Did the U.S. Help Saddam Acquire Biological Weapons (fas.org)
Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate)
Page S8987-S8998
"It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s,
America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build
biological weapons. But it happened."File downloaded on April 4, 2022
Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate)
Page S8987-S8998
HOW SADDAM HAPPENED
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, yesterday, at a hearing of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, I asked a question of the Secretary of Defense. I
referred to a Newsweek article that will appear in the September 23,
2002, edition. That article reads as follows. It is not overly lengthy.
I shall read it. Beginning on page 35 of Newsweek, here is what the
article says:
America helped make a monster. What to do with him--and
what happens after he is gone--has haunted us for a quarter
century.
The article is written by Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas. It
reads as follows:
The last time Donald Rumsfeld saw Saddam Hussein, he gave
him a cordial handshake. The date was almost 20 years ago,
Dec. 20, 1983; an official Iraqi television crew recorded the
historic moment.
The once and future Defense secretary, at the time a
private citizen, had been sent by President Ronald Reagan to
Baghdad as a special envoy. Saddam Hussein, armed with a
pistol on his hip, seemed "vigorous and confident,"
according to a now declassified State Department cable
obtained by Newsweek. Rumsfeld "conveyed the President's
greetings and expressed his pleasure at being in Baghdad,"
wrote the notetaker. Then the two men got down to business,
talking about the need to improve relations between their two
countries.
Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that
Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was
trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already
bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time,
America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq. The Reagan
administration feared that the Iranian revolutionaries who
had overthrown the shah (and taken hostage American diplomats
for 444 days in 1979-81) would overrun the Middle East and
its vital oilfields. On the--theory that the enemy of my
enemy is my friend, the Reaganites were seeking to support
Iraq in a long and bloody war against Iran. The meeting
between Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next
five years, until Iran finally capitulated, the United States
backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic
aid and covert supplies of munitions.
Rumsfeld is not the first American diplomat to wish for the
demise of a former ally. After all, before the cold war, the
Soviet Union was America's partner against Hitler in World
War II. In the real world, as the saying goes, nations have
no permanent friends, just permanent interests. Nonetheless,
Rumsfeld's long-ago interlude with Saddam is a reminder that
today's friend can be tomorrow's mortal threat. As President
George W. Bush and his war cabinet ponder Saddam's
successor's regime, they would do well to contemplate how and
why the last three presidents allowed the Butcher of Baghdad
to stay in power so long.
The history of America's relations with Saddam is one of
the sorrier tales in American foreign policy. Time and again,
America turned a blind eye to Saddam's predations, saw him as
the lesser evil or flinched at the chance to unseat him. No
single policymaker or administration deserves blame for
creating, or at least tolerating, a monster; many of their
decisions seemed reasonable at the time. Even so, there are
moments in this clumsy dance with the Devil that make one
cringe. It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s,
America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build
biological weapons.
Let me read that again:
It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s,
America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build
biological weapons. But it happened.
America's past stumbles, while embarrassing, are not an
argument for inaction in the future. Saddam probably is the
"grave and gathering danger" described by President Bush in
his speech to the United Nations last week. It may also be
true that "whoever replaces Saddam is not going to be
worse," as a senior administration official put it to
Newsweek. But the story of how America helped create a
Frankenstein monster it now wishes to strangle is sobering.
It illustrates the power of wishful thinking, as well as the
iron law of unintended consequences.
America did not put Saddam in power. He emerged after two
decades of turmoil in the '60s and '70s, as various strongmen
tried to gain control of a nation that had been concocted by
British imperialists in the 1920s out of three distinct and
rival factions, the Sunnis, Shiites and the Kurds. But during
the cold war, America competed with the Soviets for Saddam's
attention and welcomed his war with the religious fanatics of
Iran. Having cozied up to Saddam, Washington found it hard to
break away--even after going to war with him in 1991. Through
years of both tacit and overt support, the West helped create
the Saddam of today, giving him time to build deadly arsenals
and dominate his people. Successive administrations always
worried that if Saddam fell, chaos would follow, rippling
through the region and possibly igniting another Middle East
war. At times it seemed that Washington was transfixed by
Saddam.
The Bush administration wants to finally break the spell.
If the administration's true believers are right, Baghdad,
after Saddam falls will look something like Paris after the
Germans fled in August 1944. American troops will be cheered
as liberators, and democracy will spread forth and push
Middle Eastern despotism back into the shadows. Yet if the
gloomy predictions of the administration's many critics come
true, the Arab street, inflamed by Yankee imperialism, will
rise up and replace the shaky but friendly autocrats in the
region with Islamic fanatics.
While the Middle East is unlikely to become a democratic
nirvana, the worst-case scenarios, always a staple of the
press, are probably also wrong or exaggerated. Assuming that
a cornered and doomed Saddam does not kill thousands of
Americans in some kind of horrific Gotterdammerung--a scary
possibility, one that deeply worries administration
officials--the greatest risk of his fall is that one
strongman may simply be replaced by another. Saddam's
successor may not be a paranoid sadist. But there is no
assurance that he will be America's friend or forswear the
development of weapons of mass destruction.
American officials have known that Saddam was a
psychopath--
Get that.
American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath
ever since he became the country's de facto ruler in the
early 1970s. One of Saddam's early acts after he took the
title of president in 1979 was to videotape a session of his
party's congress, during which he personally ordered several
members executed on the spot.
Let me repeat that:
American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath
ever since he became the country's de facto ruler in the
early 1970s. One of Saddam's early acts after he took the
title of president in 1979 was to videotape--
Videotape--
a session of his party's congress, during which he personally
ordered several members executed on the spot.
The message, carefully conveyed to the Arab press, was not
that these men were executed for plotting against Saddam, but
rather for thinking about plotting against him. From the
beginning, U.S. officials worried about Saddam's taste for
nasty weaponry; indeed, at their meeting in 1983, Rumsfeld
warned that Saddam's use of chemical weapons might
"inhibit" American assistance. But top officials in the
Reagan administration saw Saddam as a useful surrogate. By
going to war with Iran, he could bleed the radical mullahs
who had seized control of Iran from the pro-American shah.
Some Reagan officials even saw Saddam as another Anwar Sadat,
capable of making Iraq into a modern secular state, just as
Sadat had tried to lift up Egypt before his assassination in
1981.
But Saddam had to be rescued first. The war against Iran
was going badly by 1982. Iran's "human wave attacks"
threatened to overrun Saddam's armies. Washington decided to
give Iraq a helping hand.
After Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad in 1983, U.S.
intelligence began supplying the Iraqi dictator with
satellite photos showing Iranian deployments. Official
documents suggest that America may also have secretly
arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be shipped
to Iraq in a swap deal--American tanks to Egypt, Egyptian
tanks to Iraq. Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics,
the Reagan administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a
wide variety of "dual use" equipment and materials from
American suppliers. According to confidential Commerce
Department export-control documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, the
shopping list included a computerized database for Saddam's
Interior Ministry (presumably to help keep track of political
opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials;
television cameras for "video surveillance applications";
chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy
Commission (IAEC), and, most unsettling, numerous shipments
of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" to the IAEC. According to
former officials, the bacterial cultures could be used to
make biological weapons, including anthrax. The State
Department also approved the shipment of 1.5 million atropine
injectors, for use against the effects of chemical weapons,
but the Pentagon blocked the sale. The helicopters, some
American officials later surmised, were used to spray poison
gas on the Kurds.
The United States almost certainly knew from its own
satellite imagery that Saddam was using chemical weapons
against Iranian troops. When Saddam bombed Kurdish rebels and
civilians with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas, sarin, tabun
and VX in 1988, the
[[Page S8988]]
Reagan administration first blamed Iran, before
acknowledging, under pressure from congressional Democrats,
that the culprits were Saddam's own forces. There was only
token official protest at the time. Saddam's men were
unfazed. An Iraqi audiotape, later captured by the Kurds,
records Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (known as Ali
Chemical) talking to his fellow officers about gassing the
Kurds. "Who is going to say anything?" he asks. "The
international community? F----k them!"
The United States was much more concerned with protecting
Iraqi oil from attacks by Iran as it was shipped through the
Persian Gulf. In 1987, an Iraqi Exocet missile hit an
American destroyer, the USS Stark, in the Persian Gulf,
killing 37 crewmen. Incredibly, the United States excused
Iraq for making an unintentional mistake and instead used the
incident to accuse Iran of escalating the war in the gulf.
The American tilt to Iraq became more pronounced. U.S.
commandos began blowing up Iranian oil platforms and
attacking Iranian patrol boats. In 1988, an American warship
in the gulf accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus, killing
290 civilians. Within a few weeks, Iran, exhausted and
fearing American intervention, gave up its war with Iraq.
Saddam was feeling cocky. With the support of the West, he
had defeated the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran. America
favored him as a regional pillar; European and American
corporations were vying for contracts with Iraq. He was
visited by congressional delegations led by Sens. Bob Dole of
Kansas and Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who were eager to promote
American farm and business interests. But Saddam's
megalomania was on the rise, and he overplayed his hand. In
1990, a U.S. Customs sting operation snared several Iraqi
agents who were trying to buy electronic equipment used to
make triggers for nuclear bombs. Not long after, Saddam
gained the world's attention by threatening "to burn Israel
to the ground." At the Pentagon, analysts began to warn that
Saddam was a growing menace, especially after he tried to buy
some American-made high-tech furnaces useful for making
nuclear-bomb parts. Yet other officials in Congress and in
the Bush administration continued to see him as a useful, if
distasteful, regional strongman. The State Department was
equivocating with Saddam right up to the moment he invaded
Kuwait in August 1990.
Mr. President, I referred to this Newsweek article yesterday at a
hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Specifically, during
the hearing, I asked Secretary Rumsfeld:
Mr. Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States
help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological
weapons during the Iran-Iraq war? Are we in fact now facing
the possibility of reaping what we have sewn?
The Secretary quickly and flatly denied any knowledge but said he
would review Pentagon records.
I suggest that the administration speed up that review. My concerns
and the concerns of others have grown.
A letter from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, which I
shall submit for the Record, shows very clearly that the United States
is, in fact, preparing to reap what it has sewn. A letter written in
1995 by former CDC Director David Satcher to former Senator Donald W.
Riegle, Jr., points out that the U.S. Government provided nearly two
dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in 1985--samples
that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly
diseases.
According to the letter from Dr. Satcher to former Senator Donald
Riegle, many of the materials were hand carried by an Iraqi scientist
to Iraq after he had spent 3 months training in the CDC laboratory.
The Armed Services Committee is requesting information from the
Departments of Commerce, State, and Defense on the history of the
United States, providing the building blocks for weapons of mass
destruction to Iraq. I recommend that the Department of Health and
Human Services also be included in that request.
The American people do not need obfuscation and denial. The American
people need the truth. The American people need to know whether the
United States is in large part responsible for the very Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction which the administration now seeks to destroy.
We may very well have created the monster that we seek to eliminate.
The Senate deserves to know the whole story. The American people
deserve answers to the whole story.
Also yesterday, in the same 6 minutes that I was given in which to
ask questions--which was extended by virtue of the kindness of the
distinguished Senator from Georgia, Mr. Max Cleland, and other members
of the committee, so it was perhaps 9 or 10 minutes--there was another
interesting question that I asked. Let me read a portion of that
transcript from the Armed Services Committee:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these hearings. Mr.
Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States help Iraq
to acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during
the Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing the
possibility of reaping what we have sown?
Rumsfeld: Certainly not to my knowledge. I have no
knowledge of United States companies or government being
involved in assisting Iraq develop chemical, biological or
nuclear weapons.
There is another excerpt from that question and answer period in
which Secretary Rumsfeld and I engaged:
Byrd: Now, the Washington Post reported this morning
[yesterday] that the United States is stepping away from
efforts to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. Are
we not sending exactly the wrong signal to the world, at
exactly the wrong time?
