Iraq on Thursday refuted the US allegation that it has been developing biological weapons, saying that it has stopped its biological weapon program since 1991, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
In a statement to the INA, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman said that as a show of its commitment to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), "Iraq canceled its biological weapons program in 1991."
He accused the US of "making baseless accusations against a number of countries, most of which are Arab and Islamic countries, without presenting any evidence."
However, the US has been the biggest producer of biological weapons in the world, the spokesman said.
Citing a report carried by the New York Times on September 5, the spokesman said the US had been engaging in secret researches on biological weapons from the former Clinton administration to the present Bush administration.
The spokesman also condemned Israel for failing to sign the BWC, although "evidence shows it possesses weapons of mass destruction."
US Undersecretary of State John Bolton told a conference in Geneva on Monday that Iraq, North Korea, as well as Iran, Libya and Syria have been developing weapons in an effective violation of an international ban on germ warfare.
"The US strongly suspects that Iraq has taken advantage of three years of no UN inspections to improve all phases of its offensive biological weapons program," Bolton said.
Iraq has banned the UN weapon inspectors from returning to the country after the US and Britain launched the four-day air war against Baghdad in December 1998.
( November 23, 2001)
