U.S. Gave Iraq Bacteria, Sen. McCain Charges

By David B. Ottaway

Washington Post

January 26, 1989

The United States has sent to Iraq a virulent strain of bacteria that Iraq may soon use to manufacture biological weapons, Sen. John S. McCain III (R-Ariz.) charged in a speech prepared yesterday for delivery to the Senate.

"We know that Iraq has already misused international agreements to obtain tularemia virus from the U.S. This is particularly important because this disease is nearly 10 times more lethal in weapon form than anthrax," McCain said.

The State Department was unable yesterday to confirm or deny McCain's charge. "I never heard of this before," one official said. "Everybody knows the Iraqis are trying to develop biological weapons but are these specifics known, I don't know the answer."

One U.S. intelligence expert concurred, saying, "I don't think we've got anything on that."

Iraq recently denied charges that it is developing biological weapons. Tularemia is a bacterium, not a virus, that produces an illness commonly known as "rabbit fever." An aide to McCain said last night that the senator had learned of the Iraqi acquisition of tularemia from "U.S. and Israeli experts." Other sources said the bacterium could have come directly or indirectly, from the American Type Culture Collection in Rockville, which is a repository for various bacteria.

The disease causes a sustained fever in humans that is "certainly sometimes lethal," according to Harvard biochemist Mathew Meselson, a former government official.

"Tularemia was one of the two antipersonnel biological agents that was weaponized and standardized by the United States" for its biological weapon stockpile, Meselson said, adding that the other agent was Venezuelan equine encephalitis.

President Richard M. Nixon ordered all such weapons destroyed in November 1969, but there were "tons" of tularemia around for years "because it took a long time to destroy," Meselson said.

He said he could not confirm McCain's charge that Iraq had obtained tularemia from the United States. But he did confirm the senator's disclosure that the United States obtained the bacteria initially from the Soviet Union before the Geneva Biological Weapons Convention was signed in 1972.

"We have every reason to assume that Iraq may soon weaponize two of the three most lethal biotoxins -- anthrax and tularemia -- and it may well be on the way to weaponizing the third -- equine encephalitis," McCain said. The term "weaponize" refers to the process whereby a bacteria is turned into a spray, or tiny pellets, and put in canisters, shells or bombs for delivery on the battlefield.