vexes U.S. Gulf Strategy
What is it: VX is a supertoxic compound, just one drop on the
skin or inhalation of the vapor produces convulsions quickly
followed by death.
How it works: Unlike some nerve agents that dissipate quickly
such as Sarin gas, used in the Tokyo subway attack last year, VX
is an oily liquid and remains lethal for several weeks or longer
after an attack, likely forcing the temporary abandonment of any
contaminated facility.
Who has it: VX is part of the chemical weapon inventories of
the United States and Russia, but few developing countries
besides Iraq have produced the substance in a stable form.
How it might be used by Iraq: The chemical could be delivered
by missiles, bombs or terrorist attacks to contaminate bases,
ports and equipment that would be used by the United States in a
confrontation with Iraq.
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Chattanooga Free Press
November 1, 1996, Friday
"Iraqi Chemical Arms Sent To Iran In War"
By DONALD M. ROTHBERG, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON -- Before and during the 1991 Persian Gulf War,
truck convoys carried Iraqi chemical and biological weapons, as
well as nuclear material to safe haven in Iran, according to U.S.
intelligence documents.
"The trucks were camouflaged with mud during their travel
through Iraqi territory," said the report placed Thursday on the
Internet. "The convoy moved only at night. The mud was washed
off after re-entry into Iranian territory."
The report said "at least 14 trucks were identified as having
nuclear, biological and chemical cargo. Boxes labeled
"tularemia,' "anthrax,' "botulinum' and "plague' were loaded into
containers."
The trucks were driven by Iranian civilians who turned them
over to Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
That account was among more than 200 documents placed on the
Internet over the objections of the CIA. They were put on the
worldwide computer network by publisher Bruce W. Kletz, who
plans to put out a book by a former CIA analyst, Patrick
Eddington.
Eddington asserts that the agency has hidden evidence that
American troops were exposed to Iraqi chemical weapons.
"These documents are still under review," CIA spokesman Mark
Mansfield said. "We consider portions of them to be classified."
The Pentagon originally put the material on the Internet and
then withdrew it in February when the CIA objected to making it
public.
While numerous studies have found no conclusive evidence that
Iraqi forces used chemical or biological weapons against U.S.
troops during the 1991 war, it is feared U.S. forces could have
been exposed to nerve gas as they destroyed an Iraqi munitions
dump after the war's end.
Iraq's transfer of material to Iran was a new example of
cooperation between two countries that fought an eight-year war
but became covert allies when a U.S.-led coalition demanded that
Iraq withdraw forces that occupied Kuwait in August 1990.
During the ensuing Persian Gulf War, Iran allowed Iraqi planes
to land on its territory to escape destruction by coalition
forces. The planes were not allowed to rejoin the Iraqi military
during the conflict.
The documents did not shed new light on whether U.S. forces
came into contact with Iraqi chemical weapons. But they did show
the concern about Iraq's ability to manufacture and deploy such
weapons.
One document cited a defector's account that "at least one
chemical company is attached to each (Iraqi) division."
Russia may have supplied biological warfare technology to Iraq
and North Korea, according to a report written in 1994. "It was
believed that the technology transfer commenced several years
prior to April 1992 and was still in progress during April 1992,"
the report said.
The material also indicated the government had evidence that
Iraq had moved chemical weapons into Kuwait.
One report in January 1991, from an Iraqi national, said that
chemical land mines had been loaded for shipment to Kuwait. The
report said the information "cannot be confirmed."
In September 1990, less than two months after Iraq occupied
Kuwait, evidence was seen that "Iraqi forces may be conducting
chemical decontamination exercises. They could be preparing for
a chemical attack."
During the same period, when the United States and its allies
were massing forces in the Persian Gulf region, U.S. officials
were concerned that terrorists allied with Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein would stage attacks on allied forces.
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The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA)
October 19, 1996 Saturday ROP Edition
"Saddam prepared 'cancer bombs'"
By Alan George, London Observer Service
LONDON -- Saddam Hussein's arsenal of weapons of mass
destruction included biological bombs that would have caused
liver cancer in their victims many months after they were
detonated, it has been revealed.
And, the U.N. Security Council was told this week, there's no
guarantee the "cancer time bombs" have all been destroyed.
