The Wire

A real weapons inspector is both a scientist and a detective. Australian Rod Barton spent much of his career working at the highest levels on some of the most publicised inspection missions, in Iraq before and after the Gulf War and later as advisor to Hans Blix in the leadup to the 2003 Iraq invasion. He eventually grew tired of political interference in his findings – he became a whistleblower and now reveals the real inside story of the weapons inspection game in his newly released book “The Weapons Detective”. He first came up against political mind games in his work when he was asked in the early 1980s to investigate the phenomenon of Yellow Rain .The Hmong tribespeople in the hills of Laos and Cambodia were complaining of planes dropping a mysterious yellow liquid which they claimed was causing illness and death. The US was convinced that the yellow spots were a biological weapon manufactured by the Soviet union…but Rod Barton went in to investigate immediately had his doubts about the story….and was then surprised to find that the US wasn’t at all interested in his findings.