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Colin has circulated details of an article in the NY Times which draws on a paper by Milton Leitenberg, a 'biological weapons expert.' Leitenberg's paper is a digest of an UNSCOM report. ML is, in fact, an academic working in the field of international and strategic affairs. I point this out because he probably has no special understanding of microbiology. Both the NY Times and Leitenberg make an issue of Iraq's missing bacterial growth media. In ML's paper, these are listed these as casein, yeast extract and peptone. Leitenberg - and the casual reader - might believe these to be sinister elements of plague bacillus nutrition. They are actually components of simple growth media for laboratory strains of bacteria and yeast, and are presently on the shelves of every hospital and university in the UK. For this reason it would be no surprise if, as ML claims, Iraq 'has developed the capacity to produce its own culture media.' Our expert's paper is a big load of nothing. Incidentally, Leitenberg's colleague at the same institute and former UNSCOM inspector Raymond Zilinskas apparently told Le Figaro newspaper in February 1998 that the US sent pathogenic strains of anthrax to Iraq, probably in 1985-6. However, the delivery problem makes anthrax an unlikely weapon. It would be difficult to convert liquid lab cultures of anthrax to a particulate form which would survive in an exploding warhead. Even then, the spores might not reach a critical concentration near the ground. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full archive and list instructions are available from the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi