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Pentagon Appears Poised to Resume Open-Air Testing of Biological Weapons
By Sherwood Ross
Created Dec 4 2007 - 8:36am
BUT SAYS IT HAS RECEIVED NO PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE TO BREAK MORATORIUM
(ANS) --- The Pentagon has denied President Bush issued a directive for it
to resume open-air testing of chemical and biological warfare(CBW) agents
that were halted by President Richard Nixon in 1969. Yet, the Pentagon's
stated preparations make it appear it is poised to do just that.
Spokesperson Chris Isleib did not respond to a request for comment on a
passage from the Defense Department's annual report sent to Congress last
April that suggests the Pentagon is gearing up to resume the tests.
Resumption of open-air testing would reverse a long-standing moratorium
adopted after a public outcry against them following accidents in the
Sixties.
The Pentagon's annual report apparently calls for both the developmental and
operational "field testing of (CBW) full systems," not just simulations.
The Pentagon's report to Congress contains the following passage: "More than
thirty years have passed since outdoor live-agent chemical tests were banned
in the United States, and the last outdoor test with live chemical agent was
performed, so much of the infrastructure for the field testing of chemical
detectors no longer exists or is seriously outdated. The currently budgeted
improvements in the T&E infrastructure will greatly enhance both the
developmental and operational field testing of full systems, with better
simulated representation of threats and characterization of system
response." "T&E" is an acronym for testing and evaluation.
"Either the military has resumed open-air testing already or they are
preparing to do so," said Francis Boyle, a University of Illinois Professor
of International Law who authored the implementing legislation for the U.S.
Biological Weapons Convention signed into law by President George Bush Sr.
and who has tracked subsequent developments closely.
"I am stunned by the nature of this development," Boyle said. "This is a
major reversal of policy." The 1972 treaty against germ warfare, which the
U.S. signed, forbids developing weapons that spread disease, such as
anthrax, a pathogen that is regarded by the military as "ideal" for
conducting germ warfare.
"The Pentagon is fully prepared to launch biological warfare by means of
anthrax," Boyle charged. "All the equipment has been acquired and all the
training conducted and most combat-ready members of U.S. armed forces have
been given protective equipment and vaccines that allegedly would protect
them from that agent."
Open-air testing takes research into deadly agents out of the laboratories
in order to study their effectiveness, including their aerial dispersion
patterns, and whether they actually infect and kill in field trials. Since
the anthrax attacks on Congress in October, 2001, the Bush administration
has funded a vast biological research expansion at hundreds of private and
university laboratories in the U.S. and abroad involving anthrax and other
deadly pathogens.
The anthrax attacks killed five people, including two postal workers,
injured 17 others and temporarily shut down the operations of the U.S.
Congress, Supreme Court, and other Federal entities.
Although a Federal statute permits the president to authorize open-air
testing of CBW agents, Boyle said this "does not solve the compliance
problem that it might violate the international Chemical Weapons Convention
and the Biological Weapons Convention as well as their related domestic
implementing legislation making such violations crimes."
Boyle charged the U.S. is already "in breach" of both conventions and also
of U.S. domestic criminal law implementing them. In February, 2003, for
example, the U.S. granted itself a patent on an illegal, long-range
biological-weapons grenade, evidently for offensive purposes.
Boyle said the development of anthrax for possible offensive purposes is
underscored by the government's efforts "to try to stockpile anthrax
vaccines and antibiotics for 25-million plus Americans to protect the
civilian population in the event there is any Oblowback' from the use of
anthrax in biowarfare abroad by the Pentagon."
"In theory," Boyle added, "you cannot wage biowarfare abroad unless you can
protect your civilian population from either retaliation in kind, or
blowback, or both." Under Project BioShield, Homeland Security is spending
$5.6 billion to stockpile vaccines and drugs to fight anthrax, smallpox, and
other bioterror agents. The project had been marked by delays and
operational problems and on December 12th last year Congress passed
legislation to pump another $1 billion into BioShield to fund three years of
additional research by the private sector.
