[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 124 (Thursday, September 26, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9399-S9401]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, amidst the wall-to-wall reporting on Iraq 
that has become daily grist for the Nation's news media, a headline in 
this morning's USA Today leaped out from the front page: ``In Iraq's 
arsenal, Nature's deadliest poison.''
  The article describes the horrors of botulinum toxin, a potential 
weapon in Iraq's biological warfare arsenal. According to the Journal 
of the American Medical Association, botulinum toxin is the most 
poisonous substance known. We know that Saddam Hussein produced 
thousands of litres of botulinum toxin in the run up to the Gulf war. 
We also know where some of the toxin came from. Guess. The United 
States, which approved shipments of botulinum toxin from a nonprofit 
scientific specimen repository to the government of Iraq in l986 and 
l988.
  I recently asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about these 
shipments during an Armed Services Committee hearing a week ago. I 
repeat today what I said to him then: In the event of a war with Iraq, 
might the United States be facing the possibility of reaping what it 
has sown?
  The threat of chemical and biological warfare is one of the most 
terrifying prospects of a war with Iraq, and it is one that should give 
us serious pause before we embark on a course of action that might lead 
to an all-out, no-holds-barred conflict.
  Earlier this week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair released an 
assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program which 
contained the jolting conclusion that Iraq could launch chemical or 
biological warheads within 45 minutes of getting the green light from 
Saddam Hussein.
  The British government assessment, while putting Iraq's chemical and 
biological capabilities in starker terms than perhaps we have seen 
before, closely tracks with what U.S. officials have been warning for 
some time: namely, Saddam Hussein has the means and the know-how to 
wage biological and chemical warfare, and he has demonstrated his 
willingness to use such weapons. By the grace of God, he apparently has 
not yet achieved nuclear capability.
  On the matter of biological warfare, Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services 
Committee last week that many improvements have been made to the 
protective gear worn by American soldiers and to the sensors used to 
detect chemical or biological agents.
  But according to the USA Today article on botulinum toxin, U.S. 
troops would be just as vulnerable to botulinum toxin today as they 
were during the Gulf war.
  This is what the article states:

       There's still no government-approved vaccine, and the only 
     antitoxin is made by extracting antibodies from the blood of 
     vaccinated horses using decades-old technology.

  Last year's anthrax attack on the U.S. Senate gave all of us in this 
Chamber firsthand experience with biological warfare and new insight 
into the insidious nature of biological weapons. And that attack--hear 
me now--involved only about a teaspoon or so of anthrax sealed in an 
envelope. The potential consequences of a massive bioweapons attack 
against American soldiers on the battlefield boggle the imagination.
  My concerns over biological warfare were heightened last week when I 
came across a report in Newsweek that the U.S. Government had cleared 
numerous shipments of viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa to the 
Government of Iraq in the mid-1980s, at a time when the U.S. was 
cultivating Saddam Hussein as an ally against Iran. The shipments 
included anthrax and botulinum toxin.
  Moreover, during the same time period, the Centers for Disease 
Control, CDC, was also shipping deadly toxins to Iraq, including vials 
of West Nile fever virus and Dengue fever.
  This is not mere speculation. I have the letters from the CDC and the 
American Type Culture Collection laying out the dates of shipments, to 
whom they were sent, and what they

[[Page S9400]]

