Growth of biological agents Although Taha told her fellow students at Norwich that she wanted to return to Iraq to teach biology, she went instead to work for Iraq's germ warfare program. In 1985, she worked in the
al-Muthanna chemical plant near
Baghdad, and later became chief production officer in
al-Hakam (also spelled
al-Hakum), Iraq's top-secret biological-warfare facility at the time. During several visits to Iraq by
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), set up after the 1990 invasion of
Kuwait to inspect Iraqi weapons facilities, weapons inspectors were told by Taha that al-Hakam was a chicken-feed plant. "There were a few things that were peculiar about this animal-feed production plant," Charles Duelfer, UNSCOM's deputy executive chairman, later told reporters, "beginning with the extensive air defenses surrounding it." According to the 1999 DIA report, the normally mild-mannered Taha exploded into violent rages when questioned about al-Hakam, shouting, screaming and, storming out of the room, before returning and smashing a chair. However, in 1995, UNSCOM's principal weapons inspector Rod Barton from Australia showed Taha documents obtained by UNSCOM from the Israeli government that showed the Iraqi regime had just purchased 10 tons of growth media from a British company called Oxoid. Growth media is a mixture of sugar, proteins and minerals that allows microscopic life to grow; it is used in hospitals, where swabs from patients are placed in dishes containing growth media for diagnostic purposes. Iraq's hospital consumption of growth media was just 200 kg a year, yet in 1988, Iraq imported 39 tons of it. Shown this evidence by UNSCOM, Taha admitted to the inspectors that her biological weapons agency had grown 19,000 litres of
botulism toxin; 8,000 litres of
anthrax; 2,000 litres of
aflatoxins, which can cause liver cancer;
Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that can cause gas
gangrene; and
ricin, a castor bean derivative which can kill by inhibiting protein synthesis. She also admitted conducting research into
cholera,
salmonella,
foot and mouth disease, and camel pox, a disease that uses the same growth techniques as
smallpox, but is safer for researchers to work with. It was because of the discovery of Taha's work with camel pox that the U.S. and British intelligence services feared Saddam Hussein may have been planning to weaponize the smallpox virus. Iraq had a smallpox outbreak in the 1970s and UNSCOM scientists believe the government would have retained contaminated material.
Weaponisation of biological agents UNSCOM learned that, In August 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Taha's team was ordered to set up a program to weaponize the biological agents. By January 1991, a team of 100 scientists and support staff had filled 157 bombs and 16 missile warheads with
botulin toxin, and 50 bombs and five missile warheads with anthrax. In an interview with the BBC, Taha denied the Iraqi government had weaponized the bacteria. "We never intended to use it," she told journalist Jane Corbin of the BBC's
Panorama program. "We never wanted to cause harm or damage to anybody."
Suspected experimentation on human beings The inspectors feared that Taha's team had experimented on human beings. During one inspection, they discovered two primate-sized inhalation chambers, one measuring 5 cubic metres, though there was no evidence the Iraqis had used large primates in their experiments. According to former weapons inspector
Scott Ritter in his 1999 book
Endgame: Solving the Iraq Crisis, UNSCOM learned that, between 1 July and 15 August 1995, 50 prisoners from the
Abu Ghraib prison were transferred to a military post in al-Haditha, in the northwest of Iraq, (Ritter, 1999). Iraqi opposition groups say that scientists sprayed the prisoners with anthrax, though no evidence was produced to support these allegations. During one experiment, the inspectors were told, 12 prisoners were tied to posts while shells loaded with anthrax were blown up nearby. Ritter's team demanded to see documents from Abu Ghraib prison showing a prisoner count. Ritter writes that they discovered the records for July and August 1995 were missing. Asked to explain the missing documents, the Iraqi government charged that Ritter was working for the
CIA and refused to co-operate further with UNSCOM.
Statements to press In an interview broadcast in February 2003, Taha said Iraq was justified in producing germ weapons in the 1980s and 1990s to defend itself. She told the British Broadcasting Corp. she was involved in producing Iraq's final weapons declaration to the United Nations. She said Saddam's regime was telling the truth when it said it no longer had any chemical or biological weapons. Taha told the BBC her country never planned to use the biological agents it produced in the 1980s and early 1990s. "We never wanted to cause harm or damage to anybody," she said. "Iraq has been threatened by different enemies and we are in an area that suffers from regional conflict. I think it is our right to have something to defend ourselves and to have something as a deterrent." ==Taha and Kenneth Bigley==