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Fermentation beat up confirmed
South News Feb 13
Baghdad: Iraq confirmed the fiction of a Washington Post story that it had sought to buy
equipment
from Russia to make biological weapons on Friday.
An Iraqi government spokesman denounced Thursday's report by the Washington Post that U.N.
inspectors had found evidence of a Russian deal to sell Iraq equipment, including a 1,100-gallon
fermentation vessel that could be used to develop biological weapons.
"The U.S. administration aims, by leaking this report to the Washington Post, to thwart the
intense
efforts Russia is making...to achieve a diplomatic solution to the current problem between Iraq
on one
side and the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the United States on the other," a Culture and
Information Ministry spokesman said.
The spokesman, quoted by the Iraqi news agency on Thursday night, said the "leaking of this false
information" amounted to "media and diplomatic terrorism" against Russia.
The Washington Post newspaper said UN arms inspectors claim to have uncovered evidence of the
deal between Moscow and Baghdad. The report quoted unnamed sources saying UN inspectors seized
documents that described lengthy negotiations between Russia and Iraq over the sale of a giant
fermentation tank, that would ostensibly be used to make protein for animal feed.
A "crude invention." was what Russia described the Washington Post story on Thursday. "Russia has
never made any deals with Iraq that would violate international sanctions, moreover deals
involving
supplies of banned technologies," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady Tarasov told
reporters
in Moscow.
The Iraqi news agency quoted Lieutenant-General Amer Saadi, a presidential adviser, as saying:
"Iraqi
industrial parties planned in 1995 to build a factory for animal feed and contacted Russian
companies to
supply them with a fermentation reservoir of 2,000 cubic meters...
"This size is suitable for producing industrial animal feed and is not practicable for other
dangerous
purposes," he said.
Saadi said the steps had been taken with the knowledge of UNSCOM and under its supervision. There
had been no concealment by Iraq, he added. Saadi said the deal had not gone beyond the initial
contact,
with no contract signed or meeting held to discuss it.
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