[Since the attacks of 9-11-01 there has been a
great deal of discussion and speculation as to whether
or not gene-specific bioweapons might be used as a
weapon of war or, in the gloomiest of scenarios, as
an instrument of global population reduction to alleviate
the inevitably drastic consequences of Peak Oil. FTW asked radio public affairs producer and investigative journalist
Kellia Ramares to take a critical look at whether such
weapons actually exist. While not definitively establishing
that such weapons do exist, Ramares had documented,
in chilling detail, both their scientific feasibility
of such weapons and the fact that many nations have
been actively pursuing them for some time. - MCR]
----------
"...to the
extent that any country were to attack us with nuclear
weapons then we
obviously have a nuclear response. With respect to biologicals
and chemicals, we have indicated it would be a swift,
devastating response and overwhelming force. We have
not indicated what that might entail. We've left that
deliberately open."
-- Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen in an interview for the PBS "Frontline" program "Plague
Wars" aired on 10.13.98.
Mar. 4, 2003, 00:30 PST (FTW) -- Biological and chemical weapons are as old as the discovery of poison.
Examples of chemical warfare go back at least as far
as Ancient Greece, where Solon of Athens poisoned his
enemy's water supply during the siege of Krissa in 6th Century
B.C.E. 1 In Europe, biological weapons, in
the form of the bodies of plague victims being catapulted
over the walls of a besieged city, go back to at least
the year 1346.2 In 18th Century
North America, Indian populations were given smallpox
infected blankets during the French and Indian War.3 In
modern times, there is evidence of a World War II-era
Japanese biological weapons program and Japanese use
of plague against the civilian Chinese population of
Chiangking Province.4 Out of World War II
came the mushroom cloud that still haunts popular imagination.
But the still-unsolved anthrax attacks in the U.S. in
October 2001 and the White House's insistence that Iraq
is concealing chemical and biological weapons has again
brought these types of weapons to public attention.
The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention5 prohibits
the development, production and stockpiling of biological
and toxic weapons. The BTWC was signed on April 10, 1972,
and entered into force on March 26, 1975. The Convention
is a disarmament treaty, meant to "exclude completely
the possibility" of biological agents and toxins
being used as weapons by abolishing the weapons themselves.6
The United States, the United Kingdom, and several
countries thought by the United States Government to
have bioweapons programs are original signatories to
the BTWC. These include the Russian Federation, Iran,
South Africa, South Korea and Syria.7 North
Korea, Iraq and Libya subsequently signed the convention.8 The
United States ratified the BTWC on March 26, 1975.9 Non-signatories
include several former Soviet republics in volatile Central
Asia: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.10
The BTWC forbids work on offensive biological weapons.
Perhaps the most egregious violation of the Convention
has been the former Soviet Union's offensive biological
weapons program. 11
The
Convention allows defensive biological work, such as
the development of vaccines. However, the line between
defensive and offensive work is very thin; in order to
make a vaccine or an antidote, one must first learn how
a pathogen works, and that information could be put to
offensive use.
Biological and Chemical Weapons: Is their use
inevitable?
In 1997, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen reported
that more than 25 countries had-or may be developing-nuclear,
biological and chemical (NBC) weapons and the means to
deliver them, and that a larger number were capable of
producing such weapons, potentially on short notice.12
There
are a number of reasons why, despite the BTWC, the use
of biological and chemical weapons becomes more and more
likely:
1)It is extremely
difficult to monitor the creation of bioweapons because
there are no critical raw materials, e.g. uranium or plutonium,
the mining, manufacture or transportation of which could
be evidence of the creation of the weapon; a small amount
of a bioagent can do a lot of damage, so no major stockpiling
is needed; 13
2)Bioweapons are
cheap compared to conventional and nuclear weapons, and
can be economically developed through computer modeling.