included. This list is extensive and scary anthrax, botulinin toxin, 
and gas gangrene to name just a few. There were dozens and dozens of 
these pathogens shipped to various ministries within the Government of 
Iraq.
  Why does this matter today? Why do I care about something that 
happened nearly 20 years ago when Saddam Hussein was considered to be a 
potential ally and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeni was public enemy No. 1 in 
the United States? I care because it is relevant to today's debate on 
Iraq. This is not yesterday's news. This is tomorrow's news.
  Federal agencies have documents detailing exactly what biological 
material was shipped to Iraq from the United States. We have a paper 
trail. We not only know that Iraq has biological weapons, we know the 
type, the strain, and the batch number of the germs that may have been 
used to fashion those weapons. We know the dates they were shipped, and 
the addresses to which they were shipped.
  We have in our hands--now get this--the equivalent of a Betty Crocker 
cookbook of ingredients that the U.S. allowed Iraq to obtain and that 
may well have been used to concoct biological weapons. At last week's 
Armed Services Committee hearing, Secretary Rumsfeld said he has no 
knowledge of any such shipments, and doubted that they ever occurred. 
He seemed to be a little affronted at the very idea that the United 
States would ever countenance entering into such a deal with the devil.
  Secretary Rumsfeld should not shy away from this information. On the 
contrary, he should seek it out if he does not know it. Let's find out. 
No one is alleging that the United States deliberately sneaked 
biological weapons to Iraq under the table during the Iran-Iraq war. I 
am not suggesting that. I am confident that our Government is not that 
stupid. It was simply a matter of business as usual, I suppose. We 
freely exchange information and technology including scientific 
research with our friends. At the time, I suppose, Iraq was our friend. 
If there is any lesson to be learned from the Iraq experience, it is 
that we should choose our friends more carefully, see further down the 
road and exercise tighter controls on the export of materials that 
could be turned against us. Today's friend may be tomorrow's enemy.
  This is not the first time I have advocated stricter controls on 
exports. In fact, I added an amendment to the 1996 Defense 
Authorization Act that was specifically designed to curb the export of 
dual-use technology to potential adversaries of the United States.
  In the case of the biological materials shipped to Iraq, the Commerce 
Department and the CDC have lists of the shipments. The Defense 
Department ought to have the same lists so that the decisionmakers will 
know exactly what types of biological agents American soldiers may face 
in the field. Doesn't that make sense? Shouldn't the Defense Department 
know what is out there, so that the generals can know what counter-
measures they might need to take to protect their troops?
  I believe the answer to those questions is yes, and so I am sending 
the information I have to Secretary Rumsfeld. He said he did not have 
any such information so I am going to send it to Secretary Rumsfeld. No 
matter how repugnant he finds the idea of the U.S. even inadvertently 
aiding Saddam Hussein in his quest to obtain biological weapons, the 
Secretary should have this information at hand, and should make sure 
that his field commanders also have it.
  The most deadly of the biological agents that came from the U.S. were 
shipped to the government of Iraq by the American Type Culture 
Collection, ATCC, a non-profit organization that provides biological 
materials to industry, government, and educational institutions around 
the world. According to its own records, the ATCC sent 11 separate 
shipments of biological materials to the government of Iraq between 
1985 and 1988. The shipments included a witches brew of pathogens 
including anthrax, botulinum toxin, and gangrene.
  Meanwhile, the CDC was shipping toxic specimens to Iraq--including 
West Nile virus and dengue fever--from January 1980 until October 13, 
1993.
  The nexus between the U.S.-approved shipments of pathogens and the 
development of Iraq's biological weapons program is particularly 
disturbing. Consider the following chain of events: In May of 1986, the 
ATCC reported the first shipments of anthrax and botulinum toxin to 
Iraq. A second shipment including anthrax and botulinum toxin was sent 
to Iraq in September of 1988.
  At approximately the same time that the first shipment was sent in 
April of 1986, Iraq turned from studying literature on biological 
warfare to experimenting with actual samples of anthrax and botulinum 
toxin. The turning point, according a report to the United Nations 
Security Council from the U.N. weapons inspection team, came when 
``bacterial strains were received from overseas'' and delivered to an 
Iraqi biological weapons laboratory.
  In April of 1988, the U.N. weapons inspectors reported that Iraq 
began research on the biological agent Clostridium perfringens, more 
commonly known as gas gangrene. Clostridium perfringens cultures were 
among the materials shipped to Iraq by the ATCC in both 1986 and 1988.
  These are only a few examples of the pathogens that Iraq is known to 
have imported from the United States. It is not known how many of these 
materials were destroyed following the Persian Gulf war, or how many 
Iraq continues to possess, whether they are still viable, or whether in 
its pursuit of biological weapons, Iraq has developed ways to extend 
the shelf life of toxic biological agents. There is much that we do not 
know about Iraq's biological warfare program. But there are two 
important facts in which we can have great confidence: Iraq has 
biological weapons, and Iraq obtained biological materials from the 
United States in the 1980s.
  I asked Secretary Rumsfeld, at last week's Armed Services Committee 
hearing, whether we might be reaping what we have sown in Iraq, in 
terms of biological weapons. The question was rhetorical, but the link 
between shipments of biological material from the United States and the 
development of Iraq's biological weapons program is more than just an 
historical footnote.
  The role that the U.S. may have played in helping Iraq to pursue 
biological warfare in the 1980s should serve as a strong warning to the 
President that policy decisions regarding Iraq today could have far 
reaching ramifications on the Middle East and on the United States in 
the future. In the 1980s, the Ayatollah Khomeni was America's sworn 
enemy, and the U.S. Government courted Saddam Hussein in an effort to 
undermine the Ayatollah and Iran. Today, oh, how different. Saddam 
Hussein is America's biggest enemy, America's greatest enemy, America's 
most dangerous enemy, and the U.S. is said to be making overtures today 
to Iran.
  The Washington Post reported today that the President is expected to 
authorize military training for at least 1,000 members of the Iraqi 
opposition to help overthrow Saddam Hussein. The opposition groups 
include the Kurds in the north, and the Shiite Muslims in the south.
  The decision to provide military training to Iraqi opponents of 
Saddam Hussein would mark a major change in U.S. policy, ending a 
prohibition on lethal assistance to the Iraqi opposition. It is not a 
decision that should be undertaken lightly.
  Although administration officials told the Post that initial plans 
called for modest steps that would allow members of the Iraqi 
opposition to provide liaison to the local population and perhaps guard 
prisoners of war, the officials did not shut the door on providing 
training and equipment for more lethal activities.
  ``Nobody is talking about giving them guns yet,'' one official was 
quoted as saying. ``That would be a dramatic step, but there are many 
dramatic steps yet to be taken.''
  Has the administration adequately explored the potential 
ramifications of creating ethnic armies of dissidents in Iraq? Could 
the U.S. be laying the groundwork for a brutal civil war in Iraq? Could 
this proposed policy change precipitate a deadly border conflict 
between the Kurds and Turkey? Could we perhaps be setting the stage for 
a Shiite-ruled Iraq that could align itself with Iran and result in the 
domination of the Middle East by hard-line Shiite Muslims along the 
lines of the Ayatollah Khomeni?