U.N. officials overseeing the dismantlement of Iraq's non-
conventional weaponry are mystified about the military purpose of
the weapons, which are filled with aflatoxin. This is a toxin
associated with fungal-contaminated food grains which had been
considered non-lethal but were known to induce liver cancer.
In August, the CIA published a report on Gulf War Syndrome,
the disorder suffered by Gulf War veterans who suspect chemical
or biological weapons as the cause. It said that "with the
possible exception of aflatoxin, all declared Iraqi (biological)
agents were intended to cause rapid death or incapacitation."
The report noted: "The only documented effects of aflatoxin in
humans are liver cancer months to years after it is ingested and
symptoms -- possibly including death -- caused by liver damage
from ingestion of large amounts."
"UNSCOM (the U.N. Special Commission dismantling Saddam's
superweapons) assesses that Iraq looked at aflatoxin for its
long-term carcinogenic effects and that testing showed that large
concentrations of it caused death within days."
An UNSCOM report to the United Nations in October 1995 said
Iraq began studies on aflatoxin in May 1988 at its Al Salman
facility, where the toxin was produced by the growth of the
fungus Aspergillus in 5.3-quart flasks.
In 1989, aflatoxin production was moved to a facility at
Fudaliyah. Here, between spring 1990 and December 1990 a total
of about 481 gallons of toxin in solution was produced.
Iraq's arsenal at the time of the Gulf War included 16 R400
aflatoxin bombs and two aflatoxin warheads for enhanced Scud
missiles.
In total, said UNSCOM, Iraq produced 572 gallons of
concentrated aflatoxin, of which 410.8 gallons were filled into
munitions.
There's no evidence that Iraq's aflatoxin weapons were used or
that their contents were released into the air by mistake or as
the result of bombing by the Gulf War allies.
Like other biological weapons, aflatoxin munitions would have
terrorized their targets, whether military or civilian. But
Western experts point out that Iraq could have achieved that
result with biological agents such as botulinum which have an
immediate, rather than a delayed, effect.
The experts speculate that the Iraqis had discovered from
their tests (which included tests on donkeys, monkeys and other
animals) that high concentrations of aflatoxin released as an
aerosol had far more devastating effects than the slow
development of liver cancer associated with the ingestion of
smaller amounts.
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AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE, February 1995
"Russia's Dirty Chemical Secret"
By Cliff Kincaid
Buried in last year's explosive report of Michigan Senator Donald
W. Riegle, Jr. concerning chemical and biological warfare agents
was the assertion that Iraq may have acquired chemical agents
from the former Soviet Union.
Reigle--who has since retired from the US Senate--and his staff
said the agents were developed by the Soviet Union under the
name, "NOVICHOK," meaning newcomer.
The Reigle report is just the latest piece of evidence pointing
to the Development of a new class of poisons that may have been
transferred to Iraq for use against American forces in the Gulf
War.
This could explain why the DOD has engaged in what looks like a
frantic effort since the war to dismantle the Russian chemical
and biological warfare (CBW) program and develop effective
defenses against the agents.
Vladimir Petrenko is a victim of the Russian CBW program. As a
young lieutenant in 1982, he volunteered to test a new chemical
warfare suit and was exposed to a poison that the Soviets had
been secretly developing since the late 1970s.
Michael Waller, a senior fellow with the American Foreign Policy
Council, visited with Petrenko and says his health is
deteriorating. At age 34, Petrenko looks 20 years older. He is
haggard and gaunt, has a grey beard and is developing serious
illnesses that require almost constant treatment.
Novichok has similar effects. It can be toxic like a chemical
agent or cause diseases like a biological agent. It can be lethal
or debilitating.
Equally frightening, Waller says he was told by Russian
scientists who have worked on the Novichok program that the
poison affects human genes, causing birth defects and infant
illnesses among offsprings.
These weren't the only surprises that greeted Waller as he
traveled Russia in 1993 gathering information about Russian
military activities that still continue under President Boris
Yeltsin. He was also caught off guard when a Russian physician
who treated people like Petrenko said their symptoms resembled
those of the Americans he had been reading about in the papers--
the sick veterans of the Persian Gulf War.
In short, the Russians may have pulled off one of the most
spectacular and deadly deceptions in the history of warfare.
