Did some of Syria’s WMDs come from America?

“Chemical weapons used in Syria’s civil war.” Not long ago, that headline was the number-one story in the mainstream press.

Remember Saddam Hussein? Iraq?

There was a considerable debate about whether Saddam hid some of his bio/chem weapons in Syria, to evade UN weapons inspectors. If he did, then is it possible the current situation in Syria has a few of its roots in the US? Is it possible some of Syria’s WMDs originally came from America?

Because, you see, the US supplied Saddam with bio/chem weapons.

Here’s a juicy slice of forgotten history:

In 1975, the US signed on to an international treaty banning the production, use, and stockpiling of biological weapons.

But…Washington Post (9/4/13, “When the US looked the other way on chemical weapons”): “…The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items…including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague…”

Between 1985 and 1989, a US 501C3 firm, American Type Culture Collection, sent Iraq up to 70 shipments of various biowar agents, including 21 strains of anthrax.

Between 1984 and 1989, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) sent Iraq at least 80 different biowar agents, including botulinum toxoid, dengue virus, and West Nile antigen and antibody.

This information on the American Type Culture Collection and the CDC comes from a report, “Iraq’s Biological Weapons Program,” prepared by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). The report contains ample reference citations.

Then we have a comprehensive article by William Blum in the April 1998 Progressive called “Anthrax for Export.” Blum cites a 1994 Senate report confirming that, in this 1985-1989 time period, US shipments of anthrax and other biowar agents to Iraq were licensed by…drum roll, cymbal crash…the US Dept. of Commerce.

Blum quotes from the Senate report: “These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program.”

This 1994 Senate report also indicates that the US exported to Iraq the precursors for chemwar agents, actual plans for chemical and biowar production facilities, and chemical-warhead filling equipment. The exports continued until at least November 28, 1989.

Blum lists a few other biowar agents the US shipped to Iraq. Histoplasma Capsulatum, Brucella Melitensis, Clostridium Perfringens, Clostridium tetani—as well as E. coli, various genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA.

Blum also points out that a 1994 Pentagon report dismissed any connection between all these biowar agents and Gulf War Illness. But the researcher who headed up that report, Joshua Lederberg, was actually a director of the US firm that had sent the most biowar material to Iraq in the 1980s: the American Type Culture Collection.

Now, as to other US companies which dealt biowar or chemwar agents to Iraq—all such sales having been approved by the US government—the names of these companies are contained in records of the 1992 Senate hearings, “United States Export Policy Toward Iraq Prior to Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait,” Senate Report 102-996, Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs, 102d Congress, Second Session (October 27, 1992)”:

The names of US criminal companies: Mouse Master (Georgia), Sullaire Corp (Charlotte, North Carolina), Pure Aire (Charlotte, North Carolina), Posi Seal (Conn.), Union Carbide (Conn.), Evapco (Maryland), BDM Corp (Virginia), Spectra Physics (Calif.).

There are about a dozen more.

This also from the Blum article: “A larger number of American firms supplied Iraq with the specialized computers, lasers, testing and analyzing equipment, and other instruments and hardware vital to the manufacture of nuclear weapons, missiles, and delivery systems. Computers, in particular, play a key role in nuclear weapons development. Advanced computers make it feasible to avoid carrying out nuclear test explosions, thus preserving the program’s secrecy. The 1992 Senate hearings implicated [Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, CA — among others].”

Hewlett Packard said that the recipient of its shipments, Saad 16, was some sort of school in Iraq. But in 1990, the Wall St. Journal stated that Saad 16 was a “heavily fortified, state-of-the-art [Iraqi] complex for aircraft construction, missile design, and, almost certainly, nuclear-weapons research.”

It’s not much of a stretch to conclude that at least some of the bio/chem weapons Syria now possesses came from Saddam, and ultimately from the US.

The US government isn’t going to shine a light in that dark hole—at least, publicly.

Jon Rappoport