makes me wonder who our government is arming now. friends of today enemies of tomorrow!
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020930/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_bioweapons_3
excerpt:
"
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( news - web sites) sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites)'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.
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 ( news - web sites).
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 ( news - web sites).
"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 ( news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va. Byrd entered the documents into the Congressional Record this month.
"
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020930/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_bioweapons_3
excerpt:
"
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( news - web sites) sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites)'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.
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 ( news - web sites).
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 ( news - web sites).
"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 ( news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va. Byrd entered the documents into the Congressional Record this month.
"
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