The Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs has oversight responsibility for the Export Administration Act. Pursuant to the Act, Committee staff contacted the U.S. Department of Commerce and requested information on the export of biological materials during the years prior to the Gulf War. After receiving this information, we contacted a principal supplier of these materials to determine what, if any, materials were exported to Iraq which might have contributed to an offensive or defensive biological warfare program. Records prior to 1985 were not available, according to the supplier. Large scale production of these agents began in 1989 at four facilities near Baghdad.
Anthrax is an often-fatal infectious disease due to ingestion of spores.
It begins abruptly with high fever, difficulty in breathing and chest pain. Once septicemia is advanced, antibiotic therapy may prove useless, probably because the exotoxins remain, despite the death of the bacteria. It is often fatal. Reactivated infection usually involves the lungs, the brain, spinal membranes, heart, peritoneum, and the adrenals. The bacteria produce toxins that move along muscle bundles in the body killing cells and producing necrotic tissue that is then favorable for further growth of the bacteria itself.