Doesn't this damage our credibility in the international
community at the very time that we are seeking their support
to neutralize the threat of Iraq's biological weapons
program? If we supplied, as the Newsweek article said, if we
supplied the building blocks for germ and chemical warfare to
this madman in the first place, this psychopath, how do we
look to the world to be backing away from this effort to
control it at this point?
That question speaks for itself. I ask unanimous consent that the
following material be printed in the Record at the close of my remarks:
The partial transcript from the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing
on September 19; the article from the Washington Post of yesterday,
titled "U.S. Drops Bid to Strengthen Germ Warfare Accord"; the
Newsweek article, which I have alluded to already; a letter dated
January 6, 1994, requesting information from the Centers for Disease
Control and a response to the Honorable Donald W. Riegle, Jr., U.S.
Senator, dated June 21, 1995, from David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D.,
Director; a U.S. Senate Hearing Report 103-900, dealing with U.S.
exports of biological materials to Iraq to the Senate Committee on
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs which has oversight responsibility
for the Export Administration Act, and keeping in mind that the U.S.
Department of Commerce approves licenses by that Department for
exports; including also the U.S. Senate hearing report in that matter.
Included in the approved sales are such items as Bacillus Anthracis,
anthrax, Clostridium Botulinum, Histoplasma Capsulatum, which causes a
disease superficially resembling tuberculosis that may cause pneumonia;
Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria which can cause chronic fatigue, and so
on; Clostridium Perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. I believe that
completes the list.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Byrd-Rumsfeld Transcript--Partial Transcript From Senate Armed Services
Committee, September 19, 2002
Levin. Senator Byrd?
Byrd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these hearings.
Mr. Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States
help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological
weapons during the Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing
the possibility of reaping what we have sown?
Rumsfeld. Certainly not to my knowledge. I have no
knowledge of United States companies or government being
involved in assisting Iraq develop chemical, biological or
nuclear weapons.
Byrd. Mr. Secretary, let me read to you from the September
23, 2002, Newsweek story. I read this, I read excerpts,
because my time is limited.
"Some Reagan officials even saw Saddam as another Anwar
Sadat, capable of making Iraq into a modern secular state,
just as Sadat had tried to lift up Egypt before his
assassination in 1981. But Saddam had to be rescued first.
The war against Iran was going badly by 1982."
Byrd. "Iran's human-wave attacks threatened to overrun
Saddam's armies. Washington decided to give Iraq a helping
hand. After Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad in 1982, U.S.
intelligence began supplying the Iraqi dictator with
satellite photos showing Iranian deployments.
"Official documents suggest that America may also have
secretly arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be
shipped to Iraq in a swap deal: American tanks to Egypt,
Egyptian tanks to Iraq.
"Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics, the Reagan
administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a wide
variety of, quote, `dual-use,' close quote, equipment and
materials from American suppliers.
"According to confidential Commerce Department export
control documents obtained
[[Page S8989]]
by Newsweek, the shopping list included a computerized
database for Saddam's Interior Ministry, presumably to help
keep track of political opponents, helicopters to help
transport Iraqi officials, television cameras for video
surveillance applications, chemical analysis equipment for
the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, IAEC, and, most
unsettling, numerous shipments of the bacteria, fungi,
protozoa to the IAEC.
"According to former officials the bacterial cultures
could be used to make biological weapons, including anthrax.
The State Department also approved the shipment of 1.5
million atropine injectors for use against the effects of
chemical weapons but the Pentagon blocked the sale.
"The helicopters, some American officials later surmised,
were used to spray poison gas on the Kurds. The United States
almost certainly knew from its own satellite imagery that
Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops.
"When Saddam bombed Kurdish rebels and civilians with a
lethal cocktail of mustard gas, sarin, tabun and VX in 1988,
the Reagan administration first blamed Iran before
acknowledging, under pressure from congressional Democrats,
that the culprit were Saddam's own forces. There was only
token official protest at the time. Saddam's men were
unfazed.
"An Iraqi audiotape later captured by the Kurds records
Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Ali Chemical,
talking to his fellow officers about gassing the Kurds.
Quote, `Who is going to say anything?' close quote, he asks,
`the international community? F-blank them!' exclamation
point, close quote."
Now can this possibly be true? We already knew that Saddam
was dangerous man at the time. I realize that you were not in
public office at the time, but you were dispatched to Iraq by
President Reagan to talk about the need to improve relations
between Iraq and the U.S.
Let me ask you again: To your knowledge did the United
States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological
weapons during the Iran-Iraq war? Are we, in fact, now facing
the possibility of reaping what we have sown?
The Washington Post reported this morning that the United
States is stepping away from efforts to strengthen the
Biological Weapons Convention. I'll have a question on that
later.
Let me ask you again: Did the United States help Iraq to
acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the
Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of
reaping what we have sown?
Rumsfeld. I have not read the article. As you suggest, I
was, for a period in late '83 and early '84, asked by
President Reagan to serve as Middle East envoy after the
Marines--241 Marines were killed in Beirut.
As part of my responsibilities I did visit Baghdad. I did
meet with Mr. Tariq Aziz. And I did meet with Saddam Hussein
and spent some time visiting with them about the war they
were engaged in with Iran.
At the time our concern, of course, was Syria and Syria's
role in Lebanon and Lebanon's role in the Middle East and the
terrorist acts that were taking place.
As a private citizen I was assisting only for a period
of months. I have never heard anything like what you've
read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt
it.
Byrd. You doubt what?
Rumsfeld. The questions you posed as to whether the United
States of America assisted Iraq with the elements that you
listed in your reading of Newsweek and that we could
conceivably now be reaping what we've sown.
I think--I doubt both.
Byrd. Are you surprised that this is what I've said? Are
you surprised at this story in Newsweek?
Rumsfeld. I guess I'm at an age and circumstance in life
where I'm no longer surprised about what I hear in the
newspapers.
Byrd. That's not the question, I'm of that age, too.
Somewhat older than you, but how about that story I've read?
Rumsfeld. I see stories all the time that are flat wrong. I
just don't know. All I can say . . .
Byrd. How about this story? This story? How about this
story, specifically?
Rumsfeld. As I say, I have not read it, I listened
carefully to what you said and I doubt it.
Byrd. All right.
Now the Washington Post reported this morning that the
United States is stepping away from efforts to strengthen the
Biological Weapons Convention. Are we not sending exactly the
wrong signal to the world, at exactly the wrong time?
Byrd. Doesn't this damage our credibility in the
international community at the very time that we are seeking
their support to neutralize the threat of Iraq's biological
weapons program? If we supplied, as the Newsweek article
said, if we supplied the building blocks for germ and
chemical warfare to this madman in the first place, this
psychopath, how do we look to the world to be backing away
from this effort to control it at this point?
Rumsfeld. Senator, I think it would be a shame to leave
this committee and the people listening with the impression
that the United States assisted Iraq with chemical or
biological weapons in the 1980s. I just do not believe that's
the case.
Byrd. Well, are you saying that the Newsweek article is
inaccurate?
Rumsfeld. I'm saying precisely what I said, that I didn't
read the Newsweek article, but that I doubt it's accurate.
Byrd. I'll be glad to send you up a copy.
Rumsfeld. But that I was not in government at that time,
except as a special envoy for a period of months. So one
ought not to rely on me as the best source as to what
happened in that mid-'80s period that you were describing.
I will say one other thing. On two occasions I believe when
you read that article, you mentioned the IAEC, which as I
recall is the International Atomic Energy Commission, and
mentioned that if some of the things that you were talking
about were provided to them, which I found quite confusing to
be honest.
With respect to the Biological Weapons Convention, I was
not aware that the United States government had taken a
position with respect to it. It's not surprising because it's
a matter for the Department of State, not the Department of
Defense.
If in fact they have indicated, as The Washington Post
reports, that they are not going to move forward with a--I
believe it's an enforcement regime, it's not my place to
discuss the administration's position when I don't know what
it is.
But I can tell you, from a personal standpoint, my
recollection is that the biological convention never, never
was anticipated that there would even be thought of to have
an enforcement regime. And that an enforcement regime on
something like that, where there are a lot of countries
involved who are on the terrorist list who were participants
in that convention, that the United States has, over a period
of administrations, believed that it would not be a good
idea, because the United States would be a net loser from an
enforcement regime.
But that is not the administration's position. I just don't
know what the administration's position is.
Levin. We're going to have to leave it there, because
you're way over.
Byrd. This is a very important question.
Levin. It is indeed, and you're over time, I agree with you
on the importance, but you're way over time, sir.
Byrd. I know I'm over time, but are we going to leave this
in question out there dangling?
Levin. One last question.
Byrd. I ask unanimous consent that I may have an additional
five minutes.
Levin. No, I'm afraid you can't do that. If you could just
do one last--well, wait a minute, ask unanimous consent, I
can't stop you from doing that.
(Unknown). I object.
(Laughter)
Byrd. Mr. Chairman?
Levin. Just one last question. Would that be all right so
you could wind that up?
Senator Byrd, if you could just take one additional
question.
Byrd. I've never--I've been in this Congress 50 years. I've
never objected to another senator having a few additional
minutes.
Now Mr. Chairman, I think that the secretary should have a
copy of this report, this story that--from Newsweek that I've
been querying him about. I think he has a right to look at
that.
Levin. Could somebody take that out to the secretary?
Byrd. Now, while that's being given to the secretary, Mr.
Secretary, I think we're put into an extremely bad position
before the world today if we're going to walk away from an
international effort to strengthen the Biological Weapons
Convention against germ warfare, advising its allies that the
U.S. wants to delay further discussions until 2006.
Especially in the light of the Newsweek story; I think we
bear some responsibility.
Inhofe. Mr. Chairman I ask for a point of order.
Levin. Can we just have this be the last question, if you
would just go along with us please, Senator Inhofe?
Inhofe. I'll only say though, in all respect to the Senator
from West Virginia, we have a number of senators here. We
have a limited time of six minutes each, and we're entitled
to have our six minutes. That should be a short questions if
it's the last question.
Levin. If we could just make that the last question and
answer, I would appreciate it. The chair would appreciate the
cooperation of all senators.
Secretary Rumsfeld, could you answer that question please?
Rumsfeld. I'll do my best.
Senator, I just in glancing at this, and I hesitate to do
this because I have not read it carefully.
But it says here that, "According to confidential Commerce
Department export control documents obtained by Newsweek, the
shopping list included." It did not say that there were
deliveries of these things. It said that Iran--Iraq asked for
these things. It talks about a shopping list.
Second, in listing these things, it says that they wanted
television cameras for video surveillance applications,
chemical analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy
Commission, the IAEC--and that may very well be the Iraqi
Atomic Energy Commission, which would be--mean that my
earlier comment would not be correct, because I thought it
was the International Atomic Energy Commission. But this
seems to indicate it's the Iraq Commerce Commission.
Byrd. Mr. Chairman, may I say to my friend from Oklahoma,
I'm amazed that he himself wouldn't yield me time for this
important question. I would do the same for him.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask . . .
[[Page S8990]]
(Cleland). I yield my five minutes, Senator.
Byrd. I thank the distinguished Senator.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the secretary--and I
don't just like to ask him--I asked him to review Pentagon
records to see if the Newsweek article is true or not. Will
the secretary do that?
Rumsfeld. It appears that they're Department of Commerce
records, as opposed to Pentagon. But I can certainly ask that
the Department of Commerce and, to the extent that it's
relevant, the Department of State, look into it and see if we
can't determine the accuracy or inaccuracy of some aspects of
this. Yes, sir.
Levin. And we go one step further than that. I think the
request is that the Defense Department search its records.
Will you do that?
Rumsfeld. We'll be happy to search ours, but this refers to
the Commerce Department.
Levin. We will ask the State Department and the Commerce
Department to do the same thing.
Rumsfeld. We'd be happy to.
Levin. And we will also ask the Intelligence Committee to
stage a briefing for all of us on that issue, so that Senator
Byrd's question. . .
Byrd. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman.
Levin. Thank you very much, Senator.
