Saddam's weapons queen is captured
Coalition forces have captured one of Iraq’s top biological weapons scientists dubbed Chemical Sally.
Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, among the 55 most wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s fallen regime, was taken into custody on Sunday, a Pentagon official said. He had no other details about her detention.
Officials have not yet found any weapons of mass destruction – which the Bush administration cited as justification for the war in Iraq – and have said they need information from Iraqis to help find them.
It was unclear how much cooperation they would get from Ammash, since all other high-ranking officials have denied under interrogation that there was such a programme in recent years.
With her detention, the United States has now acknowledged holding 19 of the 55 most wanted Iraqis.
The US military also announced the arrest of a former Iraqi intelligence chief. It had no details on Iraq’s top spy other than his name, Adil Salfeg Al-Azarui. He is not in the coalition’s “deck of cards.”
US intelligence officials said that Ammash, 49, is believed to have played a key role in rebuilding Baghdad’s biological weapons capability since the Gulf War in 1991.
Born in 1953 in Baghdad, her father was Salih Magdi Ammash, a former vice president, defence minister and member of the Baath Party’s leadership. Saddam reportedly ordered his execution in 1983.
Ammash was trained by Nassir al-Hindawi, described by United Nations inspectors as the father of Iraq’s biological weapons programme, officials said.
She has served as president of Iraqi’s microbiology society and as dean at University of Baghdad.
Ammash and al-Hindawi are among Iraq’s top weapons scientists. Others include Amir al-Saadi, a chief chemical weapons researcher, and Dr. Rihab Taha, a woman who was dubbed Dr Germ by inspectors. Ammash is the only women on the most-wanted list.
In 2001, she became the first and only woman elected to the highest policy making body in the Baath Party, the regional command, after working closely with Saddam’s youngest son, Qusay.
American officials say Ammash is among a new generation of leaders named by Saddam to leading posts within Iraq’s Baath party.
On the Pentagon’s list the 55 most wanted, she is number 53 and referred to as the party’s Youth and Trade Bureau Chairman. She played a role in organising Baath activities in Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen, officials said.
Ammash received her degree at the University of Baghdad, master of science in microbiology from Texas Woman’s University, and received a doctorate in microbiology from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1983.
In one of several videos of Saddam released during the war, Ammash was the only woman among about a half-dozen men seated around a table. The videos were used as Iraqi propaganda as invading forces drew closer to Baghdad and it was not known when the meeting happened or what was the significance of her presence there.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday the United States will have to rely on low-ranking Iraqi officials from Saddam Hussein’s government to disclose the existence of banned chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes.
He said there is little chance that the weapons will be found independently, or that top officials will provide useful information.
So far, high-level Iraqi officials, such as Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam’s closest deputies, have not co-operated or provided information about the weapons, US officials said.
