[Dialogue] US Begins Building Treaty-Breaching Germ War Defence Centre

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Monday, July 31, 2006 by the Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk>  / UK 

US Begins Building Treaty-Breaching Germ War Defence Centre 

by Julian Borger

 

Construction work has begun near Washington on a vast germ warfare
laboratory intended to help protect the US against an attack with biological
weapon, but critics say the laboratory's work will violate international law
and its extreme secrecy will exacerbate a biological arms race. 

The National Biodefence Analysis and Countermeasures Centre (NBACC), due to
be completed in 2008, will house heavily guarded and hermetically sealed
chambers in which scientists simulate potential terrorist attacks. 

To do so, the centre will have to produce and stockpile the world's most
lethal bacteria and viruses, which is forbidden by the 1972 Biological and
Toxin Weapons Convention. Three years before that treaty was agreed,
President Richard Nixon halted the production of US biological weapons at
Fort Detrick in Maryland. The same military base is the site for the new
$128m (£70m), 160,000 sq ft laboratory. 

The green light for its construction was given after the September 11
attacks, which coincided with a series of still-unsolved anthrax incidents
that killed five people. The department of homeland security, which will run
the centre, says its work is necessary to protect the country. "All the
programmes we do are defensive in nature," Maureen McCarthy, director of
homeland security research and development, told the Washington Post. "Our
job is to ensure that the civilian population of the country is protected,
and that we know what the threats are." 

The biological weapons convention stipulates that the signatories must not
"develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain" biological
weapons, and does not distinguish between offensive and defensive
intentions. 

A presentation given by Lieutenant Colonel George Korch said the NBACC would
be used to apply "red team operational scenarios and capabilities" -
military jargon for simulating enemy attacks. 

Some analysts say the extraordinary secrecy surrounding the project will
heighten suspicions of US intentions and accelerate work on similar
facilities around the world. 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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