another Times article

["Mark Parkinson" <mark44@DELETETHISmyrealbox.com>]

Another article - part of a concerted campaign to talk up the threat posed by Iraq.


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,7-204854,00.html

Times 2 - features



February 11, 2002

'Saddam Hussein had more chemical weapons than I could destroy' Given that by 1988, Iraq had achieved roughly the level of technical sophistication in chemical weapons that the major powers had attained in the 1940s, it was perhaps not surprising that Saddam Hussein next embarked on a biological weapons programme of a similar vintage. Like the British in the Tests began in March 1988 using rockets and bombs against live animals. These were successful, and biological agents duly began to be manufactured on a large scale. At Salman Pak, equipment acquired from German companies was used to produce anthrax. Iraq has also admitted to producing 190 litres

As with the Iraqi chemical weapons programme, Western Intelligence was slow to realise the scale of the threat posed. It was not until two months after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in October 1990, that the Pentagon was warned that the Iraqi biological weapons stockpile consisted of “at least on

On December 1, 1990, less than two months before the start of the Gulf War, Iraq began arming its biological weapons in preparation for the coming struggle. This arsenal, by Iraq’s subsequent admission, consisted of 166 aircraft bombs (50 loaded with anthrax, 100 with botulinum toxin and 16 with

The allied response was immediate, and betrayed the coalition’s rising anxiety. Four days after the Iraqi deployment, the US announced that it would begin vaccinating all its troops in Saudi Arabia. The following day, Britain followed suit. On January 9, James Baker, the US Secretary of State, me

Just as Hitler’s failure to use chemical weapons in the Second World War is to some extent a mystery, so we still cannot be sure why Saddam decided against using his chemical and biological arsenal in the Gulf conflict. Had Saddam authorised the use of biologically armed Scuds against Israel, the

The best guess must be that Saddam did, indeed, fear nuclear retaliation, either from the US, or — more likely — from Israel. But deterrence cuts both ways. The strategic analyst Avigdor Haselkorn has made a compelling argument that the real reason the US failed to pursue its advantage at the end

If this analysis is correct, then Saddam’s current determination to preserve his arsenal of poisons becomes much more understandable. Chemical and biological weapons may already have saved his regime twice — first in the 1980s, in his war against the numerically superior Iranians; secondly in the

Mark Parkinson Bodmin Cornwall
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