Boyle said evidence the U.S. has super-weapons-grade anthrax was
demonstrated in the October, 2001, anthrax mail attacks on Senators Thomas
Daschle(D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy(D-Vt.) The strain of highly sophisticated
anthrax employed has allegedly been traced back to the primary U.S. Army
biological warfare campus at Ft. Detrick, Md. The attacks killed five
persons and sickened 17 others. A current effort to expand Ft. Detrick has
sparked widespread community opposition, according to a report in the
Baltimore Sun.
"Obviously, someone working for the United States government has a stockpile
of super-weapons grade anthrax that can be used again domestically for the
purposes of political terrorism or abroad to wage offensive warfare," Boyle
said.
The Associated Press has reported the U.S. Army is replacing its Military
Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick "with a new laboratory that
would be a component of a biodefense campus operated by several agencies."
The Army told AP the laboratory is intended to continue research solely for
defense against biological threats.
Undercutting the argument U.S. research is for "defensive" purposes is the
fact government scientists have been creating new strains of pathogens for
which there is no known cure. Richard Novick, a professor of microbiology at
New York University, has stated, "I cannot envision any imaginable
justification for changing the antigenicity of anthrax as a defensive
measure." Changing a pathogen's antigenicity means altering its basic
structure so that existing vaccines will prove ineffective against it.
Biological warfare involves the use of living organisms for military
purposes. Such weapons can be viral, bacterial, and fungal, among other
forms, and can be spread over a large geographic terrain by wind, water,
insect, animal, or human transmission, according to Jeremy Rifkin, author of
"The Biotech Century"(Penguin).
Boyle said the Federal government has been plowing money into upgrading Ft.
Detrick, Md., and other CBW facilities where such pathogens are studied,
developed, tested, and stored. By some estimates, the U.S. since 2002 has
invested some $43 billion in hundreds of government, commercial, and
university laboratories in the U.S. for the study of pathogens that might be
used for biological warfare.
According to Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright, more
than 300 scientific institutions and 12,000 individuals have access to
pathogens suitable for biowarfare and terrorism. Ebright found that the
Number of National Institute of Health grants to research infectious
diseases with biowarfare potential shot up from 33 in the 1995-2000 period
to 497 by 2006.Ebright has stated the government's tenfold expansion of
Biosafety Level-4 laboratories, such as thoseat Fort Detrick, raises the
risk of accidents and the diversion of dangerous organisms. "If a worker in
one of these facilities removes a single viral particle or a single cell,
which cannot be detected or prevented, that single particle or cell can form
the basis of an outbreak."
During the Cold War era, notably in the Fifties and Sixties, various
Government agencies engaged in open-air CBW testing on U.S. soil and on
naval vessels at sea to study the effects of weaponized pathogens. U.S.
cities, including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, were among the
targets and sickness and even a number of deaths were reported as a result.
According to an article titled "Lethal Breeze" by Lee Davidson in the
Deseret News of Salt Lake City of June 5, 1994, "In decades of secret
chemical arms tests, the Army released into Utah winds more than a half
million pounds of deadly nerve agents." Among them, he said, was VX, a
pinhead-sized drop of which can be lethal. The tests were conducted at
Dugway Proving Ground but Davidson said the evidence suggests "some (agents)
may have escaped with the wind."
Pentagon documents obtained by the News listed 1,635 field trials or
demonstrations with nerve agents VX, GA and GB between 1951 and 1969, "when
the Army discontinued use of actual nerve agents in open-air tests after
escaped nerve gas apparently killed 6,000 sheep in Skull Valley," Davidson
wrote. The Skull Valley strike also sickened a rancher and members of his
family.
Boyle has previously charged the Pentagon with "gearing up to fight and
Owin' biological warfare" pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives
adopted in 2002 "without public knowledge and review." He contends the
Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense program was revised in 2003 to
implement those directives, endorsing "first-use" strike of chemical and
biological weapons in war.
The implementing legislation Boyle wrote that was enacted unanimously by
Congress was known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.
