Rihab Taha

Who is Rihab Taha?

Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azawi is an Iraqi microbiologist, dubbed Dr. Germ by United Nations weapons inspectors, who worked in Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program. A 1999 report commissioned by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency named her as one of the world's most dangerous women. Dr Taha admitted producing germ warfare agents but said they had been destroyed.

Dr. Rihab Rashida Taha ranks among the most important of a new breed of Third World weapons designers who were highly nationalistic, western-educated and willing to violate any international norms or scientific ethics. Taha worked hard to contribute to Iraqi weapons program although she was not a gifted student as Dr. John Turner, the head of the university’s biology department in England, recalls. As a result of Taha’s hard work she became known as the mother of all third world biological weapons programs. It was Taha who sold the idea of an Iraqi biological weapons program to Saddam Hussein and was given an award for her work in biological weapons, specifically the development of anthrax and botulinum weapons by Saddam Hussein.