Iraq denied Sunday US press reports that it has rehabilitated a laboratory closed down by United Nations weapons inspectors in 1996 with the aim of producing agents for biological warfare.
General Hossam Mohammad Amin, head of Iraq's national Monitoring Directorate, which handles relations with the inspectors, dismissed the reports as "lies" intended to serve as a pretext for a US military strike against Baghdad. He told a press conference that the laboratory at al-Dura, south of the capital Baghdad, had made vaccines against foot and mouth disease before falling foul of the weapons inspectors, according to AFP.
"This site was a factory which produced vaccines against foot and mouth disease and was built by a French firm (in the 1970s) to serve Iraq and the region," the general said.
"UNSCOM acted arbitrarily in 1996 deliberately destroying negative pressure systems in the laboratory to prevent Iraq from producing a vaccine essential for its livestock and destroying its economy," he charged. However, in August 1995 when Baghdad finally confessed in detail to the United Nations it had made biological weapons, al-Dura was listed as a site taken over for biological weapons in addition to the continued production of vaccines.
UNSCOM said the negative pressure systems were de-activated so they could no longer be used for research into and production of lethal biological agents. Amin said Iraq had asked the UN to approve the rehabilitation of the laboratory but it was blocked by the sanctions committee at the request of UNSCOM, the former UN disarmament body.
"There have been accusations that this site is used to produce weapons of mass destruction, namely botulinum toxin and anthrax, even though they (Americans) know that the site has been closed and abandoned since the main installations were destroyed," he further added. Foreign ministry official Said al-Mussawi told reporters there was a "false media campaign intended to act as a cover for American aggression against Iraq. "
Mussawi, a former Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, said Baghdad "continues to honor its disarmament commitments under Security Council resolutions, even after the UN inspectors left in 1998." Following the press conference, an official visit to the site was organized. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
