Bush’s New Biological Weapons Labs
In 1972 the United States Congress ratified the http://www.cdi.org/… 1972 Biological Weapons Treaty. To make the world a safer place, here we are three decades later, and we are spending money as a nation hand over fist to break this treaty, in the words of our President "trust me".
I might trust him that it is for our nations own good, except the history of the two men next to him, scares the hell out of me, given their involvement in "human experiments" with chemical weapons and drugs and Rumsfled’s prior concurrence in Nixon’s cabinet prior to 1972 in the biological human tests at Fort Detrick, Maryland. They have shown they have no regard for the "volunteers’ lives. They refuse to do complete health studies of the Cold War veterans today and still ignore the dead and disabled veterans and widows from Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick. http://www.dailykos.com/…
In the end, Sandakhchiev’s biggest contribution may have been his example, which helped persuade many other Soviet scientists to abandon secrecy and turn their expertise in chemical and biological warfare to peaceful pursuits.
Needless to say, some nationalistic hard-liners in Russia resisted scientific exchanges and Vector’s growing ties to the West. For their part, some U.S. officials suspected that military work was continuing at Vector and elsewhere. Such fears were largely but not totally allayed, at least at Vector, by 2000, when audits of its grants showed that the dollars Washington had invested there — US$30 million at last count — had been spent as Congress intended.
In the battle against germ weapons, as in medicine itself, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. For about US$500 million a year — about the cost of two days of the Iraq war — the Nunn-Lugar threat-reduction programs have helped deny nuclear, chemical and deadly biological materials and expertise to hostile states and terrorists.
Then there is this article from Joby Warrick of the WAPO http://www.fortwayne.com/.. .
The work at this new lab, at Fort Detrick, Md., could someday save thousands of lives - or, some fear, create new risks and place the United States in violation of international treaties. In either case, much of what transpires at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center may never be publicly known, because the Bush administration intends to operate the lab largely in secret.
In an unusual arrangement, the building itself will be classified as highly restricted space, from the reception desk to the lab benches to the cages where animals are kept. Few federal facilities, including nuclear labs, operate with such stealth. It is this opacity that some arms-control experts say has become a defining characteristic of U.S. biodefense policy as carried out by the Department of Homeland Security, NBACC’s creator.
Since the department’s founding in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, its officials have dramatically expanded the government’s ability to conduct realistic tests of the pathogens and tactics that might be used in a bioterrorism attack. Some of the research falls within what many arms-control experts say is a legal gray zone, skirting the edges of an international treaty outlawing the production of even small amounts of biological weapons.
The administration dismisses these concerns, however, insisting that the work of NBACC is purely defensive and thus fully legal. It has rejected calls for oversight by independent observers outside the department’s network of government scientists and contractors. And it defends the secrecy as necessary to protect Americans
Then there is this lovely little article about bulding another bio-lab on the grounds of the Livermore Lab, a nuclear research facility, do we really want to mix, nuclear and biological agents together, how safe is that?
Marylia Kelley, executive director of nuclear watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs, said the organization is against locating the biolab complex at the Livermore lab for two reasons. First, if one of the agents were accidentally released, it could devastate nearby farmers and ranchers and cripple the local economy. Kelley also said that placing pathogens used for biological warfare in close proximity to a nuclear testing facility could be perceived as an offensive threat to terrorist groups and other nations.
"It becomes hard to convince the world that the research is completely defensive," Kelley said. "We strongly disagree with the appropriateness of this location."
Tracy resident Bob Sarvey, a local environmental enthusiast, agreed.
"This is too populated an area for that type of facility," he said.
Then there are more article about more bio-weapons labs and how they will make us safer, who else has forgotten about the anthrax letters in 2002? Is the government really making us safer or endangering American lives?
http://www.detnews.com/… Should bio lab be heavily confidential?
Access to biodefense facility will be limited, data will be protected; some say it’s not needed.
and this is the last article http://seattletimes.nwsourc e.com…
The Bush administration argues that its biodefense research complies with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, the 1972 treaty outlawing biological- weapons manufacture, because U.S. motives are pure.
Current and former administration officials say the treaty hinges on intent, and that making small amounts of biowarfare pathogens for study is permitted under a broad interpretation of the treaty. Some argue that a strong biodefense in an age of genetic engineering trumps concerns over what’s seen as legal hair-splitting.
"How can I go to the people of this country and say, ‘I can’t do this important research because some arms-control advocate told me I can’t'?" asked Penrose "Parney" Albright, former Homeland Security assistant secretary for science and technology.
But some international-law experts think that certain experiments envisioned for the lab could violate the treaty’s ban on developing, stockpiling, acquiring or retaining microbes "of types and in quantities that have no justification" for peaceful purposes.
I have first hand experience with "safe" government test programs, they are anything but safe, and they end up out of control, we need to say no to these labs and demand Congress stop them.
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