Biological Weapons At Discount Prices

Biological Weapons At Discount Prices

By Stan G. Kain

7 October 2003

We are all aware of the need to decimate Iraq. After all, they have weapons of mass destruction. Well, maybe they don't, or we can't find them, but they do have equipment for making such weapons. That's reason enough to flatten the country, isn't it? Don't forget the rest of the “Axis of Evil.” We don't know what sort of evil weapons North Korea and Iran might be producing. Even if they don't use these weapons, they certainly might sell them to terrorist groups who would use them.

It's a dangerous world we live in, especially when one thinks about the horrors of biological and chemical weapons. Most of these weapons of war are banned by United Nations treaty. Certainly, any nation producing or selling these weapons deserves the same fate as Iraq. U.N. inspectors must go into these nations, find the weapons and manufacturing equipment and see that it's destroyed. When we finish with Iraq, what country should be next?

You might be surprised to learn that our very own United States of America should be added to the list of “terrorist” nations. We not only produce the equipment necessary to build biological weapons, we sell it at discount, no less and we don't really care who buys it. That's right, we're in the same business as those nations President “Junior,” loves to call, “The Axis of Evil.”

Have you ever heard of the General Accounting Office? That is the investigative arm of Congress, right here in the United States of America. The GAO is a branch of our own government, not some left-wing Democrat device created by Bill Clinton, as hawks will suspect. The GAO has been around long before Bill Clinton chased women, smoked but didn't inhale, or even entered grade school.. So, what does the GAO have to say about our own government and biological weapons? Prepare yourself for a shock.

A GAO draft report, presented to Congress, states, “Many items needed to establish a laboratory for making biological warfare agents, were being sold on the Internet to the public from DOD's (Department of Defense) excess property inventory, for pennies on the dollar, making them both easy and economical to obtain.”

The report adds, “As requested, GAO established a fictitious company and purchased, over the Internet, key excess DOD biological equipment items and related protective clothing, necessary to product and disseminate biological warfare agents.”

What's going on here? What is the General Accounting Office trying to tell Congress? How did this happen? Congress, American citizens and the rest of the world deserve an explanation. How dare we invade and threaten other nations for allegedly doing the very same thing we're doing? Is it any wonder we aren't the most popular nation with our world neighbors?

The GAO investigation was requested by the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations. This group is a unit of the Government Reform Committee.

The GAO admits that much of the equipment they purchased from the DOD is available to the public at full price on the open market. The DOD, however, makes the purchase easy and inexpensive, certainly to the joy of terrorists, everywhere. The fictitious GAO company bought an evaporator, incubator and centrifuge equipment, which are used to produce biological warfare agents. They also purchased related protective clothing, necessary to produce and disseminate biological warfare agents. The front company purchased the items for a little over $4,000, or pennies on the dollar. The Defense Department had spent $46,000 when they purchased the same items, selling them at less than ten percent of the purchase price.

The situation gets worse. According to the GAO, there are poor controls in the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service. That's the agency responsible for the sale of excess DOD property to the public. The GAO adds, “there is little assurance excess (chemical/biological) equipment has not already fallen into the wrong hands.” The DOD doesn't seem to care who purchases their excess weapons equipment.

And, the situation grows even worse. The GAO front company found a problem with the 300 -400 chemical/biological protective suits they purchased. Some of the suits had previously been identified by the DOD as “defective,” but were still circulating in the surplus supply chain. In fact, an unknown number of the defective suits have been issued to state and local law enforcement agencies, before being returned to the Defense Department, where they were supposed to be destroyed. Yes, our own Department of Defense not only has sold dangerous equipment to unknown sources, but also has endangered our own public safety workers by supplying faulty equipment. A Congressional source said the suits should not have been resold under any circumstances.

What is Congress doing about the situation? A subcommittee will hold a hearing today, with testimony from Pentagon officials, GAO investigators and a chemical-biological weapons expert. I'm sure every effort will be made to “sanitize” the DOD sales.

We should be concerned not only with the indiscriminate sales of chemical/biological weapons equipment. We should be as concerned that our government has so much of the equipment that it hits the surplus sales market.

How can we condemn any nation for possessing chemical and biological weapons and the manufacturing equipment when we have stores of these weapons all over the United States? How can we condemn any nation when we have so much lab equipment that we sell the surplus, for pennies on the dollar, to any buyer?

We can justify our biological and chemical weapons program in any way we wish. Whatever justification we use, may be used by any other nation, as well. Stockpiles of these weapons and the labs for manufacturing them must be destroyed by all nations, including the United States, immediately. I say destroyed, not sold at surplus sales to unknown buyers. Our world cannot afford any nation to possess these weapons. Perhaps David Kay, the U.S. weapons inspector needs to have his team working right here in America, before they scour the desert of Iraq, trying to justify President Junior's excuse for war.

If we ever hope to earn the trust and respect of the United Nations, we need to clean up our own back yard, first. If I were a small nation with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, I would also hesitate to destroy my stockpile. I would be fearful of the United States, with far larger stockpiles of the same weapons and considering diplomacy as sending in the United States military. While my small nation was being called a “nuclear threat,” I'd remember there is only one country in the world that's used a nuclear weapon in war. Not just one such weapon, but two.

If you have any questions or comments, please email Stan.

©2003 Stan G. Kain