The Times, London, in The Australian
September 22, 2004
'Dr Germ', 'Mrs Anthrax' only jailed women
By Stephen Farrell
The demand for the release of women prisoners from Iraqi jails in
exchange for the lives of the American and British hostages is
baffling.
US and Iraqi officials insist there are only two women in custody,
both "high-value" detainees.
One of the two is Rihab Taha, a British-educated microbiologist
nicknamed "Dr Germ" who was in charge of Iraq's biological weapons
program in the late 1980s.
She studied at the University of East Anglia and was married to Amir
Rashid Muhammad al-Ubaydi, who headed Iraq's missile development
program and later became oil minister.
The other is Huda Ammash, another scientist involved in Iraq's weapons
program and known to US Intelligence as "Mrs Anthrax".
She received much of her early training in the US, where she obtained
a master of science in microbiology from Texas Women's University and
later spent four years at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
US authorities have refused to release Ammash, even though she has
breast cancer. But what interest Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his
supporters would have in the women's release is difficult to discern.