Iraq's bio capability.
The official purpose of the meeting was to hear an oral summary by Blix of the 167-page report on the inspection process that was completed last week, including outstanding areas and how to address them. The report included sobering information on outstanding questions -- such as the fate of anthrax -- but the tone did not differ much from his oral presentation.No existing bio-weapons.
The report, which focused on 29 unresolved disarmament matters, challenged Iraq's claim that it destroyed its entire stock of biological agents at the Al Hakam biological weapons facility in the summer of 1991. "Based on all evidence, the strong presumption is that about 10,000 liters of anthrax was not destroyed and may still exist," according to a confidential draft of the report. The report also indicated that Iraq maintains the expertise to reconstitute anthrax, botulinum toxin and other deadly biological agents in short order. "Iraq currently possesses the technology and materials, including fermenters, bacterial growth media and seed stock, to enable it to produce anthrax," the report stated.
"There does not seem to be any choke points, which would prevent Iraq from producing anthrax on at least the scale of its pre-1991 level," the report said.
Still, the report said, in the chemical and biological area, "no proscribed activities, or the result of such activities from the period of 1998-2002 [when inspections were halted], have, so far, been detected through inspections."
But the knowledge of how to produce them.
As for the facilities needed to produce them, any beer brewery would do.
The samples needed are easily hidden. Or, easily transported out of the country and hidden.