Bioscope '03
by Dr. Barbara Price

Let Us Not Forget.

          With all our concerns about an possible impending war with Iraq, and the demand for inspectors to find at least something a of smoking gun, let us not forget the information we did obtain during the UNSCCOM inspections. As we noted in ASA 02-4, UNSCOM inspectors reported to the UN that Iraq had researched, produced, and in many cases weaponized, bacteria, toxins and viruses. Among the BW agents: anthrax, botulinum toxin, Clostrium perfringens, ricin, wheat cover smut, aflatoxin, camelpox, rotavirus, and enterovirus (Infectious Hemorrhagic Conjunctivitis virus, Enterovirus 70). Numerous publications have listed Iraq's BW research and weapons. http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/s99-94.htm and http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v278n5/fpdf/jsc7087.pdf are very good examples.
          Aflatoxin and wheat smut were tried together, both evaluated for long-term health effects and economic damage by infecting crops. The Iraqis used aflatoxin in bombs and could well have used the aflatoxin or mixture of tricothecenes as a simulant for toxins with a more immediate effect, such as T2 tricothecene, which they did produce and test on animals. Clostrium perfringens (strain obtained from the US in 1985) produces gas gangrene in wounds and the Iraqis studied how to include this in fragmentation bombs. Ricin, easily obtained from castor beans, was in artillery shells.
          The Iraqis have a castor oil extraction plant that they say is extracting the oil for use in brake fluid. Perhaps the Iraqi's were thinking it was a Castrol plant; castor oil is the major ingredient in Castrol's racing oil, but it is not an ingredient in brake fluid. At least in the West, castor oil was phased out of most brake fluids by 1942. Castor oil does have many applications, but at least for brake fluids, it is used mostly for "classic" automobiles and racing cars.
           There are many examples in which Iraq lied or changed its story many times trying to justify what inspectors found. The net result is that the world has developed a distrust of Iraq. This is compounded with an aversion to the weapons that Iraq has used on its own citizens and Iran since the 1980s. Fragmentation bombs do NOT need Clostrium perfringens to be effective. Liver cancer should NOT be a purposeful result of tactical weapons.
          Does this warrant a war with Iraq? Not necessarily, but remember the world has known about Iraq's CW and BW since the 1980s. Who are the closest targets? How is a defeated country in charge of how it is disarmed? Are we all hostages to Saddam Hussein?