http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-373053,00.html Whitehall dossier says Saddam plans biological weapons for Palestinians by michael evans, defence editor SADDAM HUSSEIN is suspected of planning to arm a Palestinian terrorist group with biological weapons to attack either American or Israeli targets. A Whitehall dossier containing a detailed assessment of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programme, which has been circulated to the Prime Minister and other senior Cabinet ministers, is understood to focus on Iraq’s biological weapons capability. Details of the dossier came to light as the United Nations rejected a new offer from the Iraqi leader. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, said that an Iraqi letter calling for a further round of technical talks with Hans Blix, the head weapons inspector, set conditions “at variance” with the demands of the United Nations Security Council. Using mobile laboratories for their research, the team of scientists working for Saddam are believed to be developing a range of biological agents that can be “delivered” by an aerosol system. The latest assessment in Washington and London is that Saddam’s plan is to produce a basic weapon that can be used by a terrorist group to attack the Iraqi leader’s enemies, the United States and Israel. In the same way that Iran has funded and trained terrorist groups to carry out attacks from Lebanon against Israel, Saddam, according to the assessment, could be banking on recruiting a Palestinian terrorist group to act on his behalf. Analysis of US satellite imagery over the past four years has provided sufficient evidence to show what Saddam has been doing since the expulsion of the United Nations weapons inspectors in December 1998. While the Iraqi leader has pursued all elements of his weapons of mass destruction programme, he has made greatest progress in trying to “weaponise” his biological systems, using the mobile research laboratories to try to deceive America’s spy satellites. The Iraqi leader knows from experience that it is far more difficult to hide work on nuclear weapons because of the substantial infrastructure required. Saddam’s attempts to develop long-range ballistic missiles, capable of reaching America, have also been carefully monitored from space and there is no sign that he has succeeded beyond trying to modify old Russian Scud missiles. In assessing the threat posed by Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction programme, the emphasis has, therefore, been on his biological warfare projects, which pose as great a threat as nuclear devices and can be developed relatively easily away from the sensors of America’s spy satellites. The Palestinian connection is now at the heart of intelligence thinking. Despite the belief in some quarters in America that a senior officer in Saddam’s intelligence service met an al-Qaeda terrorist in Prague last year, before September 11, this is given no credence by the CIA, the FBI or by British Intelligence. Saddam has funded Palestinian extremist groups for many years, and the assessment now is that, with the Middle East in turmoil, the Iraqi leader may see that the best way of taking revenge against the US and Israel is by using a Palestinian organisation as his proxy terrorists. ____________________________________________________ I'm strongly against waiting much longer to have this guy removed...he is not the only terrorist-supporter in the world...but he does seem to have better resources than most of the others...I'd rather see him gone BEFORE we find out he armed some jackass to bring eboloa or smallpox to the States. Also..please keep in mind this is not the current administration talking about Saddam's capabilities in this article...this is the British who have learned this...so can we avoid the frequent, "oh, this is just the administration making this up to justify attack so they can get higher approval ratings" claims we've heard earlier?
Eh? It would seem kind of bizarre of the Palestinians to use bio-weapons. Not exactly easy to target Israelis in such narrow confines with such an indiscriminate weapon. Very little danger of that, for now at least. Such technology is beyond the grasp of much more advanced powers than Iraq. And even, say, China doesn't have stunningly accurate weapons that fire that range, if memory serves.
Haven, I know your political bias forces you to dismiss these realities, but come on.... One motivated 19 year old Arab laden with C-4 and cannisters of nerve agents would TERRORIZE Tel Aviv and endanger generations of Israelis with horrible lingering effects. The idea that Palestinians in possession of biological and chemicals weapons is not a threat is ludicrous.