Furthermore, bioweapons do not require a large and expensive
delivery infrastructure of conventional weapons, i.e. planes,
aircraft carriers, missiles, etc.14 For example,
anthrax was sent through the U.S. mails in 2001;
3)The spread of
human, animal or crop disease can be made to look like
an "act of God" with no one able to trace the
perpetrator(s); 15
Additionally,
smaller states with little or no nuclear capability can
view chemical and biological weapons as a counterforce
to the heavy nuclear and conventional capabilities of the
United States, which is threatening possibly nuclear "preemptive
action" under the so-called Bush Doctrine"16
Biological
and chemical weapons can be used by countries, corporations,
terrorist groups, organized crime and disaffected or mentally
ill individuals who would not have the means to build up
a conventional or nuclear arsenal. Properly deployed, they
have the capability of rapidly killing more people than
a nuclear weapon. In an interview for the PBS television
program Frontline in 1998, then Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen
said, "If you look at the impact that a biological
weapon can have, in terms of its cost and consequence,
you will find that it does not take a great deal to develop
it in terms of money. It has a major consequence if you
were to, for example, take roughly 100 kilograms (about
220 pounds) of anthrax and you were to properly disperse
[it], that would have the impact of something like two
to six times the consequence of a one megaton nuclear bomb."17
Moreover, the May 1997 Report
of the Quadrennial Defense Review stated:
...the threat or use of chemical and
biological weapons (CBW) is a likely condition of future
warfare, including in
the early stages of war to disrupt U.S. operations and
logistics. These weapons may be delivered by ballistic
missiles, cruise missiles, aircraft, special operations
forces, or other means. To meet this challenge, as well
as the possibility that CBW might also be used in some
smaller-scale contingencies, U.S. forces must be properly
trained and equipped to operate effectively and decisively
in the face of CBW attacks. This requires that the U.S.
military continue to improve its capabilities to locate
and destroy such CBW, preferably before they can be used,
and defend against and manage the consequences of CBW
if they are used. But capability enhancements alone are
not enough. Equally important will be adapting U.S. doctrine,
operational concepts, training, and exercises to take
full account of the threat posed by CBW as well as other
likely asymmetric threats. Moreover, given that the United
States will most likely conduct future operations in
coalition with others, we must also encourage our friends
and allies to train and equip their forces for effective
operations in CBW environments."18
The
adaptation to future warfare involving CBW is being done
in such as way as to increase the likelihood of such a
war. The United States, and perhaps other nations as well,
is engaging in so-called defensive research known as "threat
assessment." That means creating the threat
or a simulant of it, and testing its delivery by various
means in order to assess how harmful it could be.
Dr.
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Chair of the Federation of American
Scientist's Working Group on Biological Weapons and Director
of the Federation's Chemical and Biological Arms Control
Program, has written that the outcome of threat assessment "may
be a covert international arms race to stay at the cutting
edge of BW development, using defence as a cover." 19
To
make matters worse, the United States is moving toward
more secrecy about the general conduct of its defensive
research, a practice which could make other nations suspicious
about the true nature of the research. It's also appears
that the U.S. is up to lawyerly tricks to evade the requirements
of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. Dr. Rosenberg
has reported:
It is startling to find, in the Assessment Report of a meeting
of US and UK defence officials, that 'in the US these
[relevant treaties, including the BWC] do not apply to
the Department of Justice (DOJ) or Department of Energy.'
Therefore, the Report lists as one of the Recommended
Actions for the US: 'If there are promising technologies
that DoD is prohibited from pursuing, set up MOA [memoranda
of agreement] with DOJ or DOE.' The US delegation to
this event - the Non-Lethal Weapons Urban Operations
Executive Seminar, held in London on November 30, 2000
- was led by four US Marine Corps Generals, including
one who was Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant of
the Marine Corps.20
Chemical
and biological weapons (CBW) create the possibility of
warfare in which battlefields are intentionally or unintentionally
rendered obsolete, as it may not be possible to confine
diseases or chemicals to a limited geographical area. They
also ensure a future of warfare, perhaps a very near future,
in which civilians are not "collateral damage" but
the prime targets. And the combination of a lowered moral
barrier towards CBW, the stirring up of ages-old ethnic
hatreds, and advances in genome research within the last
decade has brought the genocidal possibility of genetic
weapons, i.e., weapons that target some component of the
genetic makeup (genome) of its victim, closer to reality.
So
far, there is no proof that genetic weapons targeting any
organism have actually been developed. But several
countries have researched or are researching the subject.
The possibilities for genetic weapons range from botanical
pathogens that could wipe out a region's crops in an
act of military or economic warfare, or terrorism, to
the ultimate Hitlerian nightmare: the "ethno-bomb," a
weapon targeted at unique or nearly unique genetic characteristics
of a population. n (For the purposes of this
article, pathogens that can harm anyone, but which are
distributed, intentionally or accidentally, to a specific
racial or ethnic group are not considered "ethno-bombs" or "ethnic
weapons." A strong case for HIV being a laboratory
created virus distributed intentionally or accidentally
to Central Africa and the New York gay community via
smallpox and hepatitis B vaccines is made by Dr. Leonard
Horowitz in Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola - Nature,
Accident or Intentional?,
(Tetrahedron, Inc., Rockport MA, 1996). In the worst
case scenario of unintended consequences, government
and corporate genome research intended for legitimate
medical applications may someday provide the knowledge
required to develop genetically specific ethnic weapons.
