- Charles Duelfer is a guest scholar at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies and former deputy chairman of the U.N.
Special Commission on Iraq. This editorial appeared in the LA Times 4-22-1.
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- WASHINGTON -- Could the United
States be at war and not know it? The current outbreak of foot-and-mouth
disease in the United Kingdom makes one wonder. Not about Britain's plight
specifically: There's nothing to suggest that the epidemic there is an
act of war. But consider how quickly and easily it has spread. Then consider
a regime like Iraq's, which has demonstrated a commitment to developing
biological weapons. Might such a nation find it advantageous to strike
anonymously and biologically by spreading an economically devastating disease
or a slow-acting toxin?
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- This is not an abstract question. The Iraqi regime insists
that the economic sanctions imposed on it are nothing less than a genocidal
attack by the United States and the United Kingdom. The regime has said
it is still bravely fighting the Persian Gulf War, and that it will respond
to the plight of the Palestinians. It is easy to dismiss these statements
as pure bluster.
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- But let's remember that Iraq developed significant weapons
capabilities and has a track record of using them. Iraq acknowledged using
101,000 chemical munitions in its war with Iran. The regime employed chemical
weapons and possibly biological ones against Iraqi Kurds in the north.
Iraq acknowledges that it conducted extensive research and produced a range
of biological weapons and agents. Among the agents known to have been loaded
into warheads are aflatoxin, a fungal toxin that can cause liver cancer,
and wheat-cover smut, which destroys grain crops. Neither of these is a
traditional weapon. Neither causes immediate death or the incapacitation
of an enemy army. Their ultimate devastating effects are long term and
difficult to trace, which could make them particularly appealing to a rogue
nation wishing to avoid retaliation.
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- As a U.N. weapons inspector, I and others on the inspection
team sent to Baghdad tried repeatedly to get the regime to explain its
intentions for biological weapons. In September 1995, during a late night
meeting with Iraqi ministers and generals, the Iraqis provided me with
long explanations and a few presidential documents that raised more questions
than they answered. Our experts tried to determine the ultimate fate of
these programs, but were stonewalled. Still, we know that Iraqi researchers
considered combining agents in various ways to either enhance effects or
conceal intent. We know they looked into mixing tear gas with aflatoxin.
Iraq has not explained why it conducted such experiments.
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- However, if a regime wished to conceal a biological attack,
what better way than this? Victims would suffer the short-term effects
of inhaling tear gas and would assume that this was the totality of the
attack: Subsequent cancers would not be linked to the prior event. And
if a slow-developing disease can't be linked to the event that triggered
it, how can a country prevent such attacks? How can it respond?
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- Science may be able to address part of this problem.
Subtle differences in varieties of biological agents can be analyzed and
traced to certain regions. Other effects may have signatures that can be
observed in victims. Christine Gosden, a professor of medical genetics
at the University of Liverpool, has been conducting a program of research
and humanitarian assistance in the northern regions of Iraq, where the
population and environment may have been subjected to biological weapons,
in addition to chemical ones.
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- The long-term genetic, health and environmental effects
of these attacks are significant. Gosden's early work is beginning to suggest
that it may be possible to trace discernible genetic effects back to the
specific agents that caused them. The evidence suggests that Saddam Hussein's
army used more than simply nerve agent and mustard gas against the Kurds.
This kind of analysis could be invaluable in confirming and tracing chemical
and biological attacks.
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- But it still won't be easy. Let's suppose that Midwestern
farmers suddenly experience a damaging blight of wheat-cover smut. This
might be an attack from Mother Nature. But it might also be a more sinister
attack, one from Iraq or some other nation with a beef against the United
States, the last superpower. Today, it would not be easy to say which.
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