UK urged to take US to Security Council for supplying Iraq toxins

A cross-party group of MPs are urging the British government to file a complaint to the UN Security Council for breaching the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention by transferring outlawed agents to Iraq, IRNA reported.

The IRNA report said: The call comes after the Riegle Report to the US Senate published evidence that the US sold bacillus anthracis, clostridium botulinum, histoplasma capsulatum, brucella, melitensis and clostridium perfringens to Iraqi government agencies during the 1980s.

US sales including Vollum strain anthrax were also found by the Iraq Survey Group to be the strain of anthrax used in the Iraqi biological weapons programme.

In a petition to parliament, signed so far by 16 MPs, the UK government was urged to carry out its duty as a signatory of the biological warfare convention and report the US sales to the UN Security Council.

Those at every level responsible for any breach of international law relating to the use of such weapons are held personally accountable, according to a 2002 British government policy paper on strengthening the convention.

Prime Minister Tony Blair should "either to lodge the necessary complaint with the Security Council or change the UK's stated policy after an appropriate public announcement and discussion," said the MPs, including 11 from the ruling Labour Party.

They said that when the US Department of Commerce issued export licenses for the sales, they were fully aware of the Iraqi biological warfare programme and that the exports were fully documented.