CIA Transnational Activities in Counterproliferation - Biological

Biological

Biological and nuclear weapons fall into the highest level of WMD threat, because their effect, for a given low weight, is far greater than for chemical and radiological weapons. As a consequence, they were given a priority, comparable to that given nuclear weapons, in the analysis of Iraq's potential WMD programs. Also, see CIA transnational health and economic activities regarding naturally-occurring disease and public health issues in selected countries including Russia and India.

Although the FBI, CIA and ODNI all have bioweapons-related programs and activities, very little information can be found regarding such activities and their funding.

One of the challenges of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is, in order to test permissible defenses, can a signatory develop hypothetical offensive weapons. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972 is a disarmament treaty, not an arms control treaty. When it was negotiated, the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which prohibits the use of biological weapons (BW), was already in force and considered a part of international law. But the negotiators of the BWC wanted to "exclude completely the possibility" of biological agents and toxins being used as weapons by abolishing the weapons themselves.

"In the past, the United States has understood the need for transparency and limits in its biodefence programme. A Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) covering biological research, development, testing and evaluation conducted by the Department of Defense (DoD), finalised in 1989, stated that the programme "does not include the development of any weapons, even defensive ones, nor does it attempt to develop new pathogenic organisms for any use. All work conducted under the BDRP is unclassified. However, results may be classified if they impinge on national security by specifying US military deficiencies, vulnerabilities or significant breakthroughs in technology ... Sometime during the 1990s, the situation in the United States changed from a policy of relative openness to secrecy, precipitated perhaps by the Gulf War and the findings of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Iraq, the