Iraq's hospital consumption of growth media was just 200 kg a year; yet in 1988, Iraq imported 39 tons of it. Shown this evidence by UNSCOM, Taha admitted to the inspectors that her biological weapons agency had grown 19,000 litres of botulism toxin; 8,000 litres of anthrax; 2,000 litres of aflatoxins, which can cause liver cancer; Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that can cause gas gangrene; and ricin, a castor bean derivative which can kill by inhibiting protein synthesis. She also admitted conducting research into cholera, salmonella, foot and mouth disease, and camel pox, a disease that uses the same growth techniques as smallpox, but is safer for researchers to work with. It was because of the discovery of Taha's work with camel pox that the U.S. and British intelligence services feared Saddam Hussein may have been planning to weaponize the smallpox virus. Iraq had a smallpox outbreak in the 1970s and UNSCOM scientists believe the government would have retained contaminated material. UNSCOM learned that, In August 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Taha's team was ordered to set up a program to weaponize the biological agents. By January 1991, a team of 100 scientists and support staff had filled 157 bombs and 16 missile warheads with botulin toxin, and 50 bombs and five missile warheads with anthrax. In an interview with the BBC, Taha denied the Iraqi government had weaponized the bacteria. "We never intended to use it," she told journalist Jane Corbin of the BBC's "Panorama" program. "We never wanted to cause harm or damage to anybody." However, UNSCOM found the munitions dumped in a river near the facility at al-Hakam. UNSCOM also discovered that Taha's team had conducted inhalation experiments on donkeys from England and on beagles from Germany. The inspectors seized photographs showing beagles having convulsions inside sealed containers. On 18 March 2005, the Associated Press reported that Taha had provided an explanation for the 1,800 gallon discrepancy between the amount of anthrax the UN knew she had manufactured, and the amount she admitted to destroying. The missing anthrax was one of the stated reasons for the Iraq war and was emphasized by then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell during his February 2003 speech to the Security Council. However, according to an Iraq Survey Group report published on 6 October 2004, Taha told American investigators that she and her colleagues dumped the missing anthrax near the gates of one of Saddam's palaces in April 1991, but were afraid to admit to this for fear of incurring Saddam's wrath.