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."