Waller believes that NOVICHOK may be what Russian extremist
Vladimir Zhirinovsky had in mind when he warned that his country
has a "secret weapon" capable of destroying the West.
Zhirinovsky's party dominates the Russian parliament, and
Zhirinovsky has ties to the old Soviet KGB.
Indications that Zhirinovsky's threat was a boast, not a bluff,
came when Vil Mirzayanov, a Russian scientist who publicly
disclosed the existence of Novichok, was charged with revealing
the "state secret." On two occasions, in 1992 and again in 1993,
he was arrested by Russian authorities for talking about
Novichok.
Mirzayanov's arrests caught the worldwide attention of
scientists, including Nobel Laureate Joshua Ledberg of the
Rockefeller University in New York, who headed a special Pentagon
panel on Gulf War illnesses. He said if the Russians proceeded to
prosecute Mirzayanov, "we must conclude that Mirzayanov was
telling the truth and a whole new class of deadly binary chemical
weapons was created."
However, Mirzayanov was not prosecuted, apparently because of the
international attention. But that did nothing to diminish concern
that he was telling the truth, the implications OF which are
ominous for US national security.
The prospect of humanity being wiped out by disease has always
fascinated and horrified the public mind Michael Crichton sold
more than 3 million copies of his Andromeda Strain , a book about
a lethal virus from another world that threatens Earth, which
also was made into a successful film.
In an effort to distract international attention from its own
offensive biological warfare program, the Soviets in the early
1980s came up with a fantasy that rivaled the fiction of
Crichton. They claimed the deadly AIDS virus was literally made
in the United States.
At the time, the world was preoccupied with AIDS. It wasn't clear
where the virus came from, who was at risk, and how it could be
spread. There still is no cure in sight.
The Soviets spread the AIDS lie through their front groups and
propaganda organs, claiming the AIDS virus had been manufactured
at Fort Detrick by the Pentagon as part of an effort to develop
biological weapons. The charge flew around the world, even ending
up on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.
Like most effective lies, this one contained a kernel of truth.
Fort Detrick had been the US Army's biological warfare research
and development center from 1943-1969.
But mainly because of criticism over the use of herbicides like
Agent Orange in Vietnam, the Nixon administration in 1969 had
abandoned research into germ weapons, and Fort Detrick was
converted to defensive research.
In 1972, the United States and the Soviets signed an
international agreement supposedly outlawing chemical and
biological weapons. But history shows the Soviets never intended
to comply, and could kill people with impunity and lie about it.
The Soviets have long been interested in the use of poisons,
Pavel Sudoplatov, deputy director of foreign intelligence of the
NKVD (later called KGB), reveals in his book, Special Tasks , the
existence of a poison laboratory, called "Lab X" as far back as
1937. The lab developed poisons used to assassinate enemies of
Moscow at home and aboard.
But poisons are also useful against groups of people, even
nations. Oleg Penkovsky, a Soviet military intelligence officer
considered the greatest spy to serve the West since World War II,
provided detailed reports to US officials about the vast Soviet
chemical warfare program during the early 1960s.
In the 80's, the Reagan administration publicly confronted the
Soviets and their allies about using germ agents called
mycotoxins, known as "yellow rain," on anti-Communist freedom
fighters in Southeast Asia.
Other key Soviet clients, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, were
also proceeding with CBW programs. In fact, Hussein developed
chemical agents against the Iranians in their war in the 1980s.
He had the Soviets to thank. In a 1984 book, CBW: The Poor Man's
Atomic Bomb , intelligence and security experts Neil C.
Livingstone and Joseph D. Douglass Jr. offered evidence that the
Soviets provided CBW raw materials to Baghdad.
They said, "as reported by a top level defector, in the mid-
1960's Iraq and other Arab nations were deeply concerned that
Israel was going nuclear. Iraq pressed the Soviet Union for
nuclear weapons, but Moscow turned Baghdad down. As a result Iraq
opted for a C/B warfare capability. In late 1967, in the wake of
the Six Day War, Moscow made the decision to provide Iraq with
both chemical and biological agents in their raw non-weaponized
form.
Livingstone and Douglass said the word was that the Soviets
transferred the agents to Iraq via a third party most likely the
PLO, another Soviet client.
