The threat Saddam posed: a dictator and his WMD

FOR almost three years, the anti-war protesters have kept up the drumbeat: "Bush lied and people died." Because weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were not found in Iraq, an endless stream of commentators continues to declare that Saddam Hussein was not the serious threat the administration claimed him to be. The critics usually go even further, and assert that sanctions and the destruction of WMD facilities by U.N. investigators had done so much damage to WMD infrastructure that it would have taken Saddam years to rebuild it even to a minimal capacity.

But these claims ignore huge amounts of contrary evidence; and most of this evidence can be found in the final report of the Iraqi Survey Group (ISG)--the very same report that many critics hold up as proof positive that Iraq was not a WMD threat. The evidence found by the ISG (an investigative commission set up by the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq) confirms that Saddam was preparing to rapidly reconstitute his WMD program the moment he broke out of sanctions, which--given the frayed state of the coalition against him--would inevitably have happened. Not only did Bush not "lie"; the critics themselves are guilty of selectively citing evidence and of ignoring facts inconvenient to their argument. The ISG report, as well as the other evidence that continues to come to light, demonstrates that Saddam couldn't be trusted with the apparatus of a modern state, which he would have turned quickly back to producing WMD as soon as circumstances allowed.

Consider just one datum: According to the report, Saddam had the capability to start anthrax production within one week of making the decision to do so, and thereafter to produce over ten tons of weaponized anthrax a year. If even 1 percent of that amount--200 pounds--were released into the air over Washington, D.C., Congress's Office of Technology Assessment estimates that up to 3 million people would die.

How did Saddam keep such a massive capability from being discovered by the inspectors? Simply by hiding it in plain sight. For instance, at a facility called al-Hakam, Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azawi maintained a production line that produced ten tons of biopesticides for agricultural use each year. These biopesticides were produced in powder form and milled to 1 to 10 microns in size--but bio agents milled this finely are absolutely useless for agricultural purposes. Farmers found the biopesticide Dr. Rihab was sending them almost impossible to use, as it had to be handdropped one plant at a time or it would disappear. When they followed her recommendation to mix it with water and spray it, all they got was a thick slurry that clogged spray nozzles.

Though such finely milled powder may be useless for agricultural work, it is the perfect size for an inhalation bioweapon. (To be effective, anthrax must be milled at less then 10 microns.) Experts estimate that weaponized-anthrax spores that infect the skin will kill 50 percent of untreated patients; inhaled anthrax will kill 100 percent of untreated victims and 50 percent of those receiving immediate treatment. Simulations prior to Desert Storm estimated that an anthrax attack would kill over 25 percent of Coalition forces, as many as 200,000 men. In the hands of terrorists, this would be a weapon of incalculable value.

Dr. Rihab, the supposed agricultural scientist, is better known to U.S. intelligence agencies as "Dr. Germ," the head of Saddam's biological-warfare program for most of the decade immediately preceding the invasion. A 1999 Defense Intelligence Agency report called her the most dangerous woman in the world, and others have testified that she used political prisoners to test her bioweapons when she began to doubt she was getting accurate data from infected donkeys and dogs. When questioned by U.N. inspectors about al-Hakam, she claimed it was a chicken-feed plant. (Charles Duelfer, deputy executive chairman for the U.N. inspection team, later told reporters, "There were a few things that were peculiar about this animal-feed production plant, beginning with the extensive air defenses surrounding it.") According to the 1999 DIA report, the normally mild-mannered Rihab exploded into violent rages when questioned about al-Hakam, shouting, screaming, and, on one occasion, storming out of the room, before returning and smashing a chair.

In 1995, the U.N. inspectors showed Rihab documents obtained from the Israelis that demonstrated that Iraq had purchased ten tons of growth media from a British company called Oxoid. Shown this evidence, Rihab admitted to the inspectors that she had grown 19,000 liters of botulism toxin; 8,000 liters of anthrax; 2,000 liters of aflatoxins, which can cause liver cancer; clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that can cause gas gangrene; and ricin, a castor-bean derivative that can kill by impeding circulation. She also admitted conducting research into cholera, salmonella, foot-and-mouth disease, and camel pox. Neither the U.N. nor later inspectors were able to certify that all of this lethal cornucopia was ever destroyed.