"Ethno-Bombs":
Warnings were raised a decade ago
In 1993, RAFI, Rural Advancement Foundation International,
now the ETC Group - Action Group on Erosion, Technology
and Concentration,21 raised concerns that
the gathering of human genetic material by, among other
organizations, the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP)
could make feasible the development of ethnically targeted
viruses.22
RAFI's
executive director, Pat Roy Mooney wrote: "Not
since we warned, at the beginning of the 1980s, that
herbicide manufacturers were buying seed companies in
order to develop plant varieties that liked their chemicals,
has RAFI borne the brunt of so much abuse.23
But in 1996, Dr. Vivienne Nathanson, the British Medical
Association's (BMA) Head of Science and Ethics told a
congress of the World Medical Association that ethnically
targeted genetic weapons were now possible, and she cited
as example the possibility of designing an agent that
could sterilize or pass on a lethal hereditary defect
in specific ethnic groups.24
In 1999, the BMA issued a report called Biotechnology,
Weapons and Humanity25, which warned that
genetic knowledge could be misused to develop weapons
aimed at specific ethnic groups. The executive summary,
available online, stated:
Over the last few decades rapid advances in molecular biology
have allowed the heritable material (DNA) of different
organisms to be interchanged. The Human Genome Project
and the Human Genetic Diversity Projects are allowing
the identification of human genetic coding and differences
in normal genetic material between different ethnic groups.
During the review conferences on the BTWC, an increasing
level of concern has been expressed by national governments
over the potential use of genetic knowledge in the development
of a new generation of biological and toxin weapons.
Legitimate research into microbiological agents, relating
both to the development of agents for use in, for example
agriculture, or to improve the medical response to disease
causing agents, may be difficult to distinguish from
research with the malign purpose of producing more effective
weapons.
Research
that could be used to develop ethnic weapons has historically
been based upon natural susceptibilities,
or upon the absence of vaccination within a target group.
Genetic engineering of biological agents, to make them
more potent, has been carried out covertly for some years,
but not as an overt step to produce more effective weapons.
In genetic terms there are more similarities between
different people and peoples than there are differences.
But the differences exist, and may singly or in combination
distinguish the members of one social group (an "ethnic" group)
from another.26
Rapid Advances: How fast is fast?
Advancements
in genome research have occurred at an amazing pace The
U.S. Human Genome Project expects to complete the Human
DNA Sequence in the spring of 2003,27 two years
ahead of the original schedule. RAFI's (now ETC Group's)
Pat Roy Mooney has written:
The amount of genetic information
being stored in the international gene banks is doubling
every 14 months... A quarter century ago, it took a
laboratory two months to sequence 150 nucleotides (the
molecular letters that spell out a gene). Now, scientists
can sequence 11 million letters in a matter of hours.
The cost of DNA sequencing has dropped from about US$100
per base pair in 1980 to less than a dollar today [early
2001] and will be down to pennies by 2002. Standard
gene sequencing technology once required at least two
weeks and $US20,000 to screen a single patient for
genetic variations in 100,000 SNPs (single nucleotide
polymorphisms). Now 100,000 SNPs can be screened in
a few hours for a few hundred dollars.28
Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms
(SNPs) are small genetic variations that occur in individuals.
But studies are also being done by the SNP Consortium,
an organization of private biotechnology firms, 29 to
see how they vary from group to group. The groups being
studied are African Americans, Asians and Caucasians.
Sequencing the Human Genome: What do
genes say about race?
The Human Genome Project has shown that 99.9% of human
DNA is identical throughout the species and that there
are more genetic variations within groups than between
groups.30 Thus, race, as we think of it socially,
is a cultural construct, rather than a genetic one.
Yet, our eyes tell us that there are differences. All humans would look alike otherwise.
It is also well known that certain ethnic groups have
predispositions to certain illnesses. Something must
account for those predispositions. Is that something
in the .1% of non-identical genes scattered throughout
humanity? More specifically, is that something explained
by Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms?