Byrd. I thank the secretary.
Rumsfeld. Thank you.
Levin. Senator Byrd, we will ask Senator Graham and Senator
Shelby to hold a briefing on that subject, because it is a
very important subject.
Byrd. I thank the chairman.
____
[From the Washington Post, Sept. 19, 2002]
U.S. Drops Bid To Strengthen Germ Warfare Accord
(By Peter Slevin)
The Bush administration has abandoned an international
effort to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention
against germ warfare, advising its allies that the United
States wants to delay further discussions until 2006. A
review conference on new verification measures for the treaty
has been scheduled for November.
Less than a year after a State Department envoy abruptly
pulled out of biowarfare negotiations in Geneva, promising
that the United States would return with new proposals, the
administration has concluded that treaty revisions favored by
the European Union and scores of other countries will not
work and should not be salvaged, administration officials
said yesterday.
The decision, which has been conveyed to allies in recent
weeks, has been greeted with warnings that the move will
weaken attempts to curb germ warfare programs at a time when
biological weapons are a focus of concern because of the war
on terrorism and the administration's threats to launch a
military campaign against Iraq. It also comes as the
administration, which has angered allies by rejecting a
series of multilateral agreements, is appealing to the
international community to work with it in forging a new U.N.
Security Council resolution on Iraq's programs to develop
weapons of mass destruction.
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which has been
ratified by the United States and 143 other countries, bans
the development, stockpiling and production of germ warfare
agents, but has no enforcement mechanism. Negotiations on
legally binding measures to enforce compliance have been
underway in Geneva for seven years.
The administration stunned its allies last December by
proposing to end the negotiators' mandate, saying that while
the treaty needed strengthening, the enforcement protocol
under discussion would not deter enemy nations from acquiring
or developing biological weapons if they were determined to
do so. Negotiators suspended the discussions, saying they
would meet again in November when U.S. officials said they
would return with creative solutions to address the impasse.
Instead, U.S. envoys are now telling allies that the
administration's position is so different from the views of
the leading supporters of the enforcement protocol that a
meeting would dissolve into public squabbling and should be
avoided, administration officials said. Better, they said, to
halt discussions altogether.
"It's based on an incorrect approach. Our concern is that
it would be fundamentally ineffective," a State Department
official said. Another administration official said the
"best and least contentious" approach would be to hold a
very brief meeting in November--or even no meeting at all--
and talk again when the next review is scheduled four years
from now.
Amy Smithson, a biological and chemical weapons specialist,
said the administration is making a mistake by halting
collaborative work to strengthen the convention. "It sounds
to me as though they've thrown the baby out with the bath
water," said Smithson, an analyst at the Henry L. Stimson
Center. "The contradiction between the rhetoric and what the
administration is actually doing--the gulf is huge. Not a day
goes by when they don't mention the Iraq threat."
The Stimson Center is releasing a report today that
criticizes the U.S. approach to the convention. Drawn from a
review by 10 pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology
experts, the document argues that bioweapons inspections can
be effective with the right amount of time and the right
science and urges the administration to develop stronger
measures.
"To argue that this wouldn't be a useful remedy would just
be a mistake. I think it's because they're looking through
the wrong end of the telescope," said Matthew Meselson, a
Harvard biologist who helped draft a treaty to criminalize
biological weapons violations. "We're denying ourselves
useful tools."
The administration has focused publicly on a half-dozen
countries identified by the State Department as pursuing germ
warfare programs. Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said
the existence of Iraq's bioweapons project is "beyond
dispute." The U.S. government also believes Iran, North
Korea, Sudan, Libya and Syria are developing such weapons, he
said.
Meselson concurred with the administration's position that
a limited enforcement provision for the bioweapons treaty
could not provide confidence that countries are staying
clean. But he said that a pact establishing standards and
verification measures would deter some countries while also
helping to build norms of international behavior.
Bolton, on the other hand, told delegates to last year's
review conference that "the time for `better-than-nothing'
protocols is over. We will continue to reject flawed texts
like the BWC draft protocol, recommended to us simply because
they are the product of lengthy negotiations or arbitrary
deadlines, if such texts are not in the best interests of the
United States."
With only hours to go at the meeting, Bolton stopped U.S.
participation in the final negotiations. He said of the
resulting one-year delay, "This gives us time to think
creatively on alternatives."
In Bolton's view, each country should develop criminal laws
against germ warfare activities, develop export controls for
dangerous pathogens, establish codes of conduct for
scientists and install strict biosafety procedures. The
administration has proposed that governments resolve disputes
over biowarfare violations among themselves, perhaps through
voluntary inspections or by referral to the United Nations
secretary general.
Such an approach is "at best ineffectual," said the
specialists gathered by the Stimson Center. At worst, they
concluded, the approach could damage U.S. interests because
it would not be structured to deliver "meaningful
monitoring."
"If a challenge inspection system is not geared to pursue
violators aggressively, then it does not serve U.S. security
interests," the 65-page report states. The participants
strongly favored establishing mandatory standards backed by
penalties and "robust" inspections, which goes
significantly further than the proposed protocol backed by
the EU and other nations.
The State Department Web site has not yet been changed to
reflect the change in policy. It says, "The United States is
committed to strengthening the BWC as part of a comprehensive
and multidisciplinary strategy for combating the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and
international terrorism. . . . We would like to share these
ideas with our international partners."
____
Partial Transcript From Senate Armed Services Committee, September 19,
2002
Levin. Senator Byrd?
Byrd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these hearings.
Mr. Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States
help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological
weapons during the Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing
the possibility of reaping what we have sown?
Rumsfeld. Certainly not to my knowledge. I have no
knowledge of United States companies or government being
involved in assisting Iraq develop chemical, biological or
nuclear weapons.
Byrd. Mr. Secretary, let me read to you from the September
23, 2002, Newsweek story. I read this, I read excerpts,
because my time is limited.
"Some Reagan officials even saw Saddam as another Anwar
Sadat, capable of making Iraq into a modern secular state,
just as Sadat had tried to lift up Egypt before his
assassination in 1981. But Saddam had to be rescued first.
The war against Iran was going badly by 1982."
"Iran's human-wave attacks threatened to overrun Saddam's
armies. Washington decided to give Iraq a helping hand. After
Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad in 1983, U.S. intelligence began
supplying the Iraqi dictator with satellite photos showing
Iranian deployments.
"Official documents suggest that America may also have
secretly arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be
shipped to Iraq in a swap deal: American tanks to Egypt,
Egyptian tanks to Iraq.
"Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics, the Reagan
administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a wide
variety of, quote, `dual-use,' close quote, equipment and
materials from American suppliers.
"According to confidential Commerce Department export
control documents obtained by Newsweek, the shopping list
include a computerized database for Saddam's Interior
Ministry, presumably to help keep track of political
opponents, helicopters to help transport Iraqi officials,
television cameras for video surveillance applications,
chemical analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy
Commission, IAEC, and, most unsettling, numerous shipments of
the bacteria, fungi, protozoa to the IAEC.
[[Page S8991]]
"According to former officials the bacterial cultures
could be used to make biological weapons, including anthrax.
The State Department also approved the shipment of 1.5
million atropine injectors for use against the effects of
chemical weapons but the Pentagon blocked the sale.
"The helicopters, some American officials later surmised,
were used to spray poison gas on the Kurds. The United States
almost certainly knew from its own satellite imagery that
Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops.
"When Saddam bombed Kurdish rebels and civilians with a
lethal cocktail of mustard gas, sarin, tabun and VX in 1988,
the Reagan administration first blamed Iran before
acknowledging, under pressure from congressional Democrats,
that the culprit were Saddam's own forces. There was only
token official protest at the time. Saddam's men were
unfazed.
"An Iraqi audiotape later captured by the Kurds records
Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Ali Chemical,
talking to his fellow officers about gassing the Kurds.
Quote, `Who is going to say anything?' close quote, he asks,
`the international community? F-blank them!' exclamation
point, close quote."
Now can this possibly be true? We already knew that Saddam
was dangerous man at the time. I realize that you were not in
public office at the time, but you were dispatched to Iraq by
President Reagan to talk about the need to improve relations
between Iraq and the U.S.
Let me ask you again: To your knowledge did the United
States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological
weapons during the Iran-Iraq war? Are we, in fact, now facing
the possibility of reaping what we have sown?
The Washington Post reported this morning that the United
is stepping away from efforts to strengthen the Biological
Weapons Convention. I'll have a question on that later.
Let me ask you again: Did the United States help Iraq to
acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the
Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of
reaping what we have sown?
Rumsfeld. I have not read the article. As you suggest, I
was, for a period in late `83 and early `84, asked by
President Reagan to serve as Middle East envoy after the
Marines--241 Marines were killed in Beirut.
As part of my responsibilities I did visit Baghdad. I did
meet with Mr. Tariq Aziz. And I did meet with Saddam Hussein
and spent some time visiting with them about the war they
were engaged in with Iran.
At the time our concern, of course, was Syria and Syria's
role in Lebanon and Lebanon's role in the Middle East and the
terrorist acts that were taking place.
As a private citizen I was assisting only for a period
of months. I have never heard anything like what you've
read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt
it.
Byrd. You doubt what?
Rumsfeld. The questions you posed as to whether the United
States of America assisted Iraq with the elements that you
listed in your reading of Newsweek and that we could
conceivably now be reaping what we've sown.
I think--I doubt both.
Byrd. Are you surprised that this is what I've said? Are
you surprised at this story in Newsweek?
Rumsfeld. I guess I'm at an age and circumstance in life
where I'm no longer surprised about what I hear in the
newspapers.
Byrd. That's not the question. I'm of that age, too.
Somewhat older than you, but how about that story I've read?
Rumsfeld. I see stories all the time that are flat wrong. I
just don't know. All I can say . . .
Byrd. How about this story? This story? How about this
story, specifically?
Rumsfeld. As I say, I have not read it, I listened
carefully to what you said and I doubt it.
Byrd. All right.
Now the Washington Post reported this morning that the
United States is stepping away from efforts to strengthen the
Biological Weapons Convention. Are we not sending exactly the
wrong signal to the world, at exactly the wrong time?
Byrd. Doesn't this damage our credibility in the
international community at the very time that we are seeking
their support to neutralize the threat of Iraq's biological
weapons program? If we supplied, as the Newsweek article
said, if we supplied the building blocks for germ and
chemical warfare to this madman in the first place, this
psychopath, how do we look to the world to be backing away
from this effort to control it at this point?
Rumsfeld. Senator, I think it would be a shame to leave
this committee and the people listening with the impression
that the United States assisted Iraq with chemical or
biological weapons in the 1980s. I just do not believe that's
the case.
Byrd. Well, are you saying that the Newsweek article is
inaccurate?
Rumsfeld. I'm saying precisely what I said, that I didn't
read the Newsweek article, but that I doubt its accurate.
Byrd. I'll be glad to send you up a copy.
Rumsfeld. But that I was not in government at that time,
except as a special envoy for a period of months. So one
ought not to rely on me as the best source as to what
happened in that mid-'80s period that you were describing.
I will say one other thing. On two occasions I believe when
you read that article, you mentioned the IAEC, which as I
recall is the International Atomic Energy Commission, and
mentioned that if some of the things that you were talking
about were provided to them, which I found quite confusing to
be honest.
With respect to the Biological Weapons Convention, I was
not aware that the United States government had taken a
position with respect to it. It's not surprising because it's
a matter for the Department of State, not the Department of
Defense.
If in fact they have indicated, as The Washington Post
reports, that they are not going to move forward with a--I
believe it's an enforcement regime, it's not my place to
discuss the administration's position when I don't know what
it is.
But I can tell you, from a personal standpoint, my
recollection is that the biological convention never, never
was anticipated that there would even be thought of to have
an enforcement regime. And that an enforcement regime on
something like that, where there are a lot of countries
involved who are on the terrorist list who were participants
in that convention, that the United States has, over a period
of administrations, believed that it would not be a good
idea, because the United States would be a net loser from an
enforcement regime.
