Iraqi bio-scientist breaks silence

BBC ^ | February 9, 2003 | Jane Corbin

[Indy Pendance]

Dr Rihab Taha spoke exclusively to the BBC's Panorama

Iraq's leading biologist, dubbed "Dr Germ", has refused to meet UN weapons inspectors but did agree to talk to Panorama Reporter Jane Corbin.

In the forbidding building of the National Monitoring Directorate security men were waiting to escort me along a dim corridor.

A portrait of Saddam Hussein stood in one corner.

It was the first time the woman dubbed "Dr Germ" and even "toxic Taha" had ever agreed to be interviewed.

Dr Rihab Taha was head of Iraq's biological weapons programme for seven years, until 1995.

And she is top of the list of scientists the UN team want to interview.

I asked her if she was ashamed of her past work.

"No, not at all," came Taha's answer. "Iraq has been threatened by different enemies, and we are in an area which suffers from regional conflict. It is our right to defend ourselves."

Liver cancer

While she acknowledged research and development into biological agents, she insisted the regime never weaponised the bacteria it developed.

"We never intended to use it," she continued. "We never wanted to cause harm or damage to anybody."

But the facts are undeniable. Dr Taha's team grew 19,000 litres of botulinum toxin, a food poison that swells the tongue and suffocates its victim.

Two thousand litres of aflatoxin were produced, which causes liver cancer. And they also prepared gas gangrene, which causes skin to melt away.

UN weapons inspectors discovered munitions filled with these agents dumped in a river, proving they had indeed been weaponised.

Hiding weapons

Dr Taha studied plant toxins at the University of East Anglia, between 1980 and 1984.

She had been sent by the regime, like others, to gain the expertise which Saddam intended to harness for military purposes.

By 1991 she was responsible for three of the country's major bio facilities and was responsible for transportation, concealment and deployment of munitions.

She married General Amer Rashid who became the man in charge of liaising with UN inspectors after the Gulf War. He was later appointed Iraq's oil minister.

For years Dr Taha insisted her work at the al-Hakem laboratory was veterinary science for civilian purposes.

"She would become extremely emotional and cry to put us off the scent," one former inspector remembered.

Deadly poisons

When a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein defected in 1995, the UN learned the truth about what was going on at al-Hakem.

But they have been unable to account for 8,500 litres of anthrax and large quantities of growth medium to culture germs.

And there has been no definitive answer to the question of whether Iraq has developed viruses such as smallpox and haemorrhagic fever.

The inspectors want to talk to Dr Taha about small-scale biological production she is believed to have pioneered after the destruction of al-Hakem.

Intelligence sources believe small stocks of agents are held in laboratories hidden in lorries and trains.

An Iraqi defector recently told Panorama that he fitted out special "clean rooms" for biological weapons manufacture, describing filtration systems and confirming "everything is mobile now".

In the event of war, the labs could produce large stocks of agents to fill munitions.

These could be used against Western forces or even the Iraqi people if an uprising threatens the regime.

Missing anthrax

Dr Taha said she works as a consultant to the National Monitoring Directorate, carrying out administrative work and writing up old research projects.

She denied doing any work on pathogens now.

She did help the ministry compile the biological section of the Iraqi weapons declaration, intended to rebut US and British charges that Iraq is hiding forbidden weapons programmes.

Dr Taha rejects Hans Blix's assertions that there are gaps in the document, notably a failure to account for missing anthrax.

"We have been very transparent... It's just psychological propaganda to throw doubt on Iraq."

She was vague on why the UN and Iraqi accounts do not agree, saying that the inspectors calculation of the amount of anthrax they produced is unrealistic.

Threats

"Would you speak to the Inspectors privately?" I asked Dr Taha. "No I do not trust them. It is better to have witnesses," she replied.

I watched the Iraqi officials present at the meeting writing down her words. It was impossible to tell from her neutral tone what her true feelings were.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke of intelligence which indicated Iraqi scientists had been warned of serious consequences if they revealed any sensitive information.

And according to Mr Powell, a false death certificate was issued for one scientist while he was sent into hiding. Other experts have been placed under house arrest.

Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz shrugged off these accusations, insisting: "They are free people."

Rumour and fear

I knew Dr Taha had no choice but to repeat the denials. And I knew she had worked on terrible scenarios of mass murder in her laboratories.

But I felt a twinge of apprehension for her, whatever she had done.

There were rumours her estranged husband was in trouble for daring to argue with Saddam Hussein that Iraq should come clean with the UN.

A few days ago, I received a call. A Kurdish newspaper was reporting that Dr Taha had been murdered. The report alleged it was to stop her confessing what she knew to inspectors.

An Iraqi official denied this, calling the report "shameless propaganda".

In the murky pool of rumour, propaganda and fear that swirls around Baghdad, there is no way of knowing where Rihab Taha is now and what secrets she still protects.

[IncPen]

Ping

[SpaceBar]

This might be a good thread to start of list of amusing monikers for the women. Let me open with "The Princess of Pathogens".

[Dog]

That evil b!tch would kill us all if she could..

[Maigrey]

Damn. Damn. Damn.....

[Free ThinkerNY]

"Dr Germ." More like Dr. Death.

[CedarDave]

If she has been murdered, it may be one of many. As the end closes in on Saddam, he may be killing his scientists like you would destroy documents. He has his stocks of biological and chemical weapons which they made and has no more use for them -- they provide a link to his deception. I would be afraid for other scientists and their families, whether they talk to inspectors or not. It's a very scary scenario and another reason why we need to act soon.

