10/6/2003: Bioweapon vials

[Undertoad]

A political one today, and this photo has been underwhelmingly covered in the old media, so:

This is one of the set of hidden vials discovered by David Kay's Iraqi WMD discovery operation. The vials contain "reference strains" of biological organisms, some of which are bioweapon strains. In total there were 97 vials hidden in this Iraqi scientists' house, with the explicit instructions to keep them so that the BW program could be renewed when the international heat was off.

The scientist says he was asked to keep more stuff, and deadlier stuff, but he decided that anthrax in the fridge is not a good idea when there are kids in the house.

The complete Kay report includes a good number of these kinds of things, all prohibited and undeclared to the UN, including a set of 500km missiles and plans for 1000km missiles (tw take note).

In the post-war context these things do not really constitute a "smoking gun", but if Kay's discoveries had been discovered pre-war, they would have been highly damning and certainly would have increased support for the war. We forget the pre-war context from 6-8 months ago, but these findings only would have made it more urgent.

So that's my take on it, post your own take below.