But that is not the administration's position. I just don't
know what the administration's position is.
Levin. We're going to have to leave it there, because
you're way over.
Byrd. This is a very important question.
Levin. It is indeed, and you're over time. I agree with you
on the importance, but you're way over time, sir.
Byrd. I know I'm over time, but are we going to leave this
in question out there dangling?
Levin. One last question.
Byrd. I ask unanimous consent that I may have an additional
five minutes.
Levin. No, I'm afraid you can't do that. If you could just
do one last--well, wait a minute, ask unanimous consent, I
can't stop you from doing that.
(Unknown). I object.
(Laughter)
Byrd. Mr. Chairman?
Levin. Just one last question. Would that be all right so
you could wind it up?
Senator Byrd, if you could just take one additional
question.
Byrd. I've never--I've been in this Congress 50 years. I've
never objected to another senator having a few additional
minutes.
Now Mr. Chairman, I think that the secretary should have a
copy of this report, this story that--from Newsweek that I've
been querying him about. I think he has a right to look at
that.
Levin. Could somebody take that out to the secretary?
Byrd. Now, while that's being given to the secretary, Mr.
Secretary, I think we're put into an extremely bad position
before the world today if we're going to walk away from an
international effort to strengthen the Biological Weapons
Convention against germ warfare, advising its allies that the
U.S. wants to delay further discussions until 2006.,
Especially in the light of the Newsweek story; I think we
bear some responsibility.
Inhofe. Mr. Chairman I ask for a point of order.
Levin. Can we just have this be the last question, if you
would just go along with us please, Senator Inhofe?
Inhofe. I'll only say though, in all respect to the senator
from West Virginia, we have a number of senators here. We
have a limited time of six minutes each, and we're entitled
to have our six minutes. That should be a short question if
it's the last question.
Levin. If we could just make that the last question and
answer, I would appreciate it. The chair would appreciate the
cooperation of all senators.
Rumsfeld. I'll do my best.
Senator, I just in glancing at this, and I hesitate to do
this because I have not read it carefully.
But it says here that, "According to confidential Commerce
Department export control documents obtained by Newsweek, the
shopping list included." It did not say that there were
deliveries of these things. It said that Iran--Iraq asked for
these things. It talks about a shopping list.
Second, in listing these things, it says that they wanted
television cameras for video surveillance applications,
chemical analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy
Commission, the IAEC--and that may very well be the Iraqi
Atomic Energy Commission, which would be--mean that my
earlier comment would not be correct, because I thought it
was the International Atomic Energy Commission. But this
seems to indicate it's the Iraq Commerce Commission.
Byrd. Mr. Chairman, may I say to my friend from Oklahoma,
I'm amazed that he himself wouldn't yield me time for this
important question. I would do the same for him.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask . . .
(Cleland). I yield my five minutes, Senator.
Byrd. I thank the distinguished senator.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the secretary--and I
don't just like to ask him--I ask him to review Pentagon
records to see if the Newsweek article is true or not. Will
the secretary do that?
Rumsfeld. It appears that they're Department of Commerce
records, as opposed to Pentagon. But I can certainly ask that
the
[[Page S8992]]
Department of Commerce and, to the extent that it's relevant,
the Department of State, look into it and see if we can't
determine the accuracy or inaccuracy of some aspects of this.
Yes, sir.
Levin. And we go one step future than that. I think the
request is that the Defense Department search its records.
Will you do that?
Rumsfeld. We'll be happy to search ours, but this refers to
the Commerce Department.
Levin. We will ask the State Department and the Commerce
Department to do the same thing.
Rumsfeld. We'd be happy to.
Levin. And we will also ask the Intelligence Committee to
stage a briefing for all of us on that issue, so that Senator
Byrd's question . . .
Byrd. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman.
Levin. Thank you very much, Senator.
Byrd. I thank the secretary.
Rumsfeld. Thank you.
Levin. Senator Byrd, we will ask Senator Graham and Senator
Shelby to hold a briefing on that subject, because it is a
very important subject.
Byrd. I thank the chairman.
____
[From Newsweek, Sept. 23, 2002]
How Saddam Happened
(By Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas)
The last time Donald Rumsfeld saw Saddam Hussein, he gave
him a cordial handshake. The date was almost 20 years ago,
Dec. 20, 1983; an official Iraqi television crew recorded the
historic moment.
The once and future Defense secretary, at the time a
private citizen, had been sent by President Ronald Reagan to
Baghdad as a special envoy. Saddam Hussein, armed with a
pistol on his hip, seemed "vigorous and confident,"
according to a new declassified State Department cable
obtained by Newsweek. Rumsfeld "conveyed the President's
greetings and expressed his pleasure at being in Baghdad,"
wrote the notetaker. Then the two men got down to business,
talking about the need to improve relations between their two
countries.
Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that
Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was
trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already
bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time,
America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq. The Reagan
administration feared that the Iranian revolutionaries who
had overthrown the shah (and taken hostage American diplomats
for 444 days in 1979-81) would overrun the Middle East and
its vital oilfields. On the theory that the enemy of my enemy
is my friend, the Reaganites were seeking to support Iraq in
a long and bloody war against Iran. The meeting between
Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next five
years, until Iran finally capitulated, the United States
backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic
aid and covert supplies of munitions.
former allies
Rumsfeld is not the first American diplomat to wish for the
demise of a former ally. After all, before the cold war, the
Soviet Union was America's partner against Hitler in World
War II. In the real world, as the saying goes, nations have
no permanent friends, just permanent interests. Nonetheless,
Rumsfeld's long-ago interlude with Saddam is a reminder that
today's friend can be tomorrow's mortal threat. As President
George W. Bush and his war cabinet ponder Saddam's
successor's regime, they would do well to contemplate how and
why the last three presidents allowed the Butcher of Baghdad
to stay in power so long.
The history of America's relations with Saddam is one of
the sorrier tales in American foreign policy. Time and again,
America turned a blind eye to Saddam's predations, saw him as
the lesser evil or flinched at the chance to unseat him. No
single policymaker or administration deserves blame for
creating, or at least tolerating, a monster; many of their
decisions seemed reasonable at the time. Even so, there are
moments in this clumsy dance with the Devil that make one
cringe. It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s,
America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission
to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build
biological weapons. But it happened.
America's past stumbles, while embarrassing, are not an
argument for inaction in the future. Saddam probably is the
"grave and gathering danger" described by President Bush in
his speech to the United Nations last week. It may also be
true that "whoever replaces Saddam is not going to be
worse," as a senior administration official put it to
Newsweek. But the story of how America helped create a
Frankenstein monster it now wishes to strangle is sobering.
It illustrates the power of wishful thinking, as well as the
iron law of unintended consequences.
transfixed by saddam
America did not put Saddam in power. He emerged after two
decades of turmoil in the '60s and '70s, as various strongmen
tried to gain control of a nation that had been concocted by
British imperialists in the 1920s out of three distinct and
rival factions, the Sunnis, Shiites and the Kurds. But during
the cold war, America competed with the Soviets for Saddam's
attention and welcomed his war with the religious fanatics of
Iran. Having cozied up to Saddam, Washington. . . .
While the Middle East is unlikely to become a democratic
nirvana, the worst-case scenarios, always a staple of the
press, are probably also wrong or exaggerated. Assuming that
a cornered and doomed Saddam does not kill thousands of
Americans in some kind of horrific Gotterdammerung--a scary
possibility, one that deeply worries administration
officials--the greatest risk of his fall is that one
strongman may simply be replaced by another. Saddam's
successor may not be a paranoid sadist. But there is no
assurance that he will be America's friend or forswear the
development of weapons of mass destruction.
a taste for nasty weapons
American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath
ever since he became the country's de facto ruler in the
early 1970s. One of Saddam's early acts after he took the
title of president in 1979 was to videotape a session of his
party's congress, during which he personally ordered several
members executed on the spot. The message, carefully conveyed
to the Arab press, was not that these men were executed for
plotting against Saddam, but rather for thinking about
plotting against him. From the beginning, U.S. officials
worried about Saddam's taste for nasty weaponry; indeed, at
their meeting in 1983, Rumsfeld warned that Saddam's use of
chemical weapons might "inhibit" American assistance. But
top officials in the Reagan administration saw Saddam as a
useful surrogate. By going to war with Iran, he could bleed
the radical mullahs who had seized control of Iran from the
pro-American shah. Some Reagan officials even saw Saddam as
another Anwar Sadat, capable of making Iran into a modern
secular state, just as Sadat had tried to lift up Egypt
before his assassination in 1981.
But Saddam had to be rescued first. The war against Iran
was going badly by 1982. Iran's "human wave attacks"
threatened to overrun Saddam's armies. Washington decided to
give Iraq a helping hand. After Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad
in 1983, U.S. intelligence began supplying the Iraqi dictator
with satellite photos showing Iranian deployments. Official
documents suggest that America may also have secretly
arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be shipped
to Iraq in a swap deal--American tanks to Egypt, Egyptian
tanks to Iraq. Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics,
the Reagan administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a
wide variety of "dual use" equipment and materials from
American suppliers. According to confidential Commerce
Department export-control documents obtained by Newsweek, the
shopping list included a computerized database for Saddam's
Interior Ministry (presumably to help keep track of political
opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials;
television cameras for "video surveillance applications";
chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy
Commission (IAEC), and, most unsettling, numerous shipments
of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" to the IAEC. According to
former officials, the bacteria cultures could be used to make
biological weapons, including anthrax. The State Department
also approved the shipment of 1.5 million atropine injectors,
for use against the effects of chemical weapons, but the
Pentagon blocked the sale. The helicopters, some American
officials later surmised, were used to spray poison gas on
the Kurds.
"who is going to say anything?"
The United States almost certainly knew from its own
satellite imagery that Saddam was using chemical weapons
against Iranian troops. When Saddam bombed Kurdish rebels and
civilians with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas, sarin, tabun
and VX in 1988, the Reagan administration first blamed Iran,
before acknowledging, under pressure from congressional
Democrats, that the culprits were Saddam's own forces. There
was only token official protest at the time. Saddam's men
were unfazed. An Iraqi audiotape, later captured by the
Kurds, records Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (known as
Ali Chemical) talking to his fellow officers about gassing
the Kurds. "Who is going to say anything?" he asks. "The
international community? F--k them!"
The United States was much more concerned with protecting
Iraqi oil from attacks by Iran as it was shipped through the
Persian Gulf. In 1987, an Iraqi Exocet missile hit an
American destroyer, the USS Stark, in the Persian Gulf,
killing 37 crewmen. Incredibly, the United States excused
Iraq for making an unintentional mistake and instead used the
incident to accuse Iran of escalating the war in the gulf.
The American tilt to Iraq became more pronounced. U.S.
commandos began blowing up Iranian oil platforms and
attacking Iranian patrol boats. In 1988, an American warship
in the gulf accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus, killing
290 civilians. Within a few weeks, Iran, exhausted and
fearing American intervention, gave up its war with Iraq.
Saddam was feeling cocky. With the support of the West, he
had defeated the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran. America
favored him as a regional pillar; European and American
corporations were vying for contracts with Iraq. He was
visited by congressional delegations led by Sens. Bob Dole of
Kansas and Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who were eager to promote
American farm and business interests. But Saddam's
megalomania was on the rise, and he overplayed his hand. In
1990, a U.S. Customs sting operation snared several Iraqi
agents who were trying to buy
[[Page S8993]]
electronic equipment used to make triggers for nuclear bombs.
