George Z. Bush wrote:
Keith Willshaw wrote:

"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
. ..

(Michael Petukhov) wrote:


First, there is the allegation that a biologist had a "collection of
reference strains" at his home, including "a vial of live C botulinum
Okra B from which a biological agent can be produced".

Botulinum type B could also be used for making an antidote to common
botulinum poisoning. That is one of the reasons why many military
laboratories around the world keep reference strains of C botulinum
Okra B. The UK keeps such substances, for example, and calls them :"seed
banks".

If these strains were intended to be used for legitimate use, why did
they hide them in this guy's home refrigerator? Also, he reportedly
told investigators that they tried to hide Anthrax at his home as well,
but that he convinced them to remove it due to the hazard posed, as
he had small children in the home (although it does seem strange to
me that he would be willing to keep the Botulinum). The Anthrax
involved was never accounted for by Iraq, AFAIK.


There's an interesting article the BBC published yesterday
about David Kay The man spearheading the US hunt for
banned weapons in Iraq. He said he is surprised attention
has focused on what his Iraq Survey Group has not found,
rather than on the things it has uncovered.

He says his Iraq Survey Group has uncovered evidence of
banned activities which the United Nations and pre-war
intelligence had not known about, including 24 clandestine
laboratories and four unreported missile programmes.

He also insisted his report last week to US Congress was interim.
"I know we're going to find remarkable things about Iraq's
weapons programmes," he said.


But, without the weapons that they're probably not going to find because they
don't exist, how badly could those programs have injured anybody? Is that going
to be the next empty rationale for assaulting a despicable government?


Well, the UN resolution didn't require Iraq to prove only that it
had no weapons at the time of the latest round of inspections. It
required Iraq to reveal any and all programs and to show that
they had been permanently abondoned. Since these programs were
never revealed and appear to be ongoing, we have simple proof that
Iraq was in violation of the UN resolution under which the U.S.,
Britain, Spain, et al, declared as their authority for action.

Also, in some cases there is still reason to believe that the weapons
existed up until at least just prior to the war. Kay reportedly has
received testimony that Iraq was still producing Scud fuel, which is
not used by any Iraqi equipment except Scuds (none that we know of,
anyway). As Kay asked in one interview, what do you need to produce
rocket fuel for if you don't have a rocket to use it in? While we
await confirmation or refutation of the testimony, we can't rule out
Scud missiles still being in the inventory 12 years after Iraq agreed
to destroy them under the ceasefire agreement.

Mike