U.S. and British forces have negotiated the surrender of "Dr. Germ," Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha, the head of an Iraqi biological weapons laboratory. She joins in custody another top Iraqi germ and chemical warfare specialist, Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, also known as "Chemical Sally" and "Mrs. Anthrax."
Say what you will about Saddam Hussein's regime, unlike other Arab rulers, he seems to have espoused equal opportunity for women, at least in the field of weapons of mass destruction. Both women scientists were Western-educated, Taha in Britain and Ammash at Texas Woman's University and the University of Missouri.
Taha was unranked by the coalition, but Ammash, who also held senior political posts under Saddam, was No. 53, the five of hearts, in the "Most Wanted" deck. They are both major catches, in a position to describe the size, location and scope of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs.
The two scientists may be able to solve one of the true mysteries from the war on Iraq.
Despite aggressive searches by coalition forces, no weapons of mass destruction have been discovered. There is evidence, such as two trailers that were potentially mobile germ-warfare labs, that Iraq at one time had aggressive chemical and biological weapons programs, but no evidence yet that the programs were ongoing at the start of the war. There is also evidence of some sort of nuclear program.
Eliminating Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was the Bush administration's key rationale for launching the war. Maybe those weapons are well hidden and still waiting to be found or maybe they were destroyed at the outset of the war, but maybe U.N. weapons inspectors really did eliminate the weapons programs.
Why then did Saddam (ital) act (endital) as if he still had a chemical and biological weapons program and arsenal? Everything his regime did suggested the existence of those weapons: his lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and their ultimate expulsion; his veiled threats to use such weapons if he were pushed; his evasions and patently bogus accountings to chief weapons inspector Hans Blix.
Maybe Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax can answer that question.
Dale McFeatters/Scripps Howard News Service