U.S. officials allege that Ammash, who earned a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and who was appointed to the Revolutionary Command Council in May 2001, helped to rebuild Iraq's biological weapons program in the mid-1990s after the Gulf War. American officials say she was one of a new generation of leaders given leading posts within the Baath party by Saddam Hussein. In one of several videos that Saddam released during the war, Ammash was the only woman among about a half-dozen men seated around a table. The videos were broadcast on Iraqi TV as invading forces drew closer to Baghdad: it is not known when the meeting took place or what the significance was of her appearance on camera.