"Experts Downplay Bioagent.

The leading paragraph:

A suspicious sample of biological material recently found by U.S. weapons hunters in Iraq probably was purchased legally from a U.S. organization in the 1980s and is a substance that has never been successfully used to produce a weapon, experts said.

Sounds conclusive, doesn't it? However, reading the article, we find only three experts actually mentioned by name: Dr. David Franz, Dr. Raymond Zilinskas, and Terence Taylor. The first two think the botulism isn't significant. Taylor isn't so sure.

Apparently the gist of the rest of the article is that Saddam researching all these biotoxins was no big deal because they don't work all that well as weapons. The assumption that the best use of ricin is to try and make an aerosol of it is puzzling. 1 milligram is enough to kill a man, and maybe spraying it isn't what they had in mind.

Aflatoxin causes vomiting and other incapacitating symptoms but is rarely lethal in humans. The fungal toxin is chiefly known for causing liver cancer. Iraq produced aflatoxin as a weapon in the 1980s, but nonproliferation program director Zilinskas said it has never been clear why.

"It's not particularly toxic, and its primary effects are long term," he said. "My feeling to this day is that it was a scam that the scientists put over on the decision-makers because it's easy to produce and the decision-makers wouldn't know it is useless as a biological weapon."

Hmm. Another vote for the "Emperor's New Clothes" scenario. Zilinskas also discussed this subject back in 1997.

What is amazing is the length the Times is going to to come up with harmless reasons why all this stuff would be researched by Iraq's military. I wish they worked that hard coming up with excuses for our side.