Word: smallpox
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...eradication of smallpox was one of humanity's great success stories. After thousands of years of suffering at the hands of the virus, the human race gathered all its wit and cunning and conquered the scourge, eradicating it forever. Well, forever lasted less than 25 years. It does not bode well for the future of our species that it took but a blink of the eye for one of history's worst killers to make a comeback--not on its own, mind you, but brought back by humans to kill again...
...course, none of this proves Saddam does not have the smallpox virus--and there's some evidence he does. Eight of 69 Iraqi POWs screened during the Gulf War were immune to smallpox. Since the vaccine works for only four to five years, this suggests they had been inoculated relatively recently--perhaps as protection from their own biological weapons. There's more: U.N. inspectors who toured Iraq's illegal weapons sites in 1995 stumbled upon a freeze dryer candidly labeled SMALLPOX...
...virus would at the same time kill most of it, and the rest would not do well in open air and sunlight. In any case, missiles may not be necessary. The virus spreads so efficiently from person to person that an agent--presumably immunized--with an aerosolized batch of smallpox in a subway station or a small building could easily seed an epidemic. Because the virus is tiny, it's relatively easy to aerosolize. But there's no evidence that Iraq has developed the capability...
...people who take it, as many as 52 will develop life-threatening ailments, and roughly two will die. On the plus side, it is one of the few vaccines that work relatively well even when given a couple of days after exposure. The ill effects pale beside those of smallpox, which kills nearly one-third of those infected...
...alert soldiers, who would then climb into masks and protective suits. It would be tough going in that gear, especially in the searing heat of summer; just taking a sip of water would be a 17-step process. Of course, that's better than enduring a bout of smallpox. --By Unmesh Kher. With reporting by Greg Land/Atlanta, Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow and Mark Thompson/Washington