- During the Fall of 2001, we witnessed anthrax attacks
on the United States government that were obviously designed to shut down
the government at a very critical time immediately after September 11.
It was during this time that Congress should have been in session, making
decisions regarding oversight of the Executive Branch of government. This
note will discuss some historical background for the law, policy and science
of biological weapons here in the United States.
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- Early US Bio-War Program
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- The US has had, at least going back to World War II,
an extremely aggressive offensive biological warfare program. In 1969,
President Richard Nixon decided to discontinue this program (at least with
regard to biological "agents," which are used as weapons, as
opposed to "toxins," which were theoretically for researching
methods of immunization and therapy). There were two reasons for discontinuing
the weapons program: (1) it was counter-productive militarily, as biological
weapons were very difficult to control, and (2) the US already had massive
superiority in nuclear weapons. Biological weapons were seen as the "poor
man's atom bomb" and Nixon wanted to get rid of them to prevent Third
World nations from acquiring relatively inexpensive weapons of mass destruction.
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- In accordance with President Nixon's order, the total
destruction of antipersonnel biological agents and munitions was completed
by May of 1972. [1] It is believed, however, that the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) continued to research biological weapons in spite of the President's
order.
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- The US signed on to the Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention (BTWC) on 10 April 1972. [2] The BTWC entered into force on
26 March 1975. This convention prohibits the research, development and
testing of biological weapons, agents and compounds. The convention has
an exception for prophylactic and defensive purposes. There remained, however,
a Chemical and Biological Warfare unit lurking in the Pentagon, starved
for funds and wanting to come back to life.
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- The Reagan Administration
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- The administration of President Ronald Reagan came to
power in 1980. The Reagan administration took the position that the US
was going to exploit its superior technology with regard to all types of
weapons. This also included the new technologies of gene splicing and genetic
engineering. Massive amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars,
were poured into researching and developing what were claimed to be "defensive"
biological agents.
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- The way the Reagan administration did this was by investigating
every exotic disease one could imagine for the purpose of developing vaccines.
In this way, the US operated within the exceptions of the BTWC. Of course,
the technology used to get the vaccine is exactly the same technology used
to create the agent. In fact, the agent is usually created first in order
to then produce the vaccine. After one creates the agent, one creates the
vaccine and then a delivery device. The result is a biological weapon.
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- Much of the research for these biological weapons was
being done at universities around the country. The tip-off in many of these
government contracts is that they call for the development of an aerosol
delivery device. This is important because most biological warfare agents
are delivered through the air.
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- Meanwhile, the Reagan administration was cutting back
funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF). The effect was that
second- and third-rate scientists, who were no longer able to receive research
funds from the NSF, were forced to turn to the Pentagon for funding. [3]
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- Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989
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- On September 13, 1985, the Council for Responsible Genetics
(CRG) had a Congressional Briefing on Capitol Hill. I was asked to participate
in this briefing and to explain what the Administration was doing and how
dangerous the situation was. The US government was funding scientists to
research biological warfare technology and it was going out all over the
country, indeed, around the world.
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- I was then asked by the CRG to help draft legislation
to deal with this problem, in particular the abuse of genetic engineering
technology for biological warfare purposes. I worked in conjunction with
the CRG scientists and the biotech industry. At that time, the biotech
industry had no desire to get into developing biological warfare technology
and the industry supported the proposed legislation. The result was the
Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989. [4]
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- The Reagan administration fought the proposed legislation
tooth and nail. They knew full well that the legislation was designed to
stop what they were doing at the Pentagon. The Act makes it very clear
that research, development or testing of biological warfare agents would
be punished by life in prison.
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- While this fight was going on, the Reagan administration
authorized at least 40 shipments of weapon-specific biological agents to
Iraq from the American Type Culture Collection, which is a large scientific
institute. The Collection cultures every known type of disease for scientific
purposes. It was clear that the Reagan administration was shipping all
of these materials to Iraq knowing full well that Iraq was going to develop
biological weapons and use them against Iran. [5]
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- The Bush, Sr. Administration
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- President George Bush, Sr. was elected in 1988. The question
was whether we should continue to push for the legislation or abandon the
project. The decision was made to go forward. To the credit of President
Bush, Sr., the moment his administration came into power, all opposition
to our legislation stopped. We were advised, however, that it would help
on the Hill if we would repackage it as a piece of legislation designed
to deal with biological weapons in the Third World, that there were crazies
who were looking to de velop biological weapons and our legislation was
designed to deal with them. We agreed. The legislation was not changed,
just the way in which is was presented. The Act was passed unanimously
by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bush.
