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Concept
Iraqi biological weapons program
Summary
Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) began an extensive biological weapons (BW) program in Iraq in the early 1980s, despite having signed (but not ratified until 1991) the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972. Details of the BW program and a chemical weapons program surfaced after the Gulf War (1990–91) during the disarmament of Iraq under the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). By the end of the war, program scientists had investigated the BW potential of five bacterial strains, one fungal strain, five types of virus, and four toxins. Of these, three—anthrax, botulinum and aflatoxin—had proceeded to weaponization for deployment. Because of the UN disarmament program that followed the war, more is known today about the once-secret bioweapons program in Iraq than that of any other nation.
The program no longer existed when the George W. Bush administration cited it as justification for its 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent Iraq War.
In the early 1980s, five German firms supplied equipment to manufacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin to Iraq. Iraq's State Establishment for Pesticide Production (SEPP) also ordered culture media and incubators from Germany's Water Engineering Trading. Strains of dual-use biological material from France also helped advance Iraq's biological warfare program. From the United States, the non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control sold or sent biological samples to Iraq up until 1989, which Iraq claimed to need for medical research. These materials included anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism, as well as Brucella melitensis, and Clostridium perfringens. Some of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program, while others were used for vaccine development. In delivering these materials "The CDC was abiding by World Health Organization guidelines that encouraged the free exchange of biological samples among medical researchers..." according to Thomas Monath, CDC lab director.
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