When it comes to the development of "ethno bombs," it's
the study of SNPs that most worries Edward Hammond, director
of the Sunshine Project31 and a former RAFI
staff member. It's the primary focus of the Sunshine
Project to prevent new breakthroughs in biotechnology
from being applied for military purposes. In an interview
with FTW in January, 2003, Hammond said
of SNPs:
What
these are, put in more simple language, are little, small
differences in the genetic code that are in all of us,
but ones which can be at least theoretically related
to a particular ethnic group or a particular kind of
people. And so the fear is that these discoveries that
there are some very minor genetic differences that do
seem to roughly break down somewhat along culturally
defined ethnic lines could become exploitable, particularly
once we reach the point where genetic constructs that
could be created by science could take advantage of a
group of these. What I mean by that is that there are
very, very few genetic differences that in and of themselves
are markedly different from one population to another.
However, if you could do a combination of factors, a
combination of small differences in genes there might
be ways to roughly create something that you would call
a genetic weapon.
If
we arrive at the point where genetic weapons are possible,
and I do believe that this will happen, the thing that
I'm most concerned about are not the individual "disease" genes
that have been identified in the past.[Ethnically related
genetic disorders such as Cystic Fibrosis, Sickle Cell
Anemia, or Tay-Sachs Disease]. Rather it is a combination
of genes that occur in particular frequencies in different
populations and by targeting the absence or the presence
of a particularly small group of genes that seems to
have some sort of ethnic association, than by that way,
I think genetic weapons may become possible.
The rapid developments in genome mapping have enabled
the Human Genome Project32 to meet all its
goals for 1994-1998, and to add two new goals for 1999-2003:
the determination of human sequence variation [mapping
the SNPs] and functional analysis of the operation of
the whole genome [understanding how the whole system
works]. These are two goals vital to creating ethnic-specific
genetic weapons.33
Genetic weapons development: terrorists
won't try this at home
We cannot be sure how many states are trying to develop
genetic weapons. But we can be sure that the entities
trying to develop them are states
(possibly with the help of large corporate contractors)
and not terrorist groups. This is because only states
can manage the complex science genetic research requires. Dr.
Claire Fraser, President and Director of the Institute
for Genomic Research (Tigr) says that although genetic
data on human pathogens are public, no one knows enough
to turn this information into bioweapons. Speaking out
against calls to classify now public genome data, Fraser
told BBC News Online: "I want to debunk the myth
that genomics has delivered a fully annotated set of
virulence and pathogenicity genes to potential terrorists.
I have heard some describe genome databases as bioterror
catalogues where one could order an antibiotic-resistance
gene from organism one, a toxin from organism two, and
a cell-adhesion molecule from organism three, and quickly
engineer a super pathogen, This just isn't the case."34
Of
course, once states create these weapons, it may be possible
for terrorist groups to buy or steal them.
Who's been doing what?
Since
all biological and chemical weapons are illegal, and since
ethnic weapons are especially abhorrent, countries
doing research in these areas don't brag about it. Nor
do the corporate media take much notice. Number 16 on
Project Censored's list of the 25 top censored stories
for the year 2000 was "Human Genome Project Opens
the Door to Ethnically Specific Bioweapons."35 But
in recent years, some information has surfaced in government
reports or corporate media indicating that some countries
have been researching the possibility of ethnic weapons.
South
Africa: Apartheid regime sought "black bomb"
In
the 1980s, South Africa's apartheid regime ran a biological
weapons program called "Project Coast".
According to an April 2001 U.S. Air Force Report36 one
of the program's goals was to develop a "black bomb" via
genetic engineering research. The "black bomb" would
weaken or kill blacks but not whites.37
In
addition to the "black bomb," Project Coast planned
to build a large-scale anthrax production facility to produce
anthrax for use against black guerrilla fighters inside
or outside of South Africa38, and to develop
a drug that would induce infertility and could be given
surreptitiously to blacks, perhaps under the pretext of
a vaccine.39 None of these goals were achieved.
However, in one of the appendices to the USAF report, the
authors asked, "In its genetic engineering experiments,
how close was South Africa to a "black bomb"?
Are other countries developing similar biological weapons?"40
Israel:
CBW program finds genetic differences between Arabs
and Jews
On November 15, 1998,
the Sunday Times of London ran
a front page article reporting that the Israelis were
planning an ethnic bomb.41 The article stated
that the Israelis were trying to identify distinctive
genes carried by some Arabs, particularly Iraqis. "The
intention is to use the ability of viruses and certain
bacteria to alter the DNA inside their host's living
cells. The scientists are trying to engineer deadly microorganisms
that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes."
The
article reported that the program was based at Nes Tziyona,
Israel's main biological and chemical weapons
research facility, and that an unnamed scientist there
said that while the common Semitic origin of Arabs and
Jews complicated the task, "They have, however,
succeeded in pinpointing a particular characteristic
in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly
the Iraqi people." The report also quoted Dedi Zucker,
a member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) as saying, "Morally,
based on our history, and our tradition and our experience,
such a weapon is monstrous and should be denied."
Israel has never signed
the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.42
The
Human Genome Diversity Project
The HGDP is an international project based at the
Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies
at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.43 HGDP
is not a part of the Human Genome Project. The HGDP is
of grave concern to people who believe ethnically targeted
genetic weapons are on the horizon. Among
these people is Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg. When asked
by FTW via email if she was concerned that the Human Genome
Project and the Human Genome Diversity Project will pave
the way for genotype specific weapons, she replied simply. "Yes."
The FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions) list of the HGDP does deal briefly with the
issue of ethnic weapons:
Could these samples be used
to create biological weapons that were targeted at particular
populations?
Genocidal use of genetics
is not possible with any currently known technology.
On the basis of what we know of human genetic variation,
it seems impossible that it will ever be developed.
The Project would condemn and bar any effort to use
its data for such purposes. The highly visible nature
of the Project and its ethical constraints should make
even the attempt less plausible.44
This answer is unsatisfactory
on a number of levels. First of all, it was written in
late 1993 and early 1994.45
Subsequent
revelations have indicated that such weapons are being
attempted.
That the Project would bar efforts to use its data for
such purposes is unenforceable. The Project is putting
its data in the public domain. How could it stop a government
from surreptitiously using that data? The "highly
visible nature of the Project and its ethical constraints" could
make it unlikely that members of the Project would use
the data for weapons development while they were members
of the project. But what would prevent them from doing
so in subsequent research for third parties?
Lastly
the conclusion that "on the basis of what we know of human genetic
variation, it seems impossible that it will ever be developed
is likely premised on a false assumption
that Edward Hammond pointed out in his interview with FTW:
One of the
things that people say is that, 'Well, look. You're never
going to be able
to develop a genetic weapon that is perfect. Whatever combination
of genes or whatever gene you target, is never going to
have 100% occurrence in the population that you target.
And in almost all likelihood, your own population is going
to have that sequence.' In other words, even in the "best
case scenario" of somebody who was evil enough to
try to develop this kind of weapon, it's never going to
be perfect. It's only going to get 70, 80% of the enemy
are going to potentially be subject to being affected by
this weapon and you might have 5, 10, 15% of your own people
potentially subject to this weapon. And so experts will
say, 'You know, nobody's crazy enough to do that. Nobody
would actually do that because, think of the risk that
would pose to their own people. And think of the fact that
it really isn't going to work against all of the enemy.'
I really don't think
that that kind of rationality pervades the people that
would potentially do this. And if you look at what happens
in ethnic conflicts, certainly rationality and calculation
about what ends you are willing to go to, to get the
other guy don't play out like that. So I think that there's
a certain willful ignoring of the reality of how conflict
takes place when people say that these aren't potentially
practical weapons.
In light
of the Israeli research into the genetic differences
between Arabs and
Jews, who share Semitic origin, and in light of the overwhelming
evidence that the United States Government had foreknowledge
of the 9-11 attacks and allowed them to occur, resulting
in the deaths of thousands of U.S. citizens, no one should
assume that any weapon, genetic or not, would not be
developed because some of the developer's people might
suffer the same fate as the targeted "enemy."
The
U.S. and the "dual use" dilemma: Treatments
or weapons?
A genome is the complete
DNA makeup of an organism, be it human, animal or plant.
Research on genomes could lead to greater understanding
of how disease pathogens or genetic defects operate.
This, in turn could lead to medical breakthroughs: gene
therapies, treatments that take into account the individual
genetically-based responses to medications, or treatments
for conditions for which certain population subgroups
are susceptible. For example, NitroMed, Inc., a private
biopharmaceutical company that is developing nitric oxide
(NO)- enhanced medicines, is testing a drug called BiDil‰, which is designed to improve survival in African
Americans with heart failure.46 A trial
involving 600 African American men and women is now in
progress, with the results expected in early 2004.47
But genome
research, like many other forms of biological and chemical
research,
is "dual use." And the U.S. Government appears
to be very interested in its military applications. Note
that the government's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) 48 is
not under the auspices of the Department of Health and
Human Services. It is part of the Department of Energy,
which often works hand-in-glove with the Defense Department.
