posted 01-26-2003 12:54 PM            

Posted: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 0:48 AEDT
IAEA to tell UN: no 'smoking gun' in Iraq

The United Nations's nuclear watchdog says it would tell the UN Security Council it has yet to prove that Iraq is secretly seeking atomic weapons.

Today International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed El Baradei and chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix will report on progress in their two-month-old hunt for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

"It (El Baradei's report) won't reveal any prohibited nuclear arms program," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

"If we were to find a smoking gun, we wouldn't wait for an update report.

"We'd go straight to the Security Council."

Ms Fleming says Mr El Baradei had hoped to report positive progress on private interviews with Iraqi scientists.

However, he would be unable to do so given the refusal of the scientists to submit to interviews without the presence of Iraqi officials.

Dr Blix, whose inspectors are checking for any banned chemical, biological and ballistic weapons, is expected to be more critical than Mr El Baradei.

Mr El Baradei and Dr Blix last briefed the council on January 9.

Ms Fleming says Mr El Baradei's report would contain new information on aluminium tubes imported by Iraq.

"It will also address allegations Iraq tried to import uranium and the issue of high explosives that could be useable in nuclear weapons," Ms Fleming said.

The United States and Britain have accused Iraq of trying to acquire uranium, saying the aluminium tubes might be used to enrich it.

The IAEA has said the tubes were unsuited to that purpose.

posted 01-27-2003 06:46 AM            

U.S. Supplied Germs to Iraq in '80s
Mon Sep 30, 2:31 PM ET

By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Iraq's bioweapons program that President Bush wants to eradicate got its start with help from Uncle Sam two decades ago, according to government records getting new scrutiny in light of the discussion of war against Iraq.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program, CDC and congressional records from the early 1990s show. Iraq had ordered the samples, claiming it needed them for legitimate medical research.

The CDC and a biological sample company, the American Type Culture Collection, sent strains of all the germs Iraq used to make weapons, including anthrax, the bacteria that make botulinum toxin and the germs that cause gas gangrene, the records show. Iraq also got samples of other deadly pathogens, including the West Nile virus.

The transfers came in the 1980s, when the United States supported Iraq in its war against Iran. They were detailed in a 1994 Senate Banking Committee report and a 1995 follow-up letter from the CDC to the Senate.

The exports were legal at the time and approved under a program administered by the Commerce Department.

"I don't think it would be accurate to say the United States government deliberately provided seed stocks to the Iraqis' biological weapons programs," said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. biological weapons inspector.

"But they did deliver samples that Iraq said had a legitimate public health purpose, which I think was naive to believe, even at the time."

The disclosures put the United States in the uncomfortable position of possibly having provided the key ingredients of the weapons America is considering waging war to destroy, said Sen. Robert Byrd , D-W.Va. Byrd entered the documents into the Congressional Record this month.

Byrd asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the germ transfers at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Byrd noted that Rumsfeld met Saddam in 1983, when Rumsfeld was President Reagan's Middle East envoy.

"Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?" Byrd asked Rumsfeld after reading parts of a Newsweek article on the transfers.

(RUMSFELD'S DENIAL)...LIE

"I have never heard anything like what you've read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt it," Rumsfeld said. He later said he would ask the Defense Department and other government agencies to search their records for evidence of the transfers.

Invoices included in the documents read like shopping lists for biological weapons programs. One 1986 shipment from the Virginia-based American Type Culture Collection included three strains of anthrax, six strains of the bacteria that make botulinum toxin and three strains of the bacteria that cause gas gangrene. Iraq later admitted to the United Nations that it had made weapons out of all three.

The company sent the bacteria to the University of Baghdad, which U.N. inspectors concluded had been used as a front to acquire samples for Iraq's biological weapons program.

The CDC, meanwhile, sent shipments of germs to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission and other agencies involved in Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. It sent samples in 1986 of botulinum toxin and botulinum toxiod — used to make vaccines against botulinum toxin — directly to the Iraqi chemical and biological weapons complex at al-Muthanna, the records show.

Botulinum toxin is the paralyzing poison that causes botulism. Having a vaccine to the toxin would be useful for anyone working with it, such as biological weapons researchers or soldiers who might be exposed to the deadly poison, Tucker said.

The CDC also sent samples of a strain of West Nile virus to an Iraqi microbiologist at a university in the southern city of Basra in 1985, the records show.

___

On the Net:

The documents are available at: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_cr/s092002.html

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov

ATCC: http://www.atcc.org

posted 01-27-2003 10:36 AM            

The US is considering using nuclear weapons to destroy Saddam Hussein's underground command posts and stop him using his own weapons of mass destruction, a military expert warned yesterday.

Former US Army intelligence analyst William Arkin - known for his Pentagon connections - said plans were being laid at the Strategic Command bunker in Nebraska, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

"Nuclear weapons have, since they were first created, been part of the arsenal of war planners," Mr Arkin wrote in The LA Times.

"But the Bush administration's decision to actively plan for possible pre-emptive use of such weapons represents a significant lowering of the nuclear threshold," he said.

In Canberra last night a spokesman for Prime Minister John Howard reiterated comments Mr Howard made last week to the British press:

"If I thought there were going to be nuclear weapons used I would not allow Australian forces to be involved."

Washington has already warned Baghdad that any resort to weapons of mass destruction might have the most severe consequences, a diplomatic phrase for a nuclear strike.

In December 2001, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed a classified nuclear posture review opening the way for nuclear weapons to be used against targets invulnerable to non-nuclear attack.

Nations such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria were listed as possible targets.

The review also called upon the military to develop plans to attack foreign weapons of mass destruction facilities, even if the enemy did not resort to them first, Mr Arkin wrote.

This work is currently under way at the Strategic Command, which Mr Arkin says has already prepared a "Theatre Nuclear Planning Document" for Iraq.

Earlier this month Mr Bush approved a request by Mr Rumsfeld to put Admiral James Ellis in charge of dealing with foreign weapons of mass destruction.

"On the surface, these new assignments give the command a broader set of tools to avoid nuclear escalation," wrote the expert. "In reality, they open the door to contemplating American use of nuclear weapons."

Defence Department spokesman Major Ted Wadsworth would only say: "That's something that policymakers have to talk about."

An administration official said: "The US reserves the right to act in defence of itself and its allies by whatever means necessary."

* SOUTH Korea has urged the UN nuclear watchdog to postpone a meeting on North Korean - asking for more time to allow diplomatic efforts to work.

The request came after Seoul announced it was sending two envoys, including a special advisor to the president, to Pyongyang for talks on the nuclear stand-off.

Earlier, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it would hold an emergency session on February 3 to decide whether to refer the matter to the Security Council.
http://dailytelegraph.com.au

posted 01-30-2003 09:51 PM            

"cut and paste waste"

LOL mind if I use that ?

posted 01-30-2003 09:52 PM            

Since when was criticizing war and the Government illegal in America?

Tis' my patriotic duty.

Remember? "My country tis' of thee....sweet
land of LIBERTY?

posted 01-30-2003 10:15 PM            

How droll.

I need to find some more artwork goodies.