THE AMBASSADORS
Special Peace Issue
THE AMBASSADORS
Special Peace Issue
OPINION
Volume 2,
Issue 2
April 1999
Did the United States cause this disease outbreak?
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.
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.
"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?
