View Single Post
Old 04-19-2005, 05:40 AM   #33 (permalink)
host
Banned
 
No response, so far, to the question of when it would be appropriate to infer that previous US executive administrations were complicit conspirators who turned a blind eye to Saddam's military deployment of chemical and biological weapons, continuing to offer material support, technical and military support, and maintained full diplomatic relations with his regime even after knowing that he "gassed his own people"?

(I guess the "N word" and the Ann Coulter threads are just too compelling today. Ole host just won't stop blathering about hypocrisy and the waging of illegal war of aggression..........)
Quote:
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp-list_x.htm">http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp-list_x.htm</a>
9/30/2002 - Updated 02:31 PM ET
A look at U.S. shipments of pathogens to Iraq

Shipments from the United States to Iraq of the kinds of pathogens later used in Iraq's biological weapons programs, according to records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Senate Banking Committee and U.N. weapons inspectors:

ANTHRAX

Iraq admitted making 2,200 gallons of anthrax spores and putting some of them into weapons. U.N. inspectors said Iraq could have made three times as much anthrax as it acknowledged, and could not verify Iraq's claims to have destroyed all of its weaponized anthrax.

The American Type Culture Collection, a biological samples repository in Manassas, Va., sent two shipments of anthrax to Iraq in the 1980s. Three anthrax strains were in a May 1986 shipment sent to the University of Baghdad, which U.N. inspectors later linked to Iraq's biological weapons program. A 1988 shipment from ATCC to Iraq also included four anthrax strains.

BOTULINUM

Iraq admitted making 5,300 gallons of botulinum toxin, a deadly poison produced by the Clostridium botulinum bacteria, and putting some of it into weapons. Five warheads filled with botulinum toxin are missing.

ATCC sent six strains of Clostridium botulinum to the University of Baghdad in the May 1986 shipment. The September 1988 ATCC shipment to Iraq also contained one strain of Clostridium botulinum.

In March 1986, the CDC sent samples of botulinum toxin and botulinum toxiod (used to make a vaccine against botulinum poisoning) directly to Iraq's al-Muthanna complex, a center for Iraq's chemical weapons program and the site where Iraq restarted its dormant biological weapons program in 1985.

GAS GANGRENE

U.N. inspectors concluded Iraq could have produced hundreds of gallons of the germs that cause gas gangrene, though Iraq admitted producing just a fraction of that amount. Gas gangrene, caused by the Clostridium perfringens bacteria, causes toxic gases to form inside the body, killing tissues and causing internal bleeding, lung and liver damage.

ATCC sent three strains of Clostridium perfringens to the University of Baghdad in the May 1986 shipment and another three strains in the 1988 shipment.

OTHER

The CDC sent bacteria samples to Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission in 1985, 1987 and 1988. The commission was involved in Saddam's attempts to build a nuclear bomb and other weapons of mass destruction.

The CDC also sent bacteria samples to the Sera and Vaccine Institute in Amiriyah, Iraq in 1988. The institute stored samples and did genetic engineering research for Iraq's biological weapons programs, U.N. inspectors found.
Quote:
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp_x.htm">http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp_x.htm</a>
09/30/2002 - Updated 02:33 PM ET
Report: U.S. supplied the kinds of germs Iraq later used for biological weapons

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. (Related story: A look at U.S. shipments of pathogens to Iraq)

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.

"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................
Minimum of 17,300 Iraqi civilians dead, 1550 American troops dead, many more Iraqi and American military with serious wounds, and many of you would vote for more of these inane and contradictroy policies, in a heartbeat......

What do you know about the administration and it's policies that you support?
host is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360