If anything, relations between Iraq and the Soviets grew even
closer over the years, eventually culminating in a 1972 Treaty of
Friendship and Cooperation. They became so close that when the
Iraqis invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the Soviets had between
3,000 and 4,000 military advisers in Iraq. Soviet chemical
weapons expert Igor Yevstafiev even had publicly advocated
withholding from the United States and its Allies Soviet
information on where the Iraqi chemical and biological weapons
were stockpiled.
He said, "Strikes on chemical and biological weapons facilities
on Iraq's territory could rebound on us and cause damage to the
population of our country "
The big mystery, according to some in the Pentagon, is why Iraq's
known stockpiles of CBW agents were not used during the war.
But what if a new form of largely undetectable CBW agent-
Novichok-was used in the Gulf? And what if its effect like those
in the Petrenko case, are very different from those our forces
were prepared for?
One analyst who served with both the Central Intelligence Agency
and the Defense Intelligence Agency agrees this is a DEFINITE
possibility. "There are substances out there, and we don't know
what they are," he said. "We went into the war without good
detection equipment."
Asked if they could be playing a role in the Gulf War Syndrome,
he said, "Who knows? It could be the same substances Mirzayanov
was talking about. They may not be very toxic but could have
lingering after-effects, causing problems for years. This is a
nasty, scary issue."
There is no hard proof that Novichok was used in the Gulf War, or
even that it was supplied by the Soviets to the Iraqis. The
former analyst said there may be no way of knowing. "We had poor
intelligence on this question," he said. "It was terrible."
The terrifying possibility that Russia and other nations may have
such a weapon seems to be driving the Pentagon on the issue
today. Less than a year and a half after the Gulf War, on July
30,1992, the Pentagon made an agreement with Russia to provide up
to $25 million to help destroy Russian chemical and biological
weapons.
The US Army then began tests of a Chemical Biological Mass
Spectrometer, a hand-held device designed to sound an alarm when
it detects CBW agents. Weakened or killed strains of two deadly
organisms were used in the test, described as the first in 10
years at the Dugway Proving Grounds near Salt Lake City, Utah.
Continuing the pattern of CBW preoccupation, then-Secretary of
Defense Les Aspin gave an extraordinary speech to the National
Academy of Sciences in December 1993, announcing the formation of
a new joint office to oversee all DOD biological defense
programs. Aspin candidly declared, "This is the first time the
department has organized its collective expertise to deal with
the tough biological defense problems we face."
Although defense spending was under the knife in the White House
and on Capitol Hill, the cost of this effort was put at about
$1.4 billion over the next six years.
In official statements, the US government still refuses to accuse
Iraq of deploying those weapons and seems reluctant to publicly
confront the Russians about their continuing CBW program. CIA
director James Woolsey (who left recently) has only said that the
United States is working with the Russian government in an effort
to eliminate the "offensive biological weapons program Russia had
inherited from the Soviet Regime."
The United States also seems to be putting some hope in
ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention signed by 156
countries in 1993 in Paris. But Mirzayanov, the Russian
scientists who revealed the presence of Novichok, warns that the
treaty is full of loopholes and lacks effective verification
measures.
President Clinton expressed concern about Russian CBW efforts in
a private meeting with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in January
1993. Yeltsin gave Clinton assurances that the program had been
stopped.
But the United States was concerned that the man put in charge of
a presidential committee supposedly responsible for dismantling
the Soviet CBW program, Gen. Anatoly Kuntsevich, also had played
a leading role in developing the country's CBW arsenal. In April,
Kuntsevich was fired from his post in an apparent effort to
demonstrate Yeltsin's commitment to disarmament.
If charges of treaty violations, against the Russians are made
and pursued publicly, the state of US-Russian relations could
undergo serious changes --possibly a return to Cold War tensions.
It would mean that Western aid to Russia would be curtailed. Us
demands also would have to be made for copies of the formulas of
the weapons so that antidotes or treatments can be developed.
A confrontation such as this could lead to the acknowledgment
that Yeltsin, rather than being a friend of the West, has largely
been a captive of the Russian military and former Soviet KGB.
The difference between Yeltsin and someone like Zhirinovsky, with
obvious military and KGB backing, then could very well lie in who
is willing to use the Russian "secret weapon" on a mass scale
against the West.
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