West VA Gazette: Will the U.S. Reap What it has Sown?

September 29, 2002

By Paul J. Nyden

West Virginia Gazette

Friday, 27 September, 2002 Will Saddam Hussein unleash botulinum toxin, perhaps

nature's deadliest poison, and other viruses and chemicals if the United States

attacks Iraq?

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., posed this question to the Senate on Thursday,

based on documents obtained from different federal agencies.

"We have a paper trail," Byrd said. "We not only know that Iraq has biological

weapons, we know the type, the strain, and the batch number of the germs that

may have been used to fashion those weapons. We know the dates they were

shipped and the addresses to which they were shipped.

"We have in our hands the equivalent of a Betty Crocker cookbook of ingredients

that the U.S. allowed Iraq to obtain and that may well have been used to

concoct biological weapons."

Those shipments included:

Between 1985 and 1988, the nonprofit American Type Culture Collection made 11

shipments to Iraq that included a "witches' brew of pathogens," including

anthrax, botulinum toxin and gangrene. All shipments were government-approved.

Between January 1980 and October 1993, the federal Centers for Disease Control

shipped a variety of toxic specimens to Iraq, including West Nile virus and

Dengue fever.

The U.S. Commerce Department and CDC provided lists of these shipments. "The

Defense Department ought to have the same lists, so that the decision-makers

will know exactly what types of biological agents American soldiers may face in

the field," Byrd said.

The U.S. Commerce Department and CDC provided lists of these shipments. "The

Defense Department ought to have the same lists, so that the decision-makers

will know exactly what types of biological agents American soldiers may face in

the field," Byrd said.

"At last week's Armed Services Committee hearing, Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld

said he had no knowledge of any such shipments and doubted that they ever

occurred. He seemed to be affronted at the very idea that the United States

would ever countenance entering into such a deal with the devil.

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