Not long after, Saddam gained the world's attention by
threatening "to burn Israel to the ground." At the
Pentagon, analysts began to warn that Saddam was a growing
menace, especially after he tried to buy some American-made
high-tech furnaces useful for making nuclear-bomb parts. Yet
other officials in Congress and in the Bush administration
continued to see him as a useful, if distasteful, regional
strongman. The State Department was equivocating with Saddam
right up to the moment he invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
ambivalent about saddam's fate
Some American diplomats suggest that Saddam might have
gotten away with invading Kuwait if he had not been quite so
greedy. "If he had pulled back to the Mutla Ridge
[overlooking Kuwait City], he'd still be there today," one
ex-ambassador told Newsweek. And even though President George
H.W. Bush compared Saddam to Hitler and sent a half-million-
man Army to drive him from Kuwait, Washington remained
ambivalent about Saddam's fate. It was widely assumed by
policymakers that Saddam would collapse after his defeat in
Desert Storm, done in by him humiliated officer corps or
overthrown by the revolt of a restive minority population.
But Washington did not want to push very hard to topple
Saddam. The gulf war, Bush I administration officials pointed
out, had been fought to liberate Kuwait, not oust Saddam. "I
am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been
like the dinosaur in the tar pit--we would still be there,"
wrote the American commander in Desert Storm, Gen. Norman
Schwarzkopf, in his memoirs. America's allies in the region,
most prominently Saudi Arabia, feared that a post-Saddam Iraq
would splinter and destabilize the region. The Shiites in the
south might bond with their fellow religionists in Iran,
strengthening the Shiite mullahs, and threatening the Saudi
border. In the north, the Kurds were agitating to break off
parts of Iraq and Turkey to create a Kurdistan. So Saddam was
allowed to keep his tanks and helicopters--which he used to
crush both Shiite and Kurdish rebellions.
The Bush administration played down Saddam's darkness after
the gulf war. Pentagon bureaucrats compiled dossiers to
support a war-crimes prosecution of Saddam, especially for
his sordid treatment of POWs. They documented police stations
and "sports facilities" where Saddam's henchmen used acid
baths and electric drills on their victims. One document
suggested that torture should be "artistic." But top
Defense Department officials stamped the report secret. One
Bush administration official subsequently told The Washington
Post, "Some people were concerned that if we released it
during the [1992 presidential] campaign, people would say,
`Why don't you bring this guy to justice?' " (Defense
Department aides say politics played no part in the report.)
The Clinton administration was no more aggressive toward
Saddam. In 1993, Saddam apparently hired some Kuwaiti liquor
smugglers to try to assassinate former president Bush as he
took a victory lap through the region. According to one
former U.S. ambassador, the new administration was less than
eager to see an open-and-shut case against Saddam, for fear
that it would demand aggressive retaliation. When American
intelligence continued to point to Saddam's role, the
Clintonites lobbed a few cruise missiles into Baghdad. The
attack reportedly killed one of Saddam's mistresses, but left
the dictator defiant.
clinton-era covert actions
The American intelligence community, under orders from
President Bill Clinton, did mount covert actions aimed at
toppling Saddam in the 1990s, but by most accounts they were
badly organized and halfhearted. In the north, CIA operatives
supported a Kurdish rebellion against Saddam in 1995.
According to the CIA's man on the scene, former case officer
Robert Baer, Clinton administration officials back in
Washington "pulled the plug" on the operation just as it
was gathering momentum. The reasons have long remained murky,
but according to Baer, Washington was never sure that
Saddam's successor would be an improvement, or that Iraq
wouldn't simply collapse into chaos. "The question we could
never answer," Baer told Newsweek, "was, `After Saddam
goes, then what?' " A coup attempt by Iraqi Army officers
fizzled the next year. Saddam brutally rolled up the
plotters. The CIA operatives pulled out, rescuing everyone
they could, and sending them to Guam.
Meanwhile, Saddam was playing cat-and-mouse with weapons of
mass destruction. As part of the settlement imposed by
America and its allies at the end of the gulf war, Saddam was
supposed to get rid of his existing stockpiles of chem-bio
weapons, and to allow in inspectors to make sure none were
being hidden or secretly manufactured. The U.N. inspectors
did shut down his efforts to build a nuclear weapon. But
Saddam continued to secretly work on his germ- and chemical-
warfare program. When the inspectors first suspected what
Saddam was trying to hide in 1995, Saddam's son-in-law,
Hussein Kamel, suddenly fled Iraq to Jordan. Kamel had
overseen Saddam's chem-bio program, and his defection forced
the revelation of some of the secret locations of Saddam's
deadly labs. That evidence is the heart of the "white
paper" used last week by President Bush to support his
argument that Iraq has been defying U.N. resolutions for the
past decade. (Kamel had the bad judgment to return to Iraq,
where he was promptly executed, along with various family
members.)
By now aware of the scale of Saddam's efforts to deceive,
the U.N. arms inspectors were unable to certify that Saddam
was no longer making weapons of mass destruction. Without
this guarantee, the United Nations was unwilling to lift the
economic sanctions imposed after the gulf war. Saddam
continued to play "cheat and retreat" with--the inspectors,
forcing a showdown in December 1998. The United Nations
pulled out its inspectors, and the United States and Britain
launched Operation Desert Fox, four days of bombing that was
supposed to teach Saddam a lesson and force his compliance.
Saddam thumbed his nose. The United States and its allies,
in effect, shrugged and walked away. While the U.N. sanctions
regime gradually eroded, allowing Saddam to trade easily
on the black market, he was free to brew all the chem-bio
weapons he wanted. Making a nuclear weapon is harder, and
intelligence officials still believe he is a few years
away from even regaining the capacity to manufacture
enriched uranium to build his own bomb. If he can steal or
buy ready-made fissile material, say from the Russian
mafia, he could probably make a nuclear weapon in a matter
of months, though it would be so large that delivery would
pose a challenge.
lashing out?
As the Bush administration prepares to oust Saddam, one way
or another, senior administration officials are very worried
that Saddam will try to use his WMD arsenal Intelligence
experts have warned that Saddam may be "flushing" his
small, easy-to-conceal biological agents, trying to get them
out of the country before an American invasion. A vial of
bugs or toxins that could kill thousands could fit in a
suitcase--or a diplomatic pouch. There are any number of grim
end-game scenarios. Saddam could try blackmail, threatening
to unleash smallpox or some other grotesque virus in an
American city if U.S. forces invaded. Or, like a cornered
dog, he could lash out in a final spasm of violence, raining
chemical weapons down on U.S. troops, handing out his
bioweapons to terrorists. "That's the single biggest worry
in all this," says a senior administration official. "We
are spending a lot of time on this," said another top
official.
Some administration critics have said, in effect, let
sleeping dogs lie. Don't provoke Saddam by threatening his
life; there is no evidence that he has the capability to
deliver weapons of mass destruction. Countered White House
national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, "Do we wait
until he's better at it?" Several administration officials
indicated that an intense effort is underway, covert as well
as overt, to warn Saddam's lieutenants to save themselves by
breaking from the dictator before it's too late. "Don't be
the fool who follows the last order" is the way one senior
administration official puts it.
The risk is that some will choose to go down with Saddam,
knowing that they stand to be hanged by an angry mob after
the dictator falls. It is unclear what kind of justice would
follow his fall, aside from summary hangings from the nearest
lamppost.
post-saddam iraq
The Bush administration is determined not to "overthrow
one strongman only to install another," a senior
administration official told Newsweek. This official said
that the president has made clear that he wants to press for
democratic institutions, government accountability and the
rule of law in post-Saddam Iraq. But no one really knows how
that can be achieved. Bush's advisers are counting on the
Iraqis themselves to resist a return to despotism. "People
subject to horrible tryanny have strong antibodies to anyone
who wants to put them back under tyranny," says a senior
administration official. But as another official
acknowledged, "a substantial American commitment" to Iraq
is inevitable.
At what cost? And who pays? Will other nations chip in
money and men? It is not clear how many occupation troops
will be required to maintain order, or for how long. Much
depends on the manner of Saddam's exit: whether the Iraqis
drive him out themselves, or rely heavily on U.S. power.
Administration officials shy away from timeables and
specifies but say they have to be prepared for all
contingencies. "As General Eisenhower said, `Every plan gets
thrown out on the first day of battle. Plans are useless.
Planning is everything'," said Vice President Cheney's chief
of staff, I, Lewis (Scooter) Libby.
It is far from clear that America will be able to control
the next leader of Iraq, even if he is not as diabolical as
Saddam. Any leader of Iraq will look around him and see that
Israel and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and that Iran may
soon. Just as England and France opted to build their own
bombs in the cold war, and not depend on the U.S. nuclear
umbrella, the next president of Iraq may want to have his own
bomb. "He may want to, but he can't be allowed to," says a
Bush official. But what is to guarantee that a newly rich
Iraqi strongman won't buy one with his nation's vast oil
wealth? In some ways, Iraq is to the Middle East as Germany
was to Europe in the 20th century, too large, too
militaristic and too competent to coexit peacebly with
neighbors. It took two world wars and millions of lives to
solve "the German problem." Getting rid of Saddam may be
essential to creating a stable, democratic
[[Page S8994]]
Iraq. But it may be only a first step on a long and dangerous
march.
____
Per our previous conversation, after reviewing the
available licensing records of the Bureau of Export
Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, related to
biological materials exported to the government of Iraq,
additional information identifying the genus species, and
strain or origin (if known) of the following viruses,
bacteria, fungi, and protozoa for which export licenses were
granted is requested.
Date License Approved, Consignee, and Material information:
02/08/85, Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, Ustilago
02/22/85 (2 each), Ministry of Higher Education, Fungi
Histoplasma
07/11/85 (2 each), Middle and Near East Regional A, Fungi
Histoplasma
10/02/85 (46 each), Ministry of Higher Education, Bacteria
10/08/85 (10 each), Ministry of Higher Education, Bacteria,
Clostridium, Francisella
03/21/86 (18 each), Agriculture and Water Resources, Fungi,
Alysidium, Aspergillus, Hypopichia
03/21/86 (21 each), Agriculture and Water Resources, Fungi,
Actinormucor, Aspergillus, Rhizopus, Rhizomucor,
Talaromyces, Fusarium, Penicillium, Tricyoderma
02/04/87 (11 each), State Company for Drug Indust, Bacteria
Bacillus, Bacillus, Escherichia, Staphylococcus,
Klebsiella, Salmonella, Pseudomonas
08/17/87 (2 each), Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, Bacteria,
Escherichia
03/24/88 (3 each), Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, Bacteria,
Escherichia
04/22/88, Sera and Vaccine Institute, Bacteria, Salmonella
(Class I), Clostridium (Class II), Brucella (Class III),
Corynebacterium (II), Vibrio (Class III)
05/05/88 (1 each), Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, Bacteria,
Escherichia
08/16/88, Ministry of Trade, Bacteria, (12 each) Bacillus
(Class III), (6 each) Bacillus (Class II), (6 each)
Bacillus (Class III), (9 each) Clostridium (Class 10)
11/07/88 (2 each), Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, Bacteria,
Escherichia (Class I)
12/19/88 (3 each), Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, Bacteria
Escherichia (Class I)
The above listing includes only those material for which
export licenses were granted from January 1, 1985, until the
present. A number of requests were returned without action.
If any information is available as to the specific materials
requested by the consignee in these cases, it may also prove
useful. A listing of materials for which export licenses were
approved between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1984
follows. I understand that record may no longer be available
for these items, however, if any specific information is
available which identifies these materials please forward it
as well.
Data License Approved, Consignee, and Material Information
08/14/80 (20 each), Ministry of Health for College, Bacteria/
Fungi, not further identified
09/11/80 (45 each), University of Baghdad, Bacteria/Fungi/
Protozoa, Virus/Viroids (15 each), not further identified
03/17/82 (1 each), University of Mosul, Bacteria/Fungi/
Protozoa
04/09/82 (6 each), General Establishment/Drugs, Pseudomonas,
Salmonella, Aspergillus
04/09/82 (6 each), General Establishment/Drugs, Pseudomonas,
Salmonella, Aspergillus
07/30/82 (3 each), State Co for Drug Industries, Bacillus
08/08/84 (2 each), Ministry of Health for College, Bacteria
Corynebacterium
11/30/84 (59 each), College of Medicine, Aspergillus,
Epidermophyton, Microsporum, Penicillium, Trichophyton,
Alternaria, Neisseria, Clostridium, Bacteroides,
Escherichia
I understand that information for those items exported
prior to January 1, 1985 may be unavailable. Please feel free
to contact me if you have any questions regarding this
request at 202-224-4822.
