'Dr Germ' claims Saddam never planned to use his deadly toxins

Iraq's leading germ warfare scientist, Rihab Taha, known as "Dr Germ," justified her country's biological programme last night as purely defensive and denied that deadly agents had ever been designed for use in weapons.

"We did produce biological agents," Dr Taha said, but under her command the deadly anthrax and botulinum toxin were never "weaponised".

"We never had the intention to use it," she said. "We never wanted to cause harm and damage to anybody."

But her denials will cut no ice with the UN weapons inspectors, whom she has refused to meet. In its earlier declarations to inspectors, Iraq admitted filling five warheads with liquid anthrax – an admission that the biological agent had in reality been designed for use in weapons – and of producing a total of 8.5 tons of the deadly germ.

Baghdad has failed to provide convincing accounts of the anthrax production and of its subsequent destruction – leading the inspectors to suspect that the quantities held by Iraq might be even larger than those declared.

The same uncertainty surrounds the declared Iraqi stocks of the botulinum toxin. Dr Taha's team produced 19 tons of botulinum and two tons of aflatoxin, which causes liver cancer. Those agents too were found in Iraqi warheads.

The UN is insisting that scientists involved in Iraq's past – or present – programmes developing biological and chemical weapons, nuclear arms and ballistic missiles should be allowed to meet the inspectors alone, without the intimidating presence of the "minders" who record every word. Only five have so far agreed.

As the scientist in charge of Iraq's biological weapons programme, Dr Taha, who studied plant toxins at the University of East Anglia in the 1980s, would be able to provide vital information to the inspectors.

But she told the BBC programme Panorama: "I do not trust the inspectors because of what happened the last time, and I think it is better for me and for everybody to have witnesses because I think it is our right." The last UN inspection regime was disbanded in 1999 amid charges that US and Israeli intelligence were "piggy-backing" on its work.

Dr Taha's loyalty to the regime was sealed by her marriage to the former oil minister General Amer Rashid. Their relationship was unwittingly fostered by the UN inspectors who had invited both officials to New York for disarmament talks.

Dr Taha said she was not ashamed of her work developing biological weapons, "because in 1995, and until now, Iraq has been threatened by different enemies and we are in an area that suffers from regional conflict.

"I think it is our right to have a capability to defend ourselves and to have something as a deterrent."

Dr Taha, who says she now does administrative work, led the Iraqi biological weapons programme until 1995, when evidence from a defector forced the Iraqis to end four years of denials that an offensive programme existed. The Iraqis maintained until then that they were working on a veterinary programme for civilian purposes.