Posted on 03/18/2003 7:06:49 AM PST by HighRoadToChina
...a redundant tautology, and true!
I agree, most of the stuff was funneled through the University of Baghdad and the Iraqi Ministry of Health.
Iraq acknowledged that it procured, through the Technical and Scientific Materials Import Division (TSMID),very large quantities of complex growth media in 1988 but failed to provide an accounting for the purposes of this importation and for the use of a significant portion of it. Iraq claimed that, while the media was imported by TSMID, the import was on behalf of the Ministry of Health for the purposes of hospital diagnostic laboratories. This importation of media by types, quantities and packaging is grossly out of proportion to Iraq‘s stated requirements for hospital use. Iraq explained the excessive quantities imported and the inappropriate size of the packaging as being a one-of-a-kind mistake and attempted to justify the import as appropriate and required for medical diagnostic purposes. However, for hospital diagnostic purposes, only small quantities are needed. According to Iraq‘s declarations, which were imprecise and changing, over the period 1987-1994 Iraq‘s total hospital consumption of all such media was less than 200 kg per annum. But in 1988 alone, TSMID imported nearly 39,000 kg of such media, which has a manufacturer‘s guarantee of 4 to 5 years. A further incongruity was that, of all the types of media required for hospital use, only a select few were "mistakenly" imported by TSMID in large quantities. These did not include those most frequently used in hospitals. Furthermore, the packaging of TSMID imports was inconsistent with declared hospital usage: diagnostic assays use very small quantities of media and so, because the media deteriorates rapidly once a package has been opened, media for diagnostic purposes is normally distributed in 0.1-1 kg packages. However, the media imported by Iraq in 1988 was packaged in 25-100 kg drums. This style of packaging is consistent with the large-scale usage of media associated with the production of biological agents. The types of media imported are suitable for the production of anthrax and botulinum, known biological warfare agents researched by Iraq in its declared biological military program. [S/1995/284]
Iraq acknowledged the purchase by TSMID in 1989 of four filling machines, ostensibly for a biopesticide project at the Salman Pak site. Until this acknowledgement, Iraq, while declaring Salman Pak to be the site of its biological military research programme, had not declared any biopesticide activity there. Filling machines, while having many uses, are required for filling bacterial warfare agent into munitions or containers. TSMID procured a spray dryer in 1989. Again, it was claimed that this was for the above-mentioned biopesticide project at Salman Pak. This spray dryer has technical specifications which provide a capability of drying the bacterial slurry resulting from the fermentation process to produce dry matter with particle sizes in the range of 1 to 10 m. This particle size is associated with efficient dispersion of biological warfare agents, not with the production of biopesticides. Furthermore, dry bacterial matter is easier to store for longer periods. Such spray dryers, therefore, would be a crucial component in acquiring an indigenous capability to produce viable and durable biological weapons. TSMID attempted to order various named and virulent anthrax strains, known to be particularly appropriate for biological warfare purposes. Iraq flatly denied this, despite confirmation to the Commission by the potential supplier. [S/1995/284]
After intensive inspection efforts and accumulation of further findings by UNSCOM, on 01 July 1995, Iraq finally admitted for the first time that it indeed had had an offensive biological weapons program from April 1986 to September 1990. While acknowledging an offensive program that included the production of large quantities of two warfare agents at the Al Hakam facility, Iraq nevertheless firmly denied weaponization of these or any other biological warfare agents.
The weaponization and the broader scope of the biological warfare programme was disclosed only in August 1995, after the departure from Iraq of Lieutenant-General Hussein Kamel, former Minister of Defence and Minister Supervisor of the Military Industrialization Corporation. [S/1996/848] On 17 August 1995 Iraq informed UNSCOM that the full, final and complete disclosure of 04 August should not be considered valid. Iraq then presented a vastly different account of Iraq‘s past biological warfare program that included weaponization, additional agents and additional sites involved in the program. [S/1995/864]
Unfortunately their invincible ignorance cannot be overcome.
That's absolutely right.
I'm bookmaking this thread.
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