HEADLINE: Ustilago nuda (Jensen) Rostrup, ATCC 34718. TEXT:
CBS 118.19. H. Kniep. USDA permit PPQ-526 required. Growth
Conditions: Medium 336 24C. Shipped: Test tube. Price Code:
W.
HEADLINE: Histoplasma capsulatum var. farciminosum, ATCC
32136. TEXT: A.A. Padhye CDC Disagnostic 76-066816
(Histoplasma farciminosum). CBS 176.57. Class III pathogen,
requests must carry signed statement assuming all risks and
responsibilities for lab handling. Growth Conditions: Medium
337 25C. Shipped: Test tube. Price Code: W.
AMERICAN TYPE CULTURE COLLECTION, CUSTOMER ACTIVITY DETAIL REPORT, FROM: 01/01/85 TO: 12/31/93; FOR: ALL
CUSTOMERS, FOR COUNTRY: IRAQ
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inv. # Date ATCC # Description Batch # Quantity Price
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cust #: 015408 Customer Name: UNIV OF BAGHDAD
010072......... 05/02/86 000000000010 BACILLUS ANTHRACIS...... 8-20-82 2 108.80
010072......... 05/02/86 000000000082 BACILLUS SUBTILIS....... 6-20-84 2 108.80
010072......... 05/02/86 000000003502 CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM 7-7-81 3 163.20
TYPE A.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000003624 CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS. 10-85SV 2 20.40
010072......... 05/02/86 000000006051 BACILLUS SUBTILIS....... 12-6-84 2 20.40
010072......... 05/02/86 000000006223 FRANCISELLA TULARENSIS 5-14-79 2 108.80
VAR. TULARENSIS.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000009441 CLOSTRIDIUM TETANI...... 3-84 3 163.20
010072......... 05/02/86 000000009564 CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM 3-29-79 2 108.80
TYPE E.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000010779 CLOSTRIDIUM TETANI...... 4-24-84S 3 30.60
010072......... 05/02/86 000000012916 CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS. 8-14-80 2 108.80
010072......... 05/02/86 000000013124 CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS. 7-84SV 3 30.60
010072......... 05/02/86 000000014185 BACILLUS ANTHRACIS...... 1-14-80 3 163.20
010072......... 05/02/86 000000014578 BACILLUS ANTHRACIS...... 1-6-78 2 108.80
010072......... 05/02/86 000000014581 BACILLUS MEGATERIUM..... 4-18-85 2 20.40
010072......... 05/02/86 000000014945 BACILLUS MEGATERIUM..... 6-21-81 2 108.80
010072......... 05/02/86 000000017855 CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM 6-21-71 2 108.80
TYPE E.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000019213 BACILLUS MEGATERIUM..... 3-84 2 108.80
010072......... 05/02/86 000000019397 CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM 8-18-81 3 163.20
TYPE A.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000023450 BRUCELLA ABORTUS BIOTYPE 8-2-84 3 163.20
3.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000023455 BRUCELLA ABORTUS BIOTYPE 2-5-68 3 163.20
9.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000023456 BRUCELLA MELITENSIS 3-8-78 2 108.80
BIOTYPE 1.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000023458 BRUCELLA MELITENSIS 1-29-68 2 108.80
BIOTYPE 3.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000025763 CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM 8-83 2 108.80
TYPE A.
010072......... 05/02/86 000000035415 CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM 2-24-84 2 108.80
TYPE F.
297.12
010072......... 05/02/86 FREIGHT ........... 0.00
010072......... 05/02/86 TAX ........... ...........
010072......... 05/02/86 Total Invoice....... 58 2,813.12
-------------------------
Total for: UNIV OF ........... 58 2,813.12
BAGHDAD.
Cust #: 016124 Customer Name: STATE CO FOR DRUG INDUST.
AC377.......... 08/31/87 000000002601 SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE 8-28-80 1 12.00
AC377.......... 08/31/87 000000006539 SALMONELLA CHOLERAESUIS 6-86S 1 12.00
SUBSP. CHOLERAESUIS.
AC377.......... 08/31/87 000000006633 BACILLUS SUBTILIS....... 10-85 2 128.00
AC377.......... 08/31/87 000000010031 KLEBSIELLA PNEUMONIAE 8-13-80 1 64.00
SUBSP. PNEUMONIAE.
AC377.......... 08/31/87 000000010536 ESCHERICHIA COLI........ 4-9-80 1 64.00
AC377.......... 08/31/87 000000011778 BACILLUS CEREUS......... 5-85SV 2 24.00
AC377.......... 08/31/87 000000012228 STAPHYLOCOCCUS 11-86S 1 12.00
EPIDERMIDIS.
AC377.......... 08/31/87 000000014884 BACILLUS PUMILUS........ 9-8-80 2 128.00
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AC1507, 04/26/88, Total Invoice
AC1616, 07/11/88, 0000000035-X, COMMUNICATION FEES, 35-X.
AC1616, 07/11/88, 000000011303, ESCHERICHIA COLI, 4-87S.
AC1616, 07/11/88, 000000037349, PTIBO542 PLASMID IN
AGROBACTERIUM TUMEFACIENS, 6-14-85.
AC1616, 07/11/88, 000000045031, CAULIFLOWER MOSAIC
CAULIMOVIRUS CLONE, 5-28-85.
AC1616, 07/11/88, FREIGHT.
AC1616, 07/11/88, TAX.
062876, 10/12/87, Total Invoice
AC1507, 04/26/88, 0000000035-X, COMMUNICATION FEES.
AC1507, 04/26/88, 000000057236, HU LAMBDA 4X-8 PHAGE
LYSATE.
AC1507, 04/26/88, 000000057240, HU LAMBDA 14 PHAGE LYSATE.
AC1507, 04/26/88, 000000057242, HU LAMBDA 15 PHAGE LYSATE.
AC1507, 04/26/88, FREIGHT.
AC1507, 04/26/88, TAX.
AC489, 08/31/87, 000000023846, ESCHERICHIA COLI, 7-29-83.
AC489, 08/31/87, 000000033694, ESCHERICHIA COLI, 7-29-83.
[[Page S8995]]
AC489, 08/31/87, FREIGHT.
AC489, 08/31/87, MINIMUM.
CUST #: 022913, Customer Name: TECHNICAL & SCIENTIFIC
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000000240, BACILLUS ANTHRACIS, 5-14-
63.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000000938, BACILLUS ANTHRACIS, 1963.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000003629, CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS,
10-23-85.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000008009, CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS, 3-
30-84.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000008705, BACILLUS ANTHRACIS, 6-27-
62.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000009014, BRUCELLA ABORTUS, 5-11-66.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000010388, CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS, 6-
1-73.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000011966, BACILLUS ANTHRACIS, 5-5-70.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000025763, CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM TYPE
A, 7-86.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000033018, BACILLUS CEREUS, 4-83.
AC2658, 09/29/88, 000000033019, BACILLUS CEREUS, 3-88.
AC2658, 09/29/88, DISCOUNT.
AC2658, 09/29/88, FREIGHT.
AC2658, 09/29/88, TAX.
AC3352, 01/17/89, Total Invoice
AC1639, 01/31/89, 0000000035-X, COMMUNICATION FEES, 35-X.
AC1639, 01/31/89, 000000057056, PHPT31 PLASMID IN
ESCHERICHIA COLI JM83, 3-88.
AC1639, 01/31/89, 000000057212, P LAMBDA 500 PLASMID IN
ESCHERICHIA COLI, 88-09.
AC1639, 01/31/89, FREIGHT.
AC1639, 01/31/89, TAX.
____
Department of Health & Human Services, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention,
Atlanta, GA, June 21, 1995.
Hon. Donald W. Riegle, Jr.,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Riegle: In 1993, at your request, the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) forwarded to your
office a listing of all biological materials, including
viruses, retroviruses, bacteria, and fungi, which CDC
provided to the government of Iraq from October 1, 1984,
through October 13, 1993. Recently, in the course of
reviewing our shipping records for a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) request from a private citizen, we identified an
additional shipment, on May 21, 1985, that was not included
on the list that was provided to your office. Following this
discovery, we conducted a thorough review of all of our
shipping records and are confident that we have now included
a listing of all shipments. A corrected list is enclosed
(Note: the new information is italicized).
These additional materials were hand-carried by Dr.
Mohammad Mahoud to Iraq after he had spent three months
training in a CDC laboratory. Most of the materials were non-
infectious diagnostic reagents for detecting evidence of
infections to mosquito-borne viruses. Only two of the
materials are on the Commodity Control List, i.e., Yersinin
Pestis (the agent of plague) and dengue virus. (the strain of
plague bacillus was non-virulent, and CDC is currently
petitioning the Department of Commerce to remove this
particular variant from the list of controlled materials).
We regret that our earlier list was incomplete and
appreciate your understanding.
Sincerely,
David Satcher,
Director.
Enclosure. (Copy unclear)
CDC Shipments to Iraq October 1, 1984 through Present
4/26/85--Minister of Health, Ministry of Health, Baghdad, Iraq
8 Vials antigen and antisera, (R. rickettsii and R. typhi)
to diagnose rickettsial infections (non-infectious).
5/21/85--Dr. Mahammad Imad, Al-Dean M. Mahmud, Dept. of Microbiology,
College of Medicine, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq
Etiologic Agents:--lyophilized arbovirus seed;
West Nile Fever Virus, Lyophilized cultures of avirulant
yersinia pestis and Y. pseudotuberculosis ((strain r);
0.5 m1 Bhania Virus (Iq 690);
0.5 m1 Dongua Virus type 2 (New Guinea C);
0.5 m1 Dongua Virus type 3 (H-97);
0.5 m1 Hazara Virus (Pak IC 280);
0.5 m1 Kemeroud Virus (rio);
0.5 m1 Langat Virus (TP 21);
0.5 m1 Sandfly Fever/Naples Virus (original);
0.5 m1 Sandfly Fever/Sicilian Virus (original);
0.5 m1 Sindbis Virus (Egar 339);
0.5 m1 Tahyna Virus (Bardos 92);
0.5 m1 Thgoto Virus (II A).