Haven, Why are Israel and the US pushing hard on smallpox vaccine production if it wasn't a valid concern? <A HREF="http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/a020530.htm">CDC Media Advisory</A> <A HREF="http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=194116&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0">'Almost enough smallpox vaccine to go round' </A> <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A49456-2002May7">Studies Cite Smallpox Vaccine Tradeoff Mass Inoculation Might Kill Hundreds, Save Thousands</A> <i> A mass campaign to vaccinate Americans against smallpox might result in 200 to 300 deaths and make several thousand people severely ill -- yet could save thousands of lives in the event of a bioterrorist attack with the virus, according to research presented yesterday at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Baltimore. The new estimates came from studies led by pediatricians Alex R. Kemper and Matthew M. Davis of the University of Michigan, who said they hoped their analyses would contribute to an unfolding national debate about whether Americans should be offered a vaccine likely to kill some recipients in the cause of protecting the nation from a possible bioterrorist attack. "There's no other vaccine that we currently give that carries with it a risk of death," said Kemper. "From a societal standpoint, we have to decide whether or not we're willing to take this risk." Infectious disease experts will gather in Atlanta today and Thursday to begin drafting recommendations about who, if anyone, should get the vaccine. Public discussions scheduled for Washington and several other cities this summer will focus on whether emergency room personnel and other medical and public health workers should be vaccinated, as well as on the larger question of whether the vaccine should be made available on a voluntary basis to all Americans. Not everyone is a candidate for smallpox vaccination. People whose immune systems are weakened -- by HIV, cancer, treatment with certain drugs or various other conditions -- cannot safely take the vaccine. Neither can pregnant women, children under 1 year old, or anyone prone to eczema, a skin condition that affects 10 percent of Americans. Those who live with anyone in a high-risk group are also excluded because vaccine recipients can pass vaccinia, the virus in the vaccine, to close contacts. For all of those reasons, Kemper estimated that 25 percent of the U.S. population would be ineligible. The vaccine's most serious potential side effects are encephalitis (brain inflammation) and progressive vaccinia, in which the sore produced by the vaccine spreads without healing. Either can be fatal. People with eczema who are vaccinated may develop eczema vaccinatum, a life-threatening skin rash. Based on historical data, Kemper estimated that a campaign to vaccinate U.S. residents between the ages of 1 and 29 would cause 175 cases of encephalitis, 420 cases of progressive vaccinia and 1,200 cases of eczema vaccinatum, with a total of 190 deaths. If the campaign included people between the ages of 1 and 65, there would be an estimated 505 cases of encephalitis, 845 cases of progressive vaccinia and 3,525 cases of eczema vaccinatum, with 285 deaths. In either scenario, thousands of other people would suffer less severe but still significant side effects. A vaccination campaign would nonetheless be likely to save many lives if smallpox virus were used in a terrorist attack, according to Davis, who also presented his findings yesterday. The government's current plan for containing an outbreak is a strategy called "ring vaccination," in which people with suspected smallpox and their contacts would be traced, vaccinated and isolated from the surrounding population. Vaccinating a person even two or three days after exposure to smallpox offers considerable protection against the disease. Davis and colleagues used a mathematical model to compare the effectiveness of ring vaccination after an outbreak with the effectiveness of a preventive mass vaccination campaign targeting people between 1 and 29 years old. If 50 percent of that age group had been previously vaccinated, the number of U.S. deaths predicted from an outbreak that began with 100 infected people would be 358, including vaccine-related deaths. A similar outbreak would be predicted to cause 2,160 deaths if only ring vaccination were used. In a larger outbreak, or one that began in several places at once, the lifesaving effect of preventive vaccination would be even greater. Davis said that vaccinating children and young adults would help protect older people as well by greatly reducing transmission during an outbreak, because smallpox depends so heavily on person-to-person transmission. But for a mass vaccination campaign to succeed, Americans would have to accept "some numbers of deaths and several thousand illnesses," Davis noted. "Today's U.S. population is not accustomed to that level of side effects and deaths from a vaccine." Routine vaccination against smallpox ceased in the United States in 1972, and experts estimate that most or all of the population is vulnerable to infection with the virus, which is highly contagious and carries a 30 percent mortality rate. Although the remaining known stocks of smallpox virus are kept in two high-security laboratories in the United States and Russia, many experts fear that terrorists might gain access to samples of the virus. In Atlanta, consultants to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will begin drafting proposals for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which will issue proposed recommendations on smallpox vaccination in June. The first of about a half-dozen public forums is scheduled here on June 25. </i>
It's time to take out Saddam, either by military force or covert operation. Once that happens maybe we can turn our focus to brokering some kind of peace over there.
"hm... Now the whole world is against terrorism, being a world buster myself, why don't I give out bio weapons to some terrorists and kill more Jews? The more the world hates me, the more reasons for the USA and British to start a war against my people. That'll be great 'cuz the economy is in deep doo doo and I can do sh*t about it. A war certainly would make people forget about bread and money when they see their sons get killed. Pretty good shift of attention.I haven't done jack in the last few years in office too. Pretty good tactic to make me look like a national hero defending the country. Yep, that's the way to go. As to the Yankee's air attack, I'll just hide in my underground palace and watch some belly dance to kill the time, ground warfare? Damn now I have only 40% of the army I had before, and they are poorly equipped against the Yankees army, if they send ground troops... nah, the Yankees are too chicken for that. No worry, I'll be fine. The first step of all this is arming the Palestinians with bio-weapons. Yep, that's the way to go. Da*n am I not a f**king genius or what. YeeeeeHaaaaawwwww...!!!" - random thoughts of Saddam Hussein on crack.
