The biggest point of contention was Al Hakam's ventilation equipment - or lack thereof. French and Russian inspectors contended that if Al Hakam was a biological-weapons facility, it would need a sophisticated ventilation and containment system. Without one, Iraqi scientists would be endangered.

This, says Tucker, was exactly what the Americans and British thought Iraq wanted inspectors to conclude. "I believe that the Iraqi government made a deliberate decision to put their workforce at risk by not installing an effective containment system, so as to avoid creating obvious signatures of illicit activity," says Tucker, a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace in Washington.

Another inspection team that looked at the biopesticide production line found two anomalies.

First, when a sample of bacterial pesticide (BT) was examined under an electron microscope, it was observed that the bacteria lacked the toxin crystals needed to kill insects. Second, the BT particles were too small. Normally, BT particles are large enough to fall rapidly out of the air to avoid drifting onto adjacent fields. Not these.

"The particles were so small and light that they would tend to float a long distance downwind," Tucker says. "That is not desirable in a biological pesticide, but it is something you would want in a biological-warfare agent." Inspectors concluded that the BT line was being used to develop techniques that could transform anthrax into a more effective bioweapon.