Boyle has written extensively on the subject. Among his published works are
"Biowarfare and Terrorism" and "Destroying World Order: U.S. Imperialism In
the Middle East Before and After September 11th," both from Clarity Press.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Sherwood Ross
Created Dec 4 2007 - 8:36am
BUT SAYS IT HAS RECEIVED NO PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE TO BREAK MORATORIUM
(ANS) --- The Pentagon has denied President Bush issued a directive for it
to resume open-air testing of chemical and biological warfare(CBW) agents
that were halted by President Richard Nixon in 1969. Yet, the Pentagon's
stated preparations make it appear it is poised to do just that.
Spokesperson Chris Isleib did not respond to a request for comment on a
passage from the Defense Department's annual report sent to Congress last
April that suggests the Pentagon is gearing up to resume the tests.
Resumption of open-air testing would reverse a long-standing moratorium
adopted after a public outcry against them following accidents in the
Sixties.
The Pentagon's annual report apparently calls for both the developmental and
operational "field testing of (CBW) full systems," not just simulations.
The Pentagon's report to Congress contains the following passage: "More than
thirty years have passed since outdoor live-agent chemical tests were banned
in the United States, and the last outdoor test with live chemical agent was
performed, so much of the infrastructure for the field testing of chemical
detectors no longer exists or is seriously outdated. The currently budgeted
improvements in the T&E infrastructure will greatly enhance both the
developmental and operational field testing of full systems, with better
simulated representation of threats and characterization of system
response." "T&E" is an acronym for testing and evaluation.
"Either the military has resumed open-air testing already or they are
preparing to do so," said Francis Boyle, a University of Illinois Professor
of International Law who authored the implementing legislation for the U.S.
Biological Weapons Convention signed into law by President George Bush Sr.
and who has tracked subsequent developments closely.
"I am stunned by the nature of this development," Boyle said. "This is a
major reversal of policy." The 1972 treaty against germ warfare, which the
U.S. signed, forbids developing weapons that spread disease, such as
anthrax, a pathogen that is regarded by the military as "ideal" for
conducting germ warfare.
"The Pentagon is fully prepared to launch biological warfare by means of
anthrax," Boyle charged. "All the equipment has been acquired and all the
training conducted and most combat-ready members of U.S. armed forces have
been given protective equipment and vaccines that allegedly would protect
them from that agent."
Open-air testing takes research into deadly agents out of the laboratories
in order to study their effectiveness, including their aerial dispersion
patterns, and whether they actually infect and kill in field trials. Since
the anthrax attacks on Congress in October, 2001, the Bush administration
has funded a vast biological research expansion at hundreds of private and
university laboratories in the U.S. and abroad involving anthrax and other
deadly pathogens.
The anthrax attacks killed five people, including two postal workers,
injured 17 others and temporarily shut down the operations of the U.S.
Congress, Supreme Court, and other Federal entities.
Although a Federal statute permits the president to authorize open-air
testing of CBW agents, Boyle said this "does not solve the compliance
problem that it might violate the international Chemical Weapons Convention
and the Biological Weapons Convention as well as their related domestic
implementing legislation making such violations crimes."
Boyle charged the U.S. is already "in breach" of both conventions and also
of U.S. domestic criminal law implementing them. In February, 2003, for
example, the U.S. granted itself a patent on an illegal, long-range
biological-weapons grenade, evidently for offensive purposes.
Boyle said the development of anthrax for possible offensive purposes is
underscored by the government's efforts "to try to stockpile anthrax
vaccines and antibiotics for 25-million plus Americans to protect the
civilian population in the event there is any Oblowback' from the use of
anthrax in biowarfare abroad by the Pentagon."
"In theory," Boyle added, "you cannot wage biowarfare abroad unless you can
protect your civilian population from either retaliation in kind, or
blowback, or both." Under Project BioShield, Homeland Security is spending
$5.6 billion to stockpile vaccines and drugs to fight anthrax, smallpox, and
other bioterror agents. The project had been marked by delays and
operational problems and on December 12th last year Congress passed
legislation to pump another $1 billion into BioShield to fund three years of
additional research by the private sector.