Diagnostic Reagents and Associated Materials:
2. vials each Y. pestis FA (+ & -) conjugates;
2 vials Y. pestis Fraction 1 antigen;
10 vials Y. pestis bacteriophage impregnated paper strips;
5 plague-infected mouse tissue smears (fixed);
Various protocols for diagnostic bacteriology tests;
23 X 0.5 m1 Bhanja (Ig 690) antigen;
22 X 0.5 m1 Dengue Type 2 (New Guinea C) antigen;
22 X 0.5 ml Dengue type 3 (H-69) antigen;
22 X 0.5 ml Hazara (Pak IC 290) antigen;
22 X 0.5 ml Kemarovo (Rio) antigen;
22 X 0.5 ml Langat (IF 21) antigen,
24 X 0.5 ml Sandfly Fever/Naples (original) antigen;
24 X 0.5 ml Sandfly Fever/Sicilian (original) antigen;
Diagnostic Reagents and Associated Materials:
2 vials each Y. pestis PA (+6-) conjugates;
2 vials Y. pestis Fraction 2 antigen;
10 vials Y. pestis bacteriophage impregnated paper stripe;
5 plague-infected mouse tissue smears (fixed);
Various protocols for diagnostic bacteriology tests;
23 X 0.5 ml Bhanja (Ig 690) antigen;
22 X 0.5 ml Dengue Type 2 (New Guinea C) antigen;
22 X 0.5 ml Dengue Type 3 (H-67) antigen;
22 X 0.5 ml Hazara (Pak IC 280) antigen;
23 X 0.5 ml Kemorovo (Rio) antigen;
21 X 0.5 ml Langat (TP 21) antigen;
24 X 0.5 ml Sandfly Fever/Maples (original) antigen;
24 X 0.5 ml Sandfly Fever/Sicilian (original) antigen;
23 X 0.5 ml Sindbis (EgAr 339) antigen;
23 X 0.5 ml Tahyna (Bardos 92) antigen;
20 X 0.5 ml Thogoto (II A) antigen;
23 X 0.5 ml Bhanja (Ig 690) antigen;
21 X 0.5 ml West Nile (Eg 101) antigen;
20 X 0.5 ml Normal SMB antigen;
10 X 0.5 ml Normal SML antigen;
5 X 1.0 ml Bhanja (Ig 690) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml Dengue Type 2 (New Guinea C) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml Dengue Type 3 (H-87) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml Hazara (Pak IC 280) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml Xemerovo (Rio) antibody;
5 X 2.0 ml Langat (TP 21) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml Sandfly Fever/Naples (original) antibody;
5 X 2.0 ml Sandfly Fever/Sicilian (original) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml Sindbis (EgAr 339) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml Tahyna (Bardos 92) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml Thogoto (II A) antibody;
5 X 1.0 ml West Nile (Eg 101) antibody;
3 X 1.0 ml Normal MHIAF (SMB) antibody;
3 X 1.0 ml Normal MHIAF (SML) antibody;
1.0 ml A polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml AIYA, etc. polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml B polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml BUN polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml BWA polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml C-1 polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml C-2 polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml CAL polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml CAP polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml CON polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml GMA polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml KEM polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml PAL polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml PAT polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml PHL polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml ORF polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml Rabies, etc. polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml STM polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml TCR polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml VSV polyvalent grouping fluid;
1.0 ml polyvalent 1;
1.0 ml polyvalent 2;
1.0 ml polyvalent 3;
1.0 ml polyvalent 4;
1.0 ml polyvalent 5;
1.0 ml polyvalent 6;
1.0 ml polyvalent 7;
1.0 ml polyvalent 8;
1.0 ml polyvalent 9;
1.0 ml polyvalent 10;
1.0 ml polyvalent 12;
1.0 ml Group B1 reagent;
1.0 ml Bluetongue reagent;
4 X 0.5 ml Dengue 1-4 set monoclonal antibodies;
1.0 ml St. Louis Enc. (MSI-7) monoclonal antibody;
1.0 ml Western Eq. Enc. (McMillian) monoclonal antibody.
6/26/85--
Dr. Mohammed S. Khidar, University of Baghdad, College of
Medicine, Department of Microbiology, Baghdad, Iraq 3 yeast
cultures Candida sp. (etiologic).
3/10/86
Dr. Rowil Shawil Georgis, M.B.CH.B.D.F.H., Officers City
Al-Muthanna, Quartret 710, Street 13, Close 69, House 28/I,
Baghdad, Iraq. 1 vial Botulinum Toxiod # A-2 (non-
infectious).
4/21/56--Dr. Rowil Shawil Georgis, N.B. Cir. D.D.F.H., Officers City
Al-Muthana, Quartret 710, Street 13, Close 69, House 23/r, Baghdad,
Iraq
1 vial Botulinum toxin (non-infections).
7/21/88--Dr. Faqid Alfarhood, Mahela 887, Zikak 54, House 97, Hay
Aljihad, Kerk, Baghdad, Iraq
teaching supplies (non-infectious); CDC procedures manuals.
7/27/88--Dr. Fagid Alfarhood, Mahela 887, Zikak 54, House 97, Hay
Aljihad, Kerk, Baghdad, Iraq
teaching supplies (non-infectious); CDC procedure manuals.
11/28/89--Dr. Nadeal T. Al Hadithi, University of Basrah, College of
Science, Department of Biology, Basrah, Iraq
5.0 mls Enterococcus faecalis;
5.0 mls Enterococcus faccium;
5.0 mls Enterococcus avium;
5.0 mls Enterococcus raffinosus;
5.0 mls Enterococcus gallinarum;
[[Page S8996]]
5.0 mls Enterococcus durans;
5.0 mls Enterococcus hirac;
5.0 mls Streptococcus bovis (cciologic).
From U.S. Senate Hearing Report 103-900
u.s. exports of biological materials to iraq
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs has
oversight responsibility for the Export Administration Act. Pursuant to
the Act, Committee staff contacted the U.S. Department of Commerce and
requested information on the export of biological materials during the
years prior to the Gulf War. After receiving this information, we
contacted a principal supplier of these materials to determine what, if
any, materials were exported to Iraq which might have contributed to an
offensive or defensive biological warfare program. Records available
from the supplier for the period from 1985 until the present show that
during this time, pathogenic (meaning "disease producing"), toxigenic
(meaning "poisonous"), and other biological research materials were
exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S.
Department of Commerce. Records prior to 1985 were not available,
according to the supplier. These exported biological materials were not
attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. According to
the Department of Defense's own Report to Congress on the Conduct of
the Persian Gulf War, released in April 1992:
"By the time of the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq had developed
biological weapons. It's advanced and aggressive biological warfare
program was the most advanced in the Arab world. The program probably
began late in the 1970's and concentrated on the development of two
agents, botulinum toxin and anthrax bacteria. . . . Large scale
production of these agents began in 1989 at four facilities near
Baghdad. Delivery means for biological agents ranged from simple aerial
bombs and artillery rockets to surface-to-surface missiles."
Included in the approved sales are the following biological materials
(which have been considered by various nations for use in war), with
their associated disease symptoms:
Bacillus Anthracis: anthrax is a disease-producing bacteria
identified by the Department of Defense in the The Conduct of the
Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, as being a major component
in the Iraqi biological warfare program.
Anthrax is an often-fatal infectious disease due to ingestion of
spores. It begins abruptly with high fever, difficulty in breathing,
and chest pain. The disease eventually results in septicemia (blood
poisoning), and the mortality is high. Once septicemia is advanced,
antibiotic therapy may prove useless, probably because the exotoxins
remain, despite the death of the bacteria.
Clostridium Botulinum: a baterial source of botulinum toxin, which
causes vomiting, constipation, thirst, general weakness, headache,
fever, dizziness, double vision, dilation of the pupils and paralysis
of the muscles involving swallowing. It is often fatal.
Histoplasma Capsulatum: causes a disease superficially resembling
tuberculosis that may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the liver and
spleen, anemia, an influenza-like illness and an acute inflammatory
skin disease marked by tender red modules, usually on the shins.
Reactivated infection usually involves the lungs, the brain, spinal
membranes, heart, peritoneum, and the adrenals.
Brucella Melitensis: a bacterial which can cause chronic fatigue,
loss of appetite, profuse sweating when at rest, pain in joints and
muscles, insomnia, nausea, and damage to major organs.
Clostridium Perfringens: a highly toxic bacteria which causes gas
gangrene. The bacteria produce toxins that move along muscle bundles in
the body killing cells and producing necrotic tissue that is then
favorable for further growth of the bacteria itself. Eventually, these
toxins and bacteria enter the bloodstream and cause systemic illness.
In addition, several shipments of Escherichia Coli (E.Coli) and
genetic materials, as well as human and bacterial DNA, were shipped
directly to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.
The following is a detailed listing of biological materials, provided
by the American Type Culture Collection, which were exported to
agencies of the government of Iraq pursuant to the issuance of an
export licensed by the U.S. Commerce Department:
Date: February 8, 1985
Sent to: Iraq Atomic Energy Agency
Materials Shipped: Ustilago nuda (Jensen) Rostrup.
Date: February 22, 1985
Sent to: Ministry of Higher Education
Materials Shipped: Histoplasma capsulanum var. farciminosum (ATCC
32136). Class III pathogen.
Date: July 11, 1985.
Sent to: Middle And Near East Regional A.
Materials Shipped: Histoplasma capsulatum var. farciminosum
(ATCC 32136). Class III pathogen.
Date: May 2, 1986.
Sent to: Ministry of Higher Education.
Materials Shipped: 1. Bacillus Anthracis Cohn (ATCC 10).
Batch #08-20-82 (2 each). Class III pathogen.
2. Bacillus Subtitlis (Ehrenberg) Cohn (ATCC 82). Batch
#06-20-84 (2 each).
3. Clostridium botulinum Type A (ATCC 3502). Batch #07-07-
81 (3 each). Class III Pathogen.
4. Clostridium perfringens (Weillon and Zuber) Hauduroy, et
al (ATCC 3624). Batch #10-85SV (2 each).
5. Bacillus subtilis (ATCC 6051). Batch #12-06-84 (2 each).
6. Francisella tularensis, var. tularensis Olsufiev (ATCC
6223) Batch #05-14-79 (2 each). Avirulent, suitable for
preparations of diagnostic antigens.
7. Clostridium tetani (ATCC 9441). Batch #03-84 (3 each).
Highly toxigenic.
8. Clostridium botulinum Type E (ATCC 9564). Batch #03-02-
79 (2 each). Class III pathogen.
9. Clostridium tetani (ATCC 10779). Batch #04-24-84S (3
each).
10. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 12916). Batch #08-14-80
(2 each). Agglutinating type 2.
11. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 13124). Batch #07-84SV (3
each). Type A, alpha-toxigenic, produces lechitinase C.J.
Appl.
12. Bacillus Anthracis (ATCC 14185). Batch #01-14-80 (3
each). G.G. Wright (Fort Dertick) V770-NP1-R. Bovine anthrax,
Class III pathogen.
13. Bacillus Anthracis (ATCC 14578). Batch #01-06-78 (2
each). Class III pathogen.
14. Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 14581). Batch #04-18-85 (2
each).
15. Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 14945). Batch #06-21-81 (2
each).
16. Clostridium botulinum Type E (ATCC 17855. Batch #06-21-
71. Class III pathogen.
17. Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 19213). Batch #3-84 (2 each).
18. Clostridium botulinum Type A (ATCC 19397). Batch #08-
18-81 (2 each). Class III pathogen.
19. Brucella abortus Biotype 3 (ATCC 23450). Batch #08-02-
84 (3 each). Class III pathogen.
20. Brucella abortus Biotype 9 (ATCC 23455). Batch #02-05-
68 (3 each). Class III pathogen.
21. Brucella melitensis Biotype 1 (ATCC 23456). Batch #03-
08-78 (2 each). Class III pathogen.
22. Brucella melitensis Biotype 3 (ATCC 23458. Batch #01-
29-68 (2 each). Class III pathogen.
23. Clostridium botulinum Type A (ATCC 25763. Batch #8-83
(2 each). Class III pathogen.
24. Clostridium botulinum Type F (ATCC 35415). Batch #02-
02-84 (2 each). Class III pathogen.
Date: August 31, 1987.
Sent to: State Company for Drug Industries.
Materials Shipped:
1. Saccharomyces cerevesia (ATCC 2601). Batch #08-28-08 (1
each).
2. Salmonella choleraesuis subsp. choleraesuis Serotype
typhia (ATCC 6539). Batch #06-86S (1 each).
3. Bacillus subtillus (ATCC 6633). Batch# 10-85 (2 each).
4. Klebsiella pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae (ATCC 10031).
Batch# 08-13-80 (1 each).
5. Escherichia coli (ATCC 10536). Batch# 04-09-80 (1 each).
6. Bacillus cereus (11778). Batch# 05-85SV (2 each).
7. Staphylococcus epidermidis (ATCC 12228). Batch# 11-86s
(1 each).
8. Bacillus pumilus (ATCC 14884). Batch# 09-08-90 (2 each).
Date: July 11, 1988.
Sent to: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.
Materials Shipped:
1. Escherichia coli (ATCC 11303). Batch# 04-87S. Phage
host.
2. Cauliflower Mosaic Caulimovirus (ATCC 45031). Batch# 06-
14-85. Plant virus.
