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Attack on Iraq could lead Saddam to unleash his chemical and biological weapons, warns Jane's report (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:15:40 -0500
From: Murray Kahl <kahl1@gate.net>
Reply-To: eretz-yisrael@shamash.org
To: Middle East discussion group & Zionist news releases
<eretz-yisrael@shamash.org>
Subject: Attack on Iraq could lead Saddam to unleash his chemical and
biological weapons, warns Jane's report


12 November 2002
Attack on Iraq could lead Saddam to unleash his chemical and biological
weapons, warns Jane's report

If the US and its allies wage war on Iraq, Saddam Hussein could order
chemical and biological weapons to be unleashed - potentially directly into
Western or allied cities. "Additionally, an invasion might actually
increase the likelihood of terrorist access to and acquisition of Iraq's
chemical and biological assets," argues a new report in the authoritative
Jane's Terrorism & Security Monitor magazine.

"During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam authorised commanders of his missile
forces to launch biological and chemical weapons at Israel if US-led
coalition forces had marched on Baghdad," states Andrew Oppenheimer, author
of the report. "Presumably, if the US were to invade Iraq to enforce a
change of regime, Saddam could give such apocalyptic orders again."

Although Saddam only has short-range missile delivery systems, the West
should not dismiss the other ways that these weapons can be deployed. The
report argues that Saddam could well decide to disseminate these weapons to
anti-West terror groups such as Al-Qaeda or alternatively have his own
followers deploy them.

"Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists
in conducting an attack using weapons of mass destruction against the US
would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of
victims with him," states the report. "While he is not likely to share his
weapons with anyone as long as he remains in power, it is less apparent,
however, whether this limit to proliferation would still apply under
conditions in which his regime was collapsing and his power was under threat."

Smallpox is increasingly regarded as a threat and the possibility that Iraq
has turned it into a weapon is causing Western analysts much concern. Iraqi
specialists are known to have been working with the camelpox virus, which
may be used for the development of such a smallpox virus. Iraq doesn't have
the technology to deploy smallpox in a missile but it is a lethal weapon
when dispersed into crowds, for example.

The report describes a worst-case scenario in which warehouses around the
US potentially already have such weapons deployed within them, ready for
dispersal in aerosol form via smokestacks or into water supplies. A
concerted attack on Iraq could result in Saddam revealing the location of
one such site to show that there is a real threat.

The West and its allies should be thankful that Iraq lacks any strong
motivation for a covert attack. "This is because there would be no glory or
gain for Iraq, and if Iraq was identified or suspected as the source of the
attack, there would undoubtedly be an overwhelming and devastating
counterattack that would eliminate the Iraqi leadership," states the
report. However, the allies should be very mindful of Saddam's political
and psychological predisposition to attack, should the Iraq situation
deteriorate.

Further reassurance might be gained from the lack of mass casualties when
potentially apocalyptic weaponry is deployed in real-life situations. If
they are to achieve mass casualties, chemical weapons and especially
biological weapons require resources and that are usually lacking in those
who wish to deploy them--including many Iraqi agents. When the Aum
Shinrikyo cult bombed the Tokyo underground with Sarin in 1995, less deaths
were caused than by the conventional explosion that rocked the USS Cole in
2000. "These facts support the argument that weapons of choice for
terrorists are, for now, truck bombs and other conventional tools that are
markedly less technically demanding, less resource-intensive, and less
dangerous for the perpetrators - suicide bombers aside," argues the report.


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