Boyle said evidence the U.S. has super-weapons-grade anthrax was
demonstrated in the October, 2001, anthrax mail attacks on Senators Thomas
Daschle(D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy(D-Vt.) The strain of highly sophisticated
anthrax employed has allegedly been traced back to the primary U.S. Army
biological warfare campus at Ft. Detrick, Md. The attacks killed five
persons and sickened 17 others. A current effort to expand Ft. Detrick has
sparked widespread community opposition, according to a report in the
Baltimore Sun.
"Obviously, someone working for the United States government has a stockpile
of super-weapons grade anthrax that can be used again domestically for the
purposes of political terrorism or abroad to wage offensive warfare," Boyle
said.
The Associated Press has reported the U.S. Army is replacing its Military
Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick "with a new laboratory that
would be a component of a biodefense campus operated by several agencies."
The Army told AP the laboratory is intended to continue research solely for
defense against biological threats.
Undercutting the argument U.S. research is for "defensive" purposes is the
fact government scientists have been creating new strains of pathogens for
which there is no known cure. Richard Novick, a professor of microbiology at
New York University, has stated, "I cannot envision any imaginable
justification for changing the antigenicity of anthrax as a defensive
measure." Changing a pathogen's antigenicity means altering its basic
structure so that existing vaccines will prove ineffective against it.
Biological warfare involves the use of living organisms for military
purposes. Such weapons can be viral, bacterial, and fungal, among other
forms, and can be spread over a large geographic terrain by wind, water,
insect, animal, or human transmission, according to Jeremy Rifkin, author of
"The Biotech Century"(Penguin).
Boyle said the Federal government has been plowing money into upgrading Ft.
Detrick, Md., and other CBW facilities where such pathogens are studied,
developed, tested, and stored. By some estimates, the U.S. since 2002 has
invested some $43 billion in hundreds of government, commercial, and
university laboratories in the U.S. for the study of pathogens that might be
used for biological warfare.
According to Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright, more
than 300 scientific institutions and 12,000 individuals have access to
pathogens suitable for biowarfare and terrorism. Ebright found that the
Number of National Institute of Health grants to research infectious
diseases with biowarfare potential shot up from 33 in the 1995-2000 period
to 497 by 2006.Ebright has stated the government's tenfold expansion of
Biosafety Level-4 laboratories, such as thoseat Fort Detrick, raises the
risk of accidents and the diversion of dangerous organisms. "If a worker in
one of these facilities removes a single viral particle or a single cell,
which cannot be detected or prevented, that single particle or cell can form
the basis of an outbreak."
During the Cold War era, notably in the Fifties and Sixties, various
Government agencies engaged in open-air CBW testing on U.S. soil and on
naval vessels at sea to study the effects of weaponized pathogens. U.S.
cities, including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, were among the
targets and sickness and even a number of deaths were reported as a result.
According to an article titled "Lethal Breeze" by Lee Davidson in the
Deseret News of Salt Lake City of June 5, 1994, "In decades of secret
chemical arms tests, the Army released into Utah winds more than a half
million pounds of deadly nerve agents." Among them, he said, was VX, a
pinhead-sized drop of which can be lethal. The tests were conducted at
Dugway Proving Ground but Davidson said the evidence suggests "some (agents)
may have escaped with the wind."
Pentagon documents obtained by the News listed 1,635 field trials or
demonstrations with nerve agents VX, GA and GB between 1951 and 1969, "when
the Army discontinued use of actual nerve agents in open-air tests after
escaped nerve gas apparently killed 6,000 sheep in Skull Valley," Davidson
wrote. The Skull Valley strike also sickened a rancher and members of his
family.
Boyle has previously charged the Pentagon with "gearing up to fight and
Owin' biological warfare" pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives
adopted in 2002 "without public knowledge and review." He contends the
Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense program was revised in 2003 to
implement those directives, endorsing "first-use" strike of chemical and
biological weapons in war.
The implementing legislation Boyle wrote that was enacted unanimously by
Congress was known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.
Boyle has written extensively on the subject. Among his published works are
"Biowarfare and Terrorism" and "Destroying World Order: U.S. Imperialism In
the Middle East Before and After September 11th," both from Clarity Press.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
