Yeah, he has "at least" has 3.9 tons of VX. Fancy that.
I had an interesting experience about 3 weeks ago; I read "End Game" and "Germs" in tandem.
Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War
Judith Miller William J. Broad Stephen Engelberg
search.barnesandnoble.com
Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem - Once and for All
Scott Ritter
search.barnesandnoble.com;
Whatever Ritter's agenda is these days, the book is a good read in that it indicates what weapons systems Saddam held most dear. My impression was that he most highly valued his missile technology and his bioweapons programs. He also details the huge industry Saddam created just to hide his WMD programs. It also gives and interesting account of his security apparatus and how it ties in with tribal loyalties to help Saddam stay in power. Many of the WMD facilities were found within these "rings" of security around Tikrit and Baghdad.
The central chapters in "Germs," written by 3 NYT reporters, discuss the Soviet and Iraqi bioweapons programs in detail. The Soviet program was astonishing in it's vast industrial scale. These guys were cranking out "enhanced" anthrax by the ton; 24-7 in round the clock shifts. The descriptions of of the "open air testing" and production facilities were a vision straight from Hell. No Joke. They were doing all this for 20 years while denying the very existance of the program and being signatories to intl. treaties banning the stuff.
What Saddam was doing was creating a program that emulated the Soviet program, although not on the same scale or sophistication, still, the book states that Saddam had created enough bioweapons (botulinum, anthrax, etc. etc.) to kill the world at least once over. Like the Soviets, he denied it's very existence until the defection of Hussein Kamal in '95. This defection panicked the Iraqi's into admitting they had a bioweapons program and lead to the now infamous "chicken coop" disclosures that detailed the full scope of the program. What was interesting, was that before their disclosure the Iraqi's hid a huge bioweapons production plant "in plain sight," by rigging it up as a fertilizer factory. UNSCOM inspectors didn't know what they were looking at, even as they they were actually walking through the facility. "Germs" then goes on to describe how modern day medical technology has advanced to the degree that "off the shelf" machinery is now available, whose purchase would not raise a lot of red flags and could easily be used to create a very efficient bioweapons program. Imo, this technology is what Rumsfeld refered to recently when he mentioned "mobile" production facilities.
Saddam has been totally free from UNSCOM inspection oversight for almost 4 full years. IMO any one who thinks he ain't cranking out bioweapons as we speak is, well....
He's got the scientists. He's done it before. He's got the recipes, and imo he is constantly trying to perfect distribution methods. BTW the "chicken coop" docs revealed he had two working aerosol units suitable for fitting onto aircraft - these were never found.
While many may disagree on exactly what to do about Saddam, the whole world has agreed that bioweapons are "evil" and have signed internationally recognized treaties banning their production and use. |
