What was that about Saddam developing bioweapons?

And of course my very next post is one of those "go read this" ones I just complained about. But the article is too long to summarize easily and too important to do so inadequately. It's one by Michael Scherer in the March/April issue of Mother Jones magazine, available online here.

Just to give you a sense, this is the opening paragraph:

It has been called a modern-day Manhattan Project - a spending spree so vast and rapid that it might change the face of biological science. In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government is funding a massive new biodefense research effort, redirecting up to $10 billion toward projects related to biological weapons such as anthrax. The Pentagon's budget for chemical and biological defense has doubled; high-security nuclear-weapons labs have begun conducting genetic research on dangerous pathogens; universities are receiving government funding to build high-tech labs equipped to handle deadly infectious organisms; and Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the home of America's secret bioweapons program, is about to break ground on two new high-tech biodefense centers.

Regarding some of the work, Scherer quotes a critic of biodefense spending as saying "If [the researcher] worked in a Chinese, Russian, or Iranian laboratory, his work might well be seen as the 'smoking gun' of a bio-warfare program."

But of course, since we're Americans, that can't possibly be true.