The following graph stopped me up short in Debka’sZarqawi Is Using Hostages to Ransom Old Friends, Drs Germ and Anthrax:
According to DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, Zarqawi has been tipped off that one of the two Iraqi scientists is on the point of breaking under questioning and spilling the beans on Saddam’s WMD to her American interrogators. He therefore interceded by seizing the three Western hostages, either to gain her release or scare her into holding silent.
If this is true (who knows?), it means Zarqawi has ears within the… I would imagine… close-knit unit holding the two women scientists. It’s hard to believe our people are that sloppy… or is it? Read the whole thing.
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6 Comments
1. Fausta:Just last night John Batchelor was discussing this in his radio show.
it means Zarqawi has ears within the… I would imagine… close-knit unit holding the two women scientists
Not necessarily, but it is quite possible.
The information that one of the women would be spilling the beans could have been leaked as a means of playing one woman to testify against the other, for instance. Either way, it is possible that info’s been leaked.
Sep 22, 2004 - 10:56 am 2. mongai:I still think we are going to have an October surprise. Not anything sinister on the part of the Bush administration mind you, just the natural progression of things. Perhaps it is wishful thinking as I still believe there are beans in the process of being spilled.
Sep 22, 2004 - 11:14 am 3. Dishman:In the build up to the war, I based my support for it on stopping the work of Dr. Taha. My reasoning follows.
This is.. terrible to say, but the country could survive nuclear terrorism. The casualties would be horrible, and our vengeance likely even worse. That said, we would survive.
Biological weapons (BW) are an entirely different matter.
Some BW, like Anthrax, are essentially non-contagious. For these, BW research involves the study of culturing, milling and dispersal techniques. Fundamentally, their destructive power is no greater than that of nuclear weapons. If I believed Dr. Taha was limiting her work exclusively to these, I would have no great concern.
Unfortunately, there’s some evidence that Dr. Taha’s work involved pathogens like Smallpox, and possibly even weaponized Smallpox. This is an entirely different matter. All other NBC weapons are only dangerous if used. Smallpox and others are dangerous even if they are only handled in the laboratory. The US CDC defines proper handling here:
http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/biosfty/bmbl4/bmbl4s3.htm
The level of care and professionalism exhibited by the rest of Saddam’s regime does not give me great confidence that Dr. Taha was conducting her work in a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, or even anything close. More likely, she was attempting to conduct research at a level beyond what was appropriate for her funding, and cut corners starting with safety.
In short, every day her research continued, there was a slight chance of an incident resulting in billions of deaths.
I believe that she must not be released under any circumstances.
Sep 22, 2004 - 11:57 am 4. holdfast:Well, she won’t be spilling for long if this Telegraph story is accurate:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/22/uhope.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/09/22/ixportaltop.html
Wasn’t she a member of the Revolutionary Command Council? Isn’t that enough to bring war crimes charges at least sufficient to hold her for a while longer?
Sep 22, 2004 - 12:34 pm 5. Neophyte Pundit:You know I was thinking that maybe it was not that someone was on the inside, but perhaps, we have intentionally let out that information. Forcing the hand of Zarqawi to make a play on the information. Tragically, it may well have ended in the deaths of two (three) innocents…our intelligence operatives are creating databases based on contacts, and these may well lead to the capture and/or killing of the dog Zarqawi.
Sep 22, 2004 - 1:44 pm 6. Terrye:I heard that Zarqawi’s second in command had been killed and that too might have something to do with the latest act of barbarism. As if the murdering son of a bitch needed an excuse.
And today I heard a Democratic strategist playing into his hands making as issue of the violence. I know these guys want to win the damned elction but using this kind of vicious murder in relation to a campaign looks kinda oppurtunistic.
Sep 22, 2004 - 5:50 pm