[GVnana]

One of Iraq's more lovely serpents.

[tet68]

Mengele And Taha MD. LLC.

[Indy Pendance]

We all know the Soviets took their promising young people and made them study exculsively a particular field they excelled at. Sports, medicine, engineering, arts, etc. The had no choice. Why couldn't this same tactic be employed by the Iraqi regime? Isn't it possible, these scientists had to comply with the demands of the government, or risk death not only to them but to their families as well?

[RS_Rider]

How about Mrs. Yuck

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The country needs to be sanatized!

Bush Doctrine Unfolds :

To find all articles tagged or indexed using Bush Doctrine Unfold , click below:
	click here >>>	Bush Doctrine Unfold	<<< click here
(To view all FR Bump Lists, click here)

[VRWC_minion]

Saddam does what we cannot. Looks like there is some wisdom in Bush being patient prior to attacking.

[antivenom]

Same freaking death stare Hitlery has perfected....

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Pearls Before Swine]

As the end closes in on Saddam, he may be killing his scientists like you would destroy documents.

In her case, it would be a good thing. She enjoys this evil work entirely too much.

[honway]

http://209.157.64.200/focus/news/552346/posts

The country's biological weapons programme is believed to have started in 1974 at Salman Pak in the al-Hazan Ibn al-Hathem Institute, where Dr Taha arrived in 1980.

Five years later, Salman Pak was taken over by the Technical Research Centre and, in 1987, Dr Taha moved her team into the new al-Hakem facility at Salman Pak, where construction of facilities for production of anthrax began, among other agents.

At the time of the Gulf war, Iraq later acknowledged the large-scale production of anthrax spores and to have filled 50 bombs and five missile warheads with anthrax.

However, even in its "full, final and complete declaration" regarding its BW programme, submitted in September 1997, Baghdad continued to present the UN weapons inspectors with a false picture.

Iraq approached Porton Down in Britain for the Ames strain of the anthrax bacterium, said Dr Spertzel. "That [request] was fortunately denied," he said.

Iraq obtained much of its anthrax supply from the American Type Culture Collection. Between 1985 and 1989, it obtained at least 21 strains of anthrax from ATCC and about 15 other class III pathogens, the bacteria that pose an extreme risk to human health.

One strain had a British military pedigree and three of the other strains were listed as coming from the American military's biological warfare programme.

[spunkets]

"UN weapons inspectors discovered munitions filled with these agents dumped in a river"

One of their own rivers too. LOL! Are all the greens going to say something about this? Where's greenpeace?

[honway]

More information about Dr.Taha's work at Salman Pak

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/553598/posts

There is no question in my mind these anthrax attacks in Florida, New York and Washington involve international terrorists," said Richard Spertzel, the expert who headed the U.N. team that exposed Taha.

[honway]

SECRETS OF 'DR. GERM'
New York Post ^ | 10/22/01 | BILL HOFFMANN


Posted on 10/22/2001 2:49 AM CDT by kattracks


October 22, 2001 -- A cunning woman scientist who heads Saddam Hussein's bio-terrorism team may be the mastermind behind the world's anthrax scare, a leading American germ warfare expert says.
Rihab Taha, 45, is so notorious that United Nations weapons inspectors have nicknamed her "Dr. Germ" for deadly experiments she conducted.

"There is no question in my mind these anthrax attacks in Florida, New York and Washington involve international terrorists," said Richard Spertzel, the expert who headed the U.N. team that exposed Taha.

"And Iraq is the prime suspect as the supplier."

And Spertzel, now deputy director of a bio-weapons research plant at Fort Derek, Md., believes Taha could be the grande dame behind what's going on now.

The British-trained Taha gained a biology degree at the University of East Anglia after arriving in 1979 to study crop diseases.

But when she returned to Iraq, Taha led a team that made germs causing victims' eyes to bleed and produced a bacteria that gave babies a deadly diarrhea.

U.N. inspectors believe Taha, who has a 5-year- old daughter, tests her poisons on human guinea pigs.

In 1995, she admitted that a secret germ factory she set up near Baghdad had made thousands of gallons of anthrax and botulism - enough to kill millions.

Military officials in Washington recently identified Taha as "the leading official in charge of Iraq's biological weapons program."

She is also politically well-connected. Her husband is Iraqi oil minister Amir Rashid Ubaydi, who helps direct the country's relations with the U.N. weapons-inspection teams.

Dr. John Turner, who once taught Taha biology, told London's Sunday Mirror: "It's a great shock, like finding your daughter has gone and done something dreadful."

Saddam has already relocated his chemical weapons factories in anticipation of a possible bombardment by U.S. and British forces.

A senior Western intelligence official said there has been a "mass movement of weapons" to protected "no-go" areas in northern and western Iraq.

"The entire contents of their chemical weapons factories around Baghdad have been moved through the night to specially built bunkers," the official told the Sunday Telegraph.

Saddam's troops dug six 60-foot-deep holes to bury chemical and biological cargo arriving from the capital, he said.

Meanwhile, Iraqi factories that produce missiles and chemical weapons have been relocated to the areas of Baiji and al Safar in the northwest.

"These are heavily protected no-go areas with massive infrastructure. They have everything - bunkers, sophisticated communications systems and living quarters for the military and senior intelligence officers," a source said.

Over the years, Iraq has produced great quantities of liquid anthrax for deployment in missile warheads, U.N. inspectors say, and Iraqi agents are known to meet periodically with bin Laden operatives.

Investigators have been looking with renewed interest at two reported meetings last summer between Mohamed Atta, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 hijackings, and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague.