U.S. is Violating CBW Treaties

[jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

The following article appears in the Dec. 15, 2002, email Mid-Hudson
Activist Newsletter, published by the Mid-Hudson National People's
Campaign/IAC, in New Paltz, N.Y., via jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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IS U.S. VIOLATING CBW TREATIES?

Hypocrisy permeates U.S. policy toward Iraq.  Take the issue of
chemical-biological weapons (CBW), for example.

It's not just that Washington supplied the gas Iraq used against the
Kurds and Iran that the Bush administration now criticizes so
vehemently.  And it's not just that the White House refuses to produce
evidence proving that Iraq now possesses and plans to use such weapons.

It's that the U.S. (1) not only controls the world's largest supply of
chemical-biological weapons of truly mass destruction (though it won't
open its stockpile to international inspection), but (2) the Bush
administration is evidently in violation of UN mandates concerning such
weaponry.

According to a recent report by the Sunshine Project, a U.S.-German
watchdog over chemical-biological weapons, the Pentagon is "conducting a
chemical weapons research and development program in violation of
international arms control law."  This charge is based upon a
year-and-a-half probe of the Defense Department's Joint Non-Lethal
Weapons Directorate (JNLWD).  "The investigation made extensive use of
Freedom of Information Act to obtain Pentagon records that form the
primary basis of the allegations," the group  reports on its website,
www.sunshine-project.org/.

The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been coordinating
experimental research for the Pentagon since 1996 under the command of
the U.S. Marine Corps. The Nov. 17 Toronto Star reports that "testing
has been done on biological cluster bombs, weapons-grade anthrax and
other genetically modified microbes, as well as non-lethal narcotic
gases ? 'calmatives' intended to knock out their victims."  Such
calmatives are suspected of being the weapon used in Russia recently
that killed some 130 hostages held in a Moscow theater by rebels from
Chechnya.

Based on the Pentagon documents, the Sunshine Project accuses the U.S.
of "operating an illegal and classified chemical weapons program,"
specifically:

1. Conducting a research and development program on toxic chemical
agents for use as weapons, including anesthetics and psychoactive
substances, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention;

2. Developing long-range military delivery devices for these chemicals,
including an 81-mm chemical mortar round, that violate the Chemical
Weapons Convention.

3. Pursuing a chemical weapons program while fully cognizant that it
violates the Chemical Weapons Convention and U.S. Department of Defense
regulations;

4. Attempting to cover up the illicit program by classifying as secret
even its own legal interpretations of the Chemical Weapons Convention
(CWC) and attempting to block access to documents requested under U.S.
information freedom law.

The group details these charges with maps, a fact sheet and excerpts
from the JNLWD documents.

Edward Hammond, director of Sunshine Project/U.S., has called on
Congress "to investigate JNLWD's arms control violations," explaining
that "We can present hard evidence for an illicit and shameful chemical
weapons program in the U. S. If the U.S. invades Iraq and uses these
weapons, we may witness the depravity of the U.S. waging chemical
warfare against Iraq to prevent it from developing chemical weapons."

Jan van Aken, who directs Sunshine Project/Germany,  says, "We have
written documentation that the British government told JNLWD that its
program violates the CWC in private talks." The project's charges were
presented to the October meeting of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Sifting through the Sunshine Project's documentation, the Toronto
newspaper reported the following findings, some of which are evidently
intended for deployment against civilian populations:

(1) The manufacture of genetically engineered bacteria that can "eat"
roads, runways, weapons, vehicles and fuel.  (2) The development of
long-range chemical delivery devices, such as the standard 81-millimeter
field mortar round that can carry a chemical payload 2.5 kilometers.
(3) Plans to test warheads that contain live microbes in large aerosol
chambers.  (4) Testing of "veiling-glare" laser beams that temporarily
blind subjects by making their eyes fluorescent and can cause permanent
damage to sight.  (5) Weapons that fire wide-angle electromagnetic waves
to heat water molecules in the outer skin and cause excruciating pain.
(6) Work on Agent Green ? an anti-crop bacteriological substance for use
in the drug war ? that critics say is environmentally dangerous.  (7)
Continuing research on "non-lethal" incapacitants, calmatives and
possibly convulsants, whose "development and use," according to a Marine
Corps report, "is achievable and desirable."

According to director Hammond, all these examples contravene the UN
treaties.

In a related report, the Guardian (UK) reported Oct. 29 that (1) the CIA
was making efforts to copy a Russian cluster bomb designed to disperse
biological weapons; (2) the Defense Intelligence Agency was researching
the possibility of genetically engineering a new strain of
antibiotic-resistant anthrax; and (3) the U.S. government initiated a
program to produce dried and weaponized anthrax spores "officially for
testing U.S. bio-defenses, but far more spores were allegedly produced
than necessary for such purposes."

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