Posted on 02/09/2003 10:10:11 AM PST by knak
LONDON - A scientist believed to have played a leading role in Iraq's biological weapons program says in an interview published Sunday that her country was justified in producing germ weapons to defend itself.
Rihab Taha also says she helped compile the biological section of Iraq's recent weapons declaration and describes it as honest and transparent.
Taha was interviewed in Baghdad on Jan. 21 by British journalist Jane Corbin. Five officials and guards sat in on the meeting, which occurred at the office of the Iraqi agency that deals with U.N. weapons inspectors. Taha, who was educated in Britain, spoke in English.
Corbin interviewed Taha for a report scheduled to air on British Broadcasting Corp. television Sunday night. She also described the talk in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The BBC said it was unable to release an advance transcript or recording of the interview.
The inspectors are believed to be eager to speak to Taha, but she said she would not meet with them alone.
"I do not trust them from the last inspections," she is quoted as saying. "I think it is better for me and for them and for everybody to have witnesses because I think it is our right."
Taha is believed to have been a driving force behind Iraq's production of germ weapons in the 1980s and 1990s.
"We did produce biological agents" including anthrax and botulinum toxins, she was quoted as saying, insisting the weapons were intended for self-defense.
She said she no longer does such work but argued Iraq has a right to such weapons.
"Iraq has been threatened by different enemies and we are in an area that suffers from regional conflict," she reportedly said. "I think it is our right to have a capability to defend ourselves and to have something as a deterrent."
Iraq's most comprehensive attempt to rebut claims it has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons was a declaration to the United Nations in December. The United States and Britain dismissed the 12,000-page declaration as lies and a rehash of old information.
But Taha said the biological section, which she said she helped compile, was "very transparent, believe me, giving even tiny details."
Specifically she took issue with the inspectors' assertion that there is a discrepancy between the amount of anthrax Iraq produced and what it has accounted for.
"The inspectors' assessment of the amount of anthrax is based on a numerical calculation only - that the production facilities we had between 1988 and 1990 worked nonstop, day and night to produce such quantities," she was quoted as saying. "It's not a realistic calculation."
Inspectors who discount the regime's declaration "have bad intentions towards Iraq because they are under the rule and the influence of different countries and governments," she reportedly said.
Inspectors have been trying for weeks to speak privately with Iraqi scientists linked to the country's alleged weapons programs. The arms monitors believe the experts would be more forthright without an Iraqi official present.
Most scientists have refused to attend such meetings, but the fifth one in three days submitted to an interview with inspectors Saturday.
Pretty blatant statements.
Of course they didn't produce them, they are simply justified in doing so...
That's not the point. They were ALL supposed to be verifiably destroyed.
Are you kidding? Those sh*t-for-brains idiots will praise this as a sign of Iraq's new "openness" and say it proves the inspections are working and need to be continued for another 40 years.
“She said she no longer does such work but argued Iraq has a right to such weapons.”
She is talking as if Iraq is a sovereign nation. It is not. It is a conquered nation, and under the terms of the Gulf War cease fire (NOTE: cease fire, not treaty – officially the Gulf War is not over, only on hold) Iraq is not allowed to possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Note also: Iraq agreed to the terms of the cease fire, and it is up to Iraq to prove compliance, it is not up to the UN to prove noncompliance.
This is precisely the point. This point needs to be made over and over.
IL-4 gene enhanced smallpox .... For those who care enough to extinguish the human race.
This one is what scares the crap out of me.
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