In a press conference on August 21, 1998, the day after the U.S. launched a missile attack on the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger said: ” ‘Let me be very clear about this. There is no question in my mind that the Sudanese factory was producing chemicals that are used–can be used–in VX [nerve] gas. This was a plant that was producing chemical warfare-related weapons and we have physical evidence of that fact.’ ” Sudanese foreign minister Osman Ismail “denied that the plant had any involvement in chemical weapons production and invited the United Nations to send inspectors to the site. …To demonstrate that the plant was operating according to international law, Ismail pointed out that the al Shifa plant had won a contract for $199,000 to provide medicine to Iraq through a United Nations program. But the contract raised suspicions among U.S. intelligence officials, principally because there was no record of the goods having been delivered to Iraq in the eight months between when the contract was signed and the United States bombed the plant.”
– Stephen F. Hayes, The Connection, Page 107