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- Iraq
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- In the Fall of 1990, the US went to war with Iraq after
the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. President Bush, Sr., and then-Secretary of
Defense Richard Cheney ordered all US military personnel to take experimental
vaccines for anthrax and botulin. As was later revealed, the Reagan administration
had shipped these biological agents to Iraq, and Iraq had weaponized them.
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- These experimental vaccines were given to over a half-million
US soldiers. At least 50,000 of these soldiers later developed unexplained
illnesses, generally referred to as "Gulf War Syndrome." I personally
believe that this syndrome is the result of these vaccines. They were experimental
medical vaccines in violation of the Nuremberg Code on medical experimentation.
[6]
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- The Clinton Administration
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- In the last two years of the Clinton administration,
the policy shifted back to the dual-use biological warfare work. Again,
hundreds of millions of dollars were committed to research and develop
every known exotic disease. The research was then turned over to the Pentagon,
where it could be used to produce weapons. This is going on today.
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- Finally, the New York Times broke the story that the
US government was violating the BTWC. The US was developing a resistant
strain of anthrax with genetic engineering. The US had also developed super
weapons-grade anthrax in quantities and strengths that have no legitimate
defensive purpose. It is very clear that the US was back in the business
of researching and developing biological agents. This is a clear violation
of both the international BTWC and the domestic Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism
Act.
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- The Bush, Jr. Administration
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- That is why the Bush, Jr. administration repudiated the
verification protocol for the BTWC. These negotiations had been underway
for quite some time. The convention has no verification provisions.
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- In Fall 2002, all of a sudden, Bush, Jr. repudiated the
whole thing and tried to kill it. Why? Because it is clear we are involved
in this type of work, whether the Pentagon, the CIA, their contractors,
or all of them.
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- Anthrax Attacks 2001
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- Finally we have the recent anthrax attacks in the United
States. It was not clear what was going on until the New York Times published
the details of the technology behind the Daschle letter. The technology
behind this and following letters was very sophisticated. These anthrax
samples had a trillion spores per gram. That is super weapons-grade.
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- There was also a special treatment to eliminate electrostatic
charges so the spores would float in the air. One must have special equipment
for this treatment. The only people who would have the capability to do
this are individuals who are either currently employed by the Department
of Defense or the CIA doing biological warfare work, or people who had
been employed in that capacity. One would probably need access to one of
the government' s biological warfare labs and there are only a handful
of these labs in the country.
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- The day I read the New York Times piece, I called a senior
official in the FBI who handles terrorism and counter-terrorism. The FBI
was coordinating its efforts with Fort Detrick, which is one of these few
biological warfare labs. The obvious problem with this is that the person
responsible for the anthrax attacks could very well be one of the personnel
from Fort Detrick.
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- Soon thereafter, the FBI authorized the destruction of
the anthrax culture collection at Ames, Iowa. It had been determined that
the anthrax used in the attacks was an Ames-produced strain. The entire
supply was destroyed. This was obviously a cover-up. If you had access
to that supply, then you could do a genetic reconstruction of where the
anthrax used in the attacks originated.
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- I believe that the FBI knows exactly who was behind these
attacks and that they have concluded that the perpetrator was someone who
was or is involved in illegal and criminal biological warfare research
conducted by the US government (the Pentagon or the CIA) or by one of the
government's civilian contractors. For that reason, the FBI is not going
to apprehend and indict the perpetrator. To do so would directly implicate
the government in conducting biological warfare research. So this is where
we are today. The FBI says that they are working on it, but of course,
that is ridiculous.
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- Francis A. Boyle is Professor of Law at the University
of Illinois. He is the author of Foundations of World Order (Duke University
Press, 1999) and The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence (Clarity Press,
2002) Email: FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU
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- NOTES
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- 1. http://www.gulfwarvets.com/biowar.htm 2. http://projects.sipri.se/cbw/docs/bwbtwcmainpage.html
3. The Council of Responsible Genetics responded to this by putting out
a Pledge where the signers declared that they would not accept any money
from the Pentagon for any reason. 4. http://www.sunshineproject.org/publications/uscode.html.
See also: Francis Boyle, The Future of International Law and American Foreign
Policy, 277-316 (1989). 5. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, shortly after the
Iranian Revolution of 1979, in an attempt to take advantage of Iran's instability
and gain territory. 6. http://www.raven1.net/nurm.htm
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- http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Boyle_Bio-Warfare.htm
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