Al Hakum (Iraq)

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Al Hakum (also spelled Al Hakm, Al Hakem or Al Hakam) was at one time Iraq's most sophisticated and largest biological weapons factory. It produced large quantities of botulinum toxin and anthrax from 1989 to 1996. The name derives from the common Arabic name or title Al Hakim ("The Judge"), one of the Names of God in the Qur'an.

[edit] History

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Among the products created by Iraqi bioweaponeers at the Al Hakum facility was an anthrax surrogate utilizing Bacillus thuringiensis, which is essentially the anthrax agent affecting insects. B. thuringiensis is often used by gardners to control grubs, thus the Iraqis at one time used the cover story that the Al Hakum facility was created to deal with the Iraqi grub problem.^[1]

In 1996, the facility was shut down and sealed up by U.N. weapons inspectors, who had deemed it unsafe^{[citation needed]}. The remaining biological stocks were destroyed. The facility was completely destroyed by the U.S. Army in the 2003 invasion of Iraq; they had identified it as possibly one of Saddam Hussein's still operating facilities for WMD's^{[citation needed]}.