Posted on 08/08/2005 5:50:05 PM PDT by Shermy
A BRITISH cow that died in an Oxfordshire field in 1937 has emerged as the source of Saddam Hussain’s “weapons of mass destruction” programme that led to the Iraq war.
An ear from the cow was sent to an English laboratory, where scientists discovered anthrax spores that were later used in secret biological warfare tests by Winston Churchill.
The culture was sent to the United States, which exported samples to Iraq during Saddam’s war against Iran in the 1980s. Inspectors have found that this batch of anthrax was the dictator’s choice in his attempts to create biological weapons.
The discovery has angered some British politicians. Austin Mitchell, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby, has renewed his call, supported by 126 MPs in the last Parliament, for a UN investigation into whether Washington broke a weapons control agreement. “It just makes them look more hypocritical than ever,” he said.
The odyssey of the Iraqi anthrax was unravelled by Geoffrey Holland, a politics student and antiwar campaigner at the University of Sussex. The exact batch chosen by Saddam was disclosed in the CIA report by Charles Duelfer, the former UN weapons inspector, last autumn.
“Iraq declared researching different strains of B. anthracis, but settled on the American Type Culture Collection strain 14578 as the exclusive strain for use as a BW,” Mr Duelfer said.
A congressional investigation into Gulf War syndrome by Don Riegle had already uncovered invoices showing that this batch was shipped from the United States between 1986 and 1988.
The ATCC is a private, non-profit-making collection of cultures of living micro-organisms, viruses, plants and human and animal cells, stored in Virginia.
Its catalogue shows that batch 14578 consists of “bovine anthrax”, isolated by R. L. Vollum, a professor of bacteriology at Oxford University during the 1930s. It is named after him.
Martin Hugh-Jones, who co-ordinates the World Health Organisation’s Working Group on Anthrax Research and Control, said: “We have traced it back and it would have come in on some contaminated bones from Southern Rhodesia.
“England was importing sun-dried bones from dead animals in the colonies. They would be shipped to London and used to make soap. When they got the fat out, (the bones) were meant to be sterilised and ground as bone meal and fed to cattle. The sterilisation was not always complete. It was the major cause of anthrax for almost 100 years.”
The Vollum anthrax was used in biological weapons tests on the Scottish island of Gruinard in 1942, which had to be quarantined for 48 years. “It killed any number of sheep in Gruinard,” Professor Hugh-Jones said.
“(Saddam) obviously at one point had a programme because he was buying the laboratory’s cultures to underwrite a programme. Why would he want peaceful research with Vollum? Come on!”
DEADLY SPORES # Anthrax is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis # The spores can survive in soil for years # Herbivores are most vulnerable. Humans get it from contaminated flesh # The word comes from the Greek for “coal” because victims develop black skin lesions # Contaminated mail was used to attack US Congress in 2001. Two postal workers died
Odd timing for this article. Some bad news about the Brits about to come out?
I wonder if this is the same strain as the anthrax attacks..
"Why would he want peaceful research with Vollum? Come on!”"
Sounds defensive. From what I understand, Saddam didn't order it, some "vet" or "university" ordered it, probably on the idea of vaccine applications. I think scientists and agronomists were trading this stuff around the world.
"I wonder if this is the same strain as the anthrax attacks.."
No.
The timing of the article is odd. Brits, others gave Iraq germs too. Farm research and such. And note, from America via a private company.
Is this the Ames strain?
I'm confused. I thought Saddam didn't have any WMD. ?????
I'm confused. I thought Saddam didn't have any WMD. ?????
See link for this organization:
http://www.atcc.org/
The article tries to make it sound like US government was trying to help Saddam make bio weapons during Iran-Iraq War, which is preposterous. From what I recall, it was a clear case of a lack of controls on international scientific collaboration - scientists just about anywhere in the world could order up such samples for supposedly academic 'research'.... Iraq's samples were ordered and received through university auspices, I recall. What's also bad is the numerous western universities have trained countless scientists who hail from Islamo-fascist countries, any number of whom can now be put to work on projects endangering us all.
Nope. Vollum strain, two different strains.
“(Saddam) obviously at one point had a programme because he was buying the laboratory’s cultures to underwrite a programme. Why would he want peaceful research with Vollum? Come on!”
Professor Hugh-Jones is obviously not familiar with the common and widespread practice of agricultural universities sharing strains of b. anthracis for testing purposes.
Or, perhaps, he is. And is simply trying to divert blame...
Interesting, though, that this story should suddenly become "news" again. It's no secret that Saddam's anthrax of choice was Vollum. Nor was there any secret about where it had come from. The only thing in this article that most FReepers weren't already familiar with is "Oxfordshire, 1937" -- which, I'm sure, was well known within the veterinary and animal husbandry community.
It might be worthwhile to know who was retailing this story. Did the Times approach Prof. Hugh-Jones of WHO? If so, why? Or did Professor Hugh-Jones and WHO approach the Times?
I can't recall the guys name it was quite a few years ago, The media called him a white supremcict, he called a lab and got anthrax spores mailed to him.
"Interesting, though, that this story should suddenly become "news" again"
Either something's cooking...
Or parliament member Austin Mitchell is making noise again about his apparent pet peeve.
"If you can digest this stuff you can solve the anthrax crime."
Indigestible for most but pablum for the likes of TGS.
His science was impeccable.
Many moons ago there was also a scienist that vigorously debated TGS on the subject, but he too disappeared.
On the whole, "microbiologists" seem to be short lived.
Larry Wayne Harris
All those debaters had so many screen names in so many fora. I doubt that anyone has disappeared. The name of the game is Whack-a-mole Redux.
I like that W H Auden quote yet...
"Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable."
Have at it...
mole Since Nov 7, 1998
Just kidding. I don't advocate shooting one's self in the foot :)
Was going to write exactly what you said. It's interesting to note that that these sales are often described as being approved by the U.S. Government, as to imply implicity on the part of the U.S. When, in actuality, these sales were aproved by the Center of Disease and Control, which oversees Agricultural/Health/etc related issues; the sale was never brought forth to the CIA/DoD. The sale was perfectly legal and common and could have been sold to any University/Research Center in the World.
I mean C'mon, there's no such thing as the "U.S. Government", but it's compounded from different agencies. This little detail is always left out.
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