[aristeides]

My theory is that it was requested as part of legitimate research (agricultural) and then diverted.

I think you mean to suggest that the diversion was without the knowledge of the U.S. government. I think it's much more likely that the U.S. government knew that such diversion was at least likely. Remember, the Iran-Iraq war was in progress at the time.

[mitchbert]

You may be entirely right, I don't know. I have no knowledge of the way U.S. export controls on this typw of stuff works or how far up the ladder an approval has to go. If they sent it on a promise to do ag resaerch only then it was naive at the least, unless there's some kind of treaty governing this sort of thing where I suppose someone might have just been really stupid. If there was a wink and a nod to bio-warfare then that's a different matter entirely. Time will tell I suppose.