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Does Iran Have Biological Weapons?

(1945) Maya Carlin - The Iranian regime has not admitted to ever possessing biological or chemical weapons. Biological weapons can be easily concealed due to many of the components having dual-use purposes as well as limited necessary equipment. At the end of the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war in 1988, reports linking Iran to its potential pursuit of biological weapons emerged. British and U.S. intelligence sources divulged that Iran was attempting to produce mycotoxins by purchasing new strains of fungus from the Netherlands and Canada in 1989. One year earlier, speaker of Iran's parliament and future president Hashemi Rafsanjani stated that "we should fully equip ourselves in defense and offensive use of chemical, bacteriological and radiological weapons." A 1998 New York Times report detailed Iran's attempts to secure former-Soviet scientists who were employed by Moscow's vast germ warfare program. Over a dozen of the scientists targeted by Iran recall being specifically asked "to help Tehran make biological weapons." In 1996, the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that "Iran holds some stocks of biological agents and weapons. Tehran probably has investigated both toxins and live organisms as biological warfare agents. Iran has the technical infrastructure to support a significant biological weapons program." In 2003, a Washington Post report outlined Iran's production of weaponized anthrax and other pathogens. The writer is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy.
2022-07-14 00:00:00
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