[930] in peace2
Biological Weapons
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Felix AuYeung)
Wed Sep 5 15:43:42 2001
From: "Felix AuYeung" <humanpotential@care2.com>
Message-Id: <15E847EB432A5D1168560005B80E61C3@humanpotential.care2.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 15:45:04 -0400
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
To: peace-list@mit.edu
CC: save@mit.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
A New Treaty Issue: U.S. Germ Labs
Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad
New York Times Service
Wednesday, September 5, 2001
NEW YORK Over the past several years, the United States has embarked
on a program of secret research on biological weapons that, some
officials say, tests the limits of the global treaty banning such
weapons.
.
The 1972 treaty forbids countries from developing or acquiring
weapons that spread disease, but it allows work on vaccines and other
protective measures. Government officials said that the secret
research, which mimicked the major steps a state or terrorist would
take to create a biological arsenal, was aimed at better
understanding the threat.
.
The projects, which have not been previously disclosed, were begun
under President Bill Clinton and have been embraced by the Bush
administration, which intends to expand them.
.
Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew
up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of
the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ
warfare.The experiment has been devised to assess whether the vaccine
now being given to millions of American soldiers is effective against
such a superbug, which was first created by Russian scientists. A
Bush administration official said that the National Security Council
was expected to give the final go-ahead later this month.
.
Two other projects completed during the Clinton administration
focused on the mechanics of making germ weapons.
.
In a program code-named Clear Vision, the CIA built and tested a
model of a Soviet-designed germ bomb that agency officials feared was
being sold on the international market. The CIA device lacked a fuse
and other parts that would make it a working bomb, intelligence
officials said.
.
At about the same time, Pentagon experts assembled a germ factory in
the Nevada desert from commercially available materials.
.
Pentagon officials said that the project demonstrated the ease with
which a terrorist or rogue nation could build a plant that could
produce pounds of deadly germs.
.
Both the mock bomb and the factory were tested with simulants -
benign substances with characteristics similar to the germs used in
weapons, officials said.
.
A senior Bush administration official said that all the projects
were "fully consistent" with the treaty banning biological weapons
and were needed to protect Americans against a growing danger. "This
administration will pursue defenses against the full spectrum of
biological threats," the official said.
.
The treaty, another administration official said, allows the United
States to conduct research on both microbes and germ munitions for
protective or defensive purposes.
.
Some Clinton administration officials worried, however, that the
project violated the pact. And others expressed concern that the
experiments, if they were disclosed, might be misunderstood as a
clandestine effort to resume work on a class of weapons that
President Richard Nixon had relinquished in 1969.
.
Simultaneous experiments involving a model of a germ bomb, a factory
to make biological agents and the development of more potent anthrax,
these officials said, would draw sharp protests from Washington if
done by North Korea or another country the United States viewed as
suspect.
.
Administration officials said the need to keep such projects secret
was a significant reason behind President George W. Bush's recent
rejection of a draft agreement to strengthen the germ-weapons treaty,
which has been signed by 143 countries.
.
The draft would require those countries to disclose where they are
conducting defensive research involving gene-splicing or germs likely
to be used in weapons. The sites would then be subject to
international inspections.
.
Many national security officials in both the Clinton and Bush
administrations opposed the draft, arguing that it would give
potential adversaries a road map to what the United States considers
its most serious vulnerabilities.
.
Among the facilities likely to be open to inspection under the draft
agreement would be the West Jefferson, Ohio, laboratory of the
Battelle Memorial Institute, a military contractor that has been
selected to create the genetically altered anthrax.
.
Several officials who served in senior posts in the Clinton
administration acknowledged that the secretive efforts were so poorly
coordinated that even the White House was unaware of the full scope
of the projects.
.
The Pentagon's project to build a germ factory was not reported to
the White House, they said. Mr. Clinton, who developed an intense
interest in germ weapons, was never briefed on the programs under way
or contemplated, the officials said.
.
A former senior official in the Clinton White House conceded that, in
retrospect, someone should have been responsible for reviewing the
projects to ensure that they were not only effective in defending the
United States but consistent with the country's arms-control pledges.
.
The CIA's tests on the bomb model touched off a dispute among
government experts after the tests were concluded in 2000, with some
officials arguing that they violated the germ treaty's prohibition
against developing weapons.
.
Intelligence officials said that lawyers at the agency and the White
House had concluded that the work was defensive, and therefore
allowed.
.
But even officials who supported the effort acknowledged that it
brought the United States closer to what was forbidden. "It was
pressing how far you go before you do something illegal or immoral,"
recalled a senior official who was briefed on the program.
.
Public disclosure of the research is likely to complicate the
position of the United States, which has long been in the forefront
of efforts to enforce the ban on germ weapons.
.
The Bush administration's willingness to abandon the 1972 Anti-
Ballistic Missile treaty has already drawn criticism around the world.
.
The administration's stance on the draft agreement for the germ
treaty has put Washington at odds with many of its allies, including
Japan and Britain.
http://www.care2.com - Get your Free e-mail account that helps save Wildlife!