3. Plasmid in Agrobacterium Tumefaciens (ATCC 37349). (Ti
plasmid for co-cultivation with plant integration vectors in
E Coli). Batch# 05-28-85.
Date: April 26, 1988.
Sent to: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.
Materials Shipped:
Hulambda4x-8, clone: human hypoxanthine
phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT). Chromosome(s): X q26.1
(ATCC 57236) Phage vector; Suggested host: E.coli.
2. Hulambdal 14-8, clone: human hypoxanthine
phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT). Chromosome(s): X q26.1
(ATCC 57240) Phage vector; Suggest host: E.coli.
[[Page S8997]]
3. Hulambda 15, clone: human hypoxanthine
phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT). Chromosome(s): X q26.1
(ATCC 57242) Phage vector; Suggested host: E.coli.
Date: August 31, 1987.
Sent to: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.
Materials Shipped:
1. Escherichia coli (ATCC 23846). Batch# 07-29-83 (1 each).
2. Escherichia coli (ATCC 33694). Batch# 05-87 (1 each).
Date: September 29, 1988.
Sent to: Ministry of Trade.
Materials Shipped:
1. Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 240). Batch# 05-14-63 (3 each).
Class III pathogen.
2. Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 938). Batch# 1963 (3 each).
Class III pathogen.
3. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 3629). Batch# 10-23-85 (3
each).
4. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 8009). Batch# 03-30-84 (3
each).
5. Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 8705). Batch# 06-27-62 (3
each). Class III pathogen.
6. Brucella abortus (ATCC 9014). Batch# 05-11-66 (3 each).
Class III pathogen.
7. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 10388). Batch# 06-01-73 (3
each).
8. Bacillus anthracis (ATCC 11966). Batch# 05-05-70 (3
each). Class III pathogen.
9. Clostridium botulinum Type A. Batch# 07-86 (3 each).
Class III pathogen.
10. Bacillus cereus (ATCC 33018). Batch# 04-83 (3 each).
11. Bacillus ceres (ATCC 33019). Batch# 03-88 (3 each).
Date: January 31, 1989.
Sent to: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.
Materials Shipped:
1. PHPT31, clone: human hypoxanthine
phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT). Chromosome(s): X q26.1
(ATCC 57057)
2. plambda500, clone: human hypoxanthine
phosphoribosyltransferase pseudogene (HPRT). Chromosome(s): 5
p14-p13 (ATCC 57212).
Date: January 17, 1989
Sent to: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.
Materials Shipped:
1. Hulambda4x-8, clone: human hypoxanthine
phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT). Chromosome(s): X q26.1
(ATCC 57237) Phage vector; Suggested host: E. coli.
2. Hulambda14, clone: human hypoxanthine
phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT). Chromosome(s): X q26.1
(ATCC 57240) Cloned from human lymphoblast. Phage vector;
Suggested host: E. coli.
3. Hulambda15, clone: human hypoxanthine
phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT). Chromosome(s): X q26.1
(ATCC 57241) Phage vector; Suggested host: E. coli.
Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control has compiled
a listing of biological materials shipped to Iraq prior to
the Gulf War. The listing covers the period from October 1,
1984 (when the CDC began keeping records) through October 13,
1993. The following materials with biological warfare
significance were shipped to Iraq during this period:
Date: November 28, 1989.
Sent to: University of Basrah, College of Science,
Department of Biology.
Materials Shipped:
1. Enterococcus faecalis.
2. Enterococcus faecium.
3. Enterococcus avium.
4. Enterococcus raffinosus.
5. Enterococcus gallinarium.
6. Enterococcus durans.
7. Enterococcus hirae.
8. Streptococcus bovis (etiologic).
Date: April 21, 1986.
Sent to: Officers City Al-Muthanna, Quartret 710, Street
13, Close 69 House 28/I, Baghdad, Iraq.
Materials Shipped:
1. 1 vial botulinum toxoid (non-infectious).
Date: March 10, 1986.
Sent to: Officers City Al-Muthanna, Quartret 710, Street
13, Close 69 House 28/I, Baghdad, Iraq.
Materials Shipped:
1. 1 vial botulinum toxoid #A2 (non-infectious).
Date: June 25, 1985.
Sent to: University of Baghdad, College of Medicine,
Department of Microbiology.
Materials Shipped:
1. 3 yeast cultures (etiologic) Candida sp.
Date: May 21, 1985.
Sent to: Basrah, Iraq.
Materials Shipped:
1. Lyophilized arbovirus seed (etiologic).
2. West Nile Fever Virus.
Date: April 26, 1985.
Sent to: Minister of Health, Ministry of Health, Baghdad,
Iraq.
Materials Shipped:
1.8 vials antigen and antisera (r. rickettsii and r. typhi)
to diagnose rickettsial infections (non-infectious).
UNSCOM Biological Warfare Inspections
UNSCOM inspections uncovered evidence that the government
of Iraq was conducting research on pathogen enhancement on
the following biological warfare-related materials: bacillus
anthracis; clostridium botulinum; clostridium perfirgens;
brucella abortis; brucella melentensis; francisella
tularensis; and clostridium tetani.
In addition, the UNSCOM inspections revealed that
biological warfare-related stimulant research was being
conducted on the following materials: bacillus subtillus;
bacillus ceres; and bacillus megatillus.
UNSCOM reported to Committee staff that a biological
warfare inspection (BW3) was conducted at the Iraq Atomic
Energy Commission in 1993. This suggests that the Iraqi
government may have been experimenting with the materials
cited above (E. coli and rDNA) in an effort to create
genetically altered microorganisms (novel biological warfare
agents). Committee staff plans to interview the BW3 team
leader, Col. David Franz of the United States Army Medical
Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in the
near future. This phase of the investigation continues.
Biological Warfare Defense
The following section, describing the types, dissemination,
and defensive measures against biological agents, is quoted
verbatim from a United States Marine Corps Institute
document, Nuclear and Chemical Operations, MCI 7711B, used in
the Command and Staff College's nonresident program. It is
clear from this document that the Department of Defense
recognizes both the threat and U.S. vulnerability to
biological weapons. This document also outlines the
Department's understanding of what actions should be taken in
the event that a biological weapon has been or is suspected
to have been employed.
"Biological agents cannot be detected by the human senses.
A person could become a casualty before he is aware he has
been exposed to a biological agent. An aerosol or mist of
biological agent is borne in the air. These agents can
silently and effectively attack man, animals, plants, and in
some cases, materiel. Agents can be tailored for a specific
type of target.
Methods of using antipersonnel agents undoubtedly vary so
that no uniform pattern of employment or operation is
evident. It is likely that agents will be used in
combinations so that the disease symptoms will confuse
diagnosis and interfere with proper treatment. It is also
probable that biological agents would be used in heavy
concentrations to insure a high percentage of infection in
the target area. The use of such concentrations could result
in the breakdown of individual immunity because the large
number of micro-organisms entering the body could
overwhelm the natural body defenses.
Types of biological agents
Different antipersonnel agents require varying periods of
time before they take effect, and the periods of time for
which they will incapacitate a person also vary. Most of the
diseases having antipersonnel employment potential are found
among group of diseases that are naturally transmitted
between animals and man. Mankind is highly vulnerable to them
since he has little contact with animals in today's urban
society. The micro-organisms of possible use in warfare are
found in four naturally occurring groups--the fungi,
bacteria, ricketisiae, and viruses.
a. Fungi. Fungi occur in many forms and are found almost
everywhere. They range in size from a single cell, such as
yeast, to multicellular forms, such as mushrooms and
puffballs. Their greatest employment potential is against
plants, although some forms cause disease in man. A fungus
causes the disease coccidioidomycosis in man. Other common
infections caused by Fungi include ringworm and "athletes
foot."
b. Bacteria. Bacteria comprise a large and varied group of
organisms. They occur in varying shapes, such as rods,
spheres, and spirals, but they are all one-celled plants.
Some bacteria can assume a resistant structure called a
spore, which enables them to resist adverse environmental
conditions. Others may produce poisonous substances called
toxins. Examples of human disease caused by bacteria are
anthrax, brucellosis, tularemia, staphylococcus, and
streptococcus.
c. Rickettsiae. Rickettsiae organisms have the physical
appearances of bacteria and the growth characteristics of
viruses. Members of this group must have living tissue for
growth and reproduction, whereas most fungi and bacteria can
be grown on artificial material. Another characteristic of
rickettsiae is that most diseases caused by this group are
transmitted by the bite of an insect, such as the mosquito,
mite, or tick. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Q fever, and
typhus are diseases of mankind caused by rickettsiae.
d. Virus. The smallest living things known to mankind are
virsuses. Viruses are so small that an electron microscope is
required to see them. Viruses cannot be grown in the absence
of living tissue. Diseases which are caused by viruses cannot
normally be treated with antibiotics. Viruses cause yellow
fever, rabies, and poliomyelitis.
Dissemination of biological agents
a. Aerosol. Biological agents may be disseminated on, or
over, the target by many means, such as aircraft, missiles,
and explosive munitions. These devices produce a biological
aerosol, and, if antipersonnel biological agents are ever
used, they will probably be disseminated in the form of
biological mists or aerosols. This method of dissemination
would be extremely effective because the micro-organisms
would be drawn into the lungs as a person breathes, and there
they would be rapidly absorbed into the blood stream. The
hours from dusk until dawn appear to be the best time for
dissemination of biological agents. The weather conditions
are most favorable for these agents at night, since sunlight
will destroy many of them. In field trials, using harmless
biological aerosols, area coverages of thousands of square
miles have been accomplished. The aerosol particles were
carried for long distances by air currents. (emphasis added)
b. Living Hosts. Personnel may be infected by disease
carrying vectors, such as insects, rats, or other animals.
Mosquitos may
[[Page S8998]]
spread malaria, yellow fever, or encephalitis; rats spread
plague (any mammal may carry rabies). Militarily, specific
vectors may be selected, infected as required, and then
released in the target area to seek out their human victims
and pass on the disease. Since infection is transmitted
through a bite in the skin, protective masks offer no
protection. A vectorborne agent may remain in the target area
for as long as there are live hosts; thus, a major
disadvantage results. The vectorborne agent can become a
permanent hazard in the area as the host infects others of
his species.
c. Food and Water Contamination. Biological agents could
also be delivered to target personnel by placing the agent in
food and water supplies (sabotage). This type of attack would
probably be directed against small targets, such as
industrial complexes, headquarters, or specific individuals.
The methods of delivering the attack are many and varied.
Defensive Measures
The United States carries out research aimed at improved
means of detection of biological agents and treatment and
immunization of personnel. Both of these are essential to
biological defense.
a. Before an Attack. The inability of the individual to
detect a biological attack is perhaps the greatest problem.
Contributing factors are the delay experienced before the
onset of symptoms and the time required to identify specific
agents. Without an adequate means of detection, complete
defensive measures may not be taken since an attack must
first be detected before you can defend against it. Diseases
caused by biological agents do not appear until a few days to
weeks after contact with the agent. Personnel are protected
against biological agents in aerosol form by the protective
mask. Ordinary clothing protects the skin from contamination
by biological agents. Other means of protection include
immunizations; quarantining contaminated areas; cleanliness
of the body, clothing, and living quarters; stringent rodent
and pest control; proper care of cuts and wounds; and
education of troops to eat and drink only from approved
sources.
b. After an Attack: After a biological agent attack has
occurred, it will be necessary to identify the agent used in
the attack so that proper medical treatment may be given to
exposed personnel. To perform this identification, it is
necessary to collect samples or objects from the contaminated
area and send them to a laboratory or suitable facility for
processing. Samples may be taken from the air, from
contaminated surfaces, or from contaminated water. After the
sample is taken, laboratory time will be required to identify
the suspected biological agent. The length of time for
identification is being significantly shortened through the
use of new medical and laboratory techniques. Proper
defensive actions taken during a biological attack depend
upon the rapid detection of the attack. Biological defense is
continuous. You must always be prepared for the employment of
these weapons. (emphasis added)
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I thank all Members.
____________________
