US begins building treaty-breaching germ war defence centre & U.S. biodefense lab raises concerns

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US begins building treaty-breaching germ war defence centre

n Borger in Washington

Monday July 31, 2006

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1833795,00.html

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 Nixon halted the

production of US biological weapons at Fort Detrick in land. 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

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.

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http://www.arcamax.com/newsheadlines/s-99016-359542

U.S. biodefense lab raises concerns

FORT DETRICK, Md. (UPI) -- The Bush administration is building a massive

biodefense laboratory in land that will simulate calamitous bioterrorism

attacks, it was reported Sunday.

But much of what the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center in

Fort Detrick, Md., does may never be publicly known because the White House

intends to operate the facility largely in secret, the Washington Post reported.

In an unusual arrangement, the building itself will be classified as " highly

restricted space, " from the reception desk to the lab benches to the cages where

animals are kept, the newspaper said.

Not even nuclear labs operate with such secrecy.

The covertness has some arms-control specialists concerned that U.S. biodefense

policy, as carried out by the Department of Homeland Security, the center's

creator, could " skirt the edges " of an international treaty outlawing the

production of even small amounts of biological weapons, the newspaper said.

The administration insists the center's work is purely defensive and thus fully

legal. It has rejected calls for oversight by independent observers outside the

department's network of government scientists and contractors.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International