DOE's own explanation
for its involvement in the Human Genome Project betrays
military roots:
After the atomic bomb
was developed and used, the U.S. Congress charged DOE's
predecessor agencies (the Atomic Energy Commission
and the Energy Research and Development Administration)
with studying and analyzing genome structure, replication,
damage, and repair and the consequences of genetic
mutations, especially those caused by radiation and
chemical by-products of energy production. From these
studies grew the recognition that the best way to study
these effects was to analyze the entire human genome
to obtain a reference sequence. Planning began in 1986
for DOE's Human Genome Program and in 1987 for the
National Institutes of Health's (NIH) program. The
DOE-NIH U.S. Human Genome Project formally began October
1, 1990, after the first joint 5-year plan was written
and a memorandum of understanding was signed between
the two organizations.49
The JGI
web site describes the Institute as "virtual human genome institute" that
integrates the sequencing activities of the human genome
centers at the three JGI member institutions: Lawrence
Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley, and Los Alamos National
Laboratories. JGI partner institutions include Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory,
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Stanford Genome
Center."50The
Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Oak Ridge laboratories
are well known as nuclear weapons research facilities.
Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos are seeking to install
high containment microbiology labs in their facilities.
These labs could work with virulent organisms such as
live anthrax, botulism, plague. Opponents of biowarfare
are concerned that the United States is violating the
Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention by genetically
modifying anthrax.51
--
Kellia Ramares earned a B.A. degree in economics, with
honors, from Fordham University in New York in 1977.
She also earned a law degree from Indiana University-Bloomington
in 1980. She has been a reporter for KPFA-FM in Berkeley,
CA for nearly four years. There, her specialty is toxics
reporting. Kellia is also an Associate Producer for
WINGS - Women's International News Gathering Service,
a Contributing Editor for OnlineJournal.com and a reporter
for Free Speech Radio News, which is heard in over
50 stations throughout the United States. Kellia's
latest project is R.I.S.E. - Radio Internet Story Exchange,
a weekly Internet-based public affairs program. The
R.I.S.E. website is http://www.rise4news.net.
Coming in Part II (two
weeks) - Surprising evidence that gene-specific weapons
are very much within reach and may have actually been
employed, not against humans, but against food crops.
Plus a look at the deeper ethical questions behind gene
research that leave room for great worry about the future,
especially based on the conduct of the one nation most
likely to possess these weapons, the U.S.
ENDNOTES
1. (Crowley,
Michael. Disease by Design: De-Mystifiying the Biological
Weapons Debate. Basic Research Report, Basic Publications, http://www.basicint.org,
Number 2001.2 November 2001 Section 2)
11. (Dr. Ken Alibek, the head of the then-Soviet Union's
biological warfare program, Biopreparat, described the Soviet Union's offensive weapons
development in a PBS Frontline program called "Plague
War" which aired on 10.13.1998. The transcript of
Frontline's entire interview with Alibek is at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plague/interviews/alibekov.html).
13. (Mooney,
Pat Roy, "Technological Transformation: The Increase
in Power and Complexity is Coming just as the 'Raw Materials'
are Eroding" The ETC Century - Development Dialogue
1999:1-2 Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala Sweden,
p. 33 http://www.dhf.uu.se)
14. (Ibid.)
15. (Ibid.)
16.(see
Section 5 of The National Security Strategy of the United
States of America at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html,
and The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of
Mass Destruction at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/WMDStrategy.pdf)
33. (Dando, Malcolm,
Appendix 13A. "Benefits and threats
of developments in biotechnology and genetic engineering," SIPRI
Yearbook 1999: Armaments, Disarmament and International
Security, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1999, pp.
2-3.)
36. (Burgess, Dr. Stephen
F. and Purkitt, Dr. Helen E., "The
Rollback of South Africa's Chemical and Biological Warfare
Program," USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air
War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base,
Alabama, April 2001, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awcgate/awc-cps.htm)
37. (Ibid. p.21 and
p.105 n60).
38. (Ibid. p. 21)
39. (Ibid. p. 105 n62).
40.
(Ibid. p. 84, n17)
41. (Mahnaimi, Uzi
and Colvin, Marie, "The Israelis
are making a virus that will target Arabs: Israel planning
'ethnic' bomb as Saddam caves in", London Times,
November 15, 1998).
