Yellow Rain - Later Events

Later Events

An episode of mass pollen release from bees in 2002 in Sangrampur, India, prompted unfounded fears of a chemical weapons attack, although this was in fact due to a mass migration of giant Asian honeybees. This event revived memories of what New Scientist described as "cold war paranoia", and the article noted that the Wall Street Journal had covered these 1980s yellow rain allegations in particular detail. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal continues to assert that the Soviet Union used yellow rain as a chemical weapon in the 1980s and in 2003 accused Matthew Meselson of "excusing away evidence of Soviet violations."

In the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq the Wall Street Journal alleged that Saddam Hussein possessed a chemical weapon called "yellow rain". The Iraqis appear to have investigated trichothecene mycotoxins in 1990, but only purified a total of 20 ml of the agent from fungal cultures and did not manage to scale up the purification or produce any weapons containing these compounds. Although these toxins are not generally regarded as practical tactical weapons, the T-2 toxin might be a usable weapon since it can be absorbed through the skin, although it would be very difficult to manufacture it in any reasonable quantity.

Henry Wilde, a retired US Foreign Service Officer, has drawn parallels between the use of yellow rain allegations by the US government against the Soviet Union and the later exaggerated allegations on the topic of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Wilde considers it likely that states may again "use rumors and false or planted intelligence of such weapons use for propaganda purposes." and calls for the establishment of a more rigorous inspection process to deal with such claims. Similar concerns were expressed in a 2006 review published by the World Organisation for Animal Health, which compared the American yellow rain accusations to other cold-war accusations from the Soviet Union and Cuba, as well as to more recent mistaken intelligence on Iraqi weapons capabilities, concluding that such unjustified accusations have encouraged the development of biological weapons and increased the risk that they might be used, as they have discredited arms-control efforts.