[[Page S9401]]

  These are legitimate questions. They are troubling questions. And 
they should be carefully thought through before we unleash an open-
ended attack on Iraq. We had better think about these questions. We 
better ask these questions. The administration had better listen and so 
had the American people.
  There are many outstanding questions that the United States should 
consider before marching in lockstep down the path of committing 
America's military forces to effect the immediate overthrow of Saddam 
Hussein. The peril of biological weapons is only one of those 
considerations, but it is an important one.
  Has it been thought out? Has it been discussed? Has the 
administration said anything to Congress about this, whether or not the 
administration has explored these questions? Here are the questions. 
Don't say they were not asked. The more we know now, the better off our 
troops will be in the future.
  Decisions involving war and peace--the most fundamental life and 
death decisions--should never be rushed through this Senate. I say that 
again. Decisions involving war and peace--the most fundamental of life 
and death decisions--they affect your sons and daughters out there, 
your blood. Such decisions should never be rushed through, never be 
rushed through or muscled through in haste.
  Our Founding Fathers understood that and they wisely vested in the 
Congress--not in the President, not in any President, Democrat or 
Republican--the power to declare war.
  We are going to discuss this. There is going to be a discussion of 
it. It is not going to be rammed through all that fast.
  Congress has been presented with a Presidential request for 
authorization to use military force against Iraq. We now have the 
responsibility to consider that request, consider it carefully, 
consider it thoroughly, and consider it on our own timetable. I urge my 
colleagues to do just that and avoid the pressure--avoid the pressure 
to rush to judgment on such an important and vital and far-reaching and 
momentous matter.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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