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Foot and Mouth disease in Iraq



The foot and mouth disease continues to ravage cattle and other animals
in England and in other European nations. 
Sadly, the farmers can only watch helplessly as governemnts in England
and France are forced to call for more and more drastic culls.

Three years ago, the foot and mouth disease that crippled more than a
million sheep in Iraq was clearly imposed upon Iraq.  Here are some
reports from the International Action Center and CASI.

Any more information on this will be welcome. -- Sandeep

----------------
Biological Warfare Against Iraq: A Supplement
to Sanctions -- International Action Center

February 2, 1999

The United States is engaged in biological warfare in Iraq.
Hoof-and-Mouth
disease has either killed or crippled more than one million sheep and
cattle in Iraq in
the last seven weeks. The destruction of Iraq’s livestock will have a
catastrophic
impact on the protein intake of the Iraqi people who are already
malnourished from
eight years of economic sanctions.

Nearly all of Iraq’s eighteen provinces have been hit by outbreaks of
the viral
disease, according to United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO)
officials who were interviewed by Associated Press reporter Vijay Joshi.

The Hoof-and-Mouth outbreak was reported just seven weeks ago, according
to
the UN official. Since then 982,000 sheep and 50,000 cattle have been
infected.
More than 50,000 new-born lambs and calves have died. Unless the disease
is
quickly contained it may well become a full-blown epidemic that is
likely to infect
Iraq’s other seven million farm animals.

Did the United States cause this disease outbreak? The answer to this
question is
yes!

Did the CIA actually implant the virus into Iraq’s livestock herds? That
is still
unknown. But the UN weapons inspectors (UNSCOM), who were thoroughly
penetrated by the CIA, purposely destroyed Iraq’s vaccine laboratory in
1993.
This laboratory, located in Baghdad, had produced the vaccine that wiped
out
Hoof-and-Mouth disease in Iraq. 

This laboratory was so effective that it produced enough vaccine so that
Iraqi
farmers were able to vaccinate their animals three times a year, 50%
more than the
minimum requirement. Thus, Hoof-and-Mouth disease was completely
eradicated
in Iraq. The Iraqi-produced vaccine was manufactured in such large
quantities that it
was even exported throughout the Middle East. 

But this facility was destroyed in 1993 because the United States
insisted that the
facility could potentially be used to produce biological and chemical
weapons. If the
United States government did not insist on destroying this vaccine
facility there
would be no Hoof-and Mouth disease in Iraq. It is as simple as that.

Isn’t the destruction of this facility an act of biological warfare?
That
Hoof-and-Mouth disease would return, absent the vaccine, was entirely
predictable.

Iraq allowed this facility to be destroyed in 1993 for only one reason:
They were
promised that eventually sanctions would be lifted, that commerce would
begin
again, that oil sales would allow them to begin rebuilding their
industrial, scientific
and healthcare infrastructure.

Five years later, after 9,000 "weapons inspections," after Iraq has been
crippled
economically, the U.S. is still insisting that economic sanctions must
be maintained. 

Because the United States has not been able to overthrow the current
Iraqi
government and replace it with a Kuwaiti-style puppet regime, a new
strategy has
evolved in the recent months. New massive bombings like the Dec. 16-19,
1998,
raids in which more than 1,000 bombs and missiles were dropped have been
coupled with an intensified CIA covert operation - funded by Congress to
the tune
of $97 million.

This is the full-court press to destabilize and overthrow the current
government of
Iraq. The U.S. wants to act quickly because world public opinion is
turning against
the economic sanctions that have killed more than 1.7 million Iraqis
from hunger and
disease in the last eight years.

Is it possible that the United States government has actually introduced
the virus into
Iraq’s livestock? An independent investigation of this possibility needs
to be
urgently undertaken. It is certainly not out of the question given the
biological
warfare resources and strategic thinking current in the Pentagon.

"Biological warfare can include the use of bacteria, rickettsia,
viruses, and toxins to
induce illness or death in humans, animals, and plants," wrote United
States Air
Force Lt. Colonel Robert P. Kadlec, in a recent document for the Air
Force. 

Lt. Col. Kadlec cites Winston Churchill’s 1925 vision of the use of
Biological
Weapons when he wrote "pestilence’s methodically prepared and
deliberately
launched upon man and beast. Blight to destroy cattle,_ Anthrax to slay
horses and
cattle _"

This document, entitled "Biological Weapons for Waging Economic
Warfare,"
speaks of how biological weapons could affect the economies of targeted
Third
World countries. "Lesser developed or developing countries are in a much
more
precarious position. If the target commodity was a principal cash crop
or food
sources, using Biological Warfare weapons may inflict a grave blow to
that nation’s
economy or society and possibly result in some political impact. History
has
recorded the chaos and instability created by such natural catastrophes
as famines
and epidemics. Using Biological Weapons in this fashion would have
applications to
waging low intensity warfare with strategic outcomes," concluded this
recently
written document. This document couches the biological weapons scenarios
in the
language of "defense," but the U.S. has both an offensive and defensive
orientation
in the use of these weapons.

The U.S. has the largest stockpile of biological weapons in the world.
It has used
biological weapons against Cuba’s sugar in the twentieth century; the
same methods
were used in the war against Indian peoples in North America in the 19th
century.
Is it impossible that the U.S. war to destabilize Iraq would include the
introduction
of viral diseases among Iraq’s livestock? 

Even if the CIA didn’t implant this virus into Iraq’s farm animals,
Washington’s
strategic planners knew full well that Hoof-and-Mouth disease would
certainly
come back to haunt Iraq once its capacity to vaccinate its animals was
destroyed. 

 

------------
The epidemic of foot-and-mouth continues to ravage Iraqi livestock. The
Minister of Health claims that one million
sheep have been killed as a result. The FAO is concerned that the
epidemic may spread throughout the region and
risks undermining food security. The general manager of the veterinary
department in the Ministry charges that
Unscom has destroyed Iraq's ability to produce the vaccine required to
counter this epidemic [March 29, Arabic
News].

CASI Newsletter april 1999

-----------------
 A recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease reported by the Department
of Animal Health is
assumed to have affected approximately one million cattle and sheep and
is causing high mortality among
offspring. Iraqi allegations that the laboratory producing the vaccine
was forced to halt its activities when the
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) destroyed its equipment are
contested by the
Commission. FAO points out that even if sufficient vaccines could be
made available, which is unlikely,
trucks and cold storage units are also required to contain the spread of
the disease. Moreover, as indicated
by FAO, the provision of pesticides and herbicides through the programme
remains limited, at less than
10% of the needs. By contrast, in Northern Iraq the Security Council 986
programme had a more positive
impact, even if the free distribution of wheat flour has negatively
affected the local wheat growers by
depressing prices. 

March 2000 - The War Has Not Ended, CASI



-- --------
Sandeep Vaidya
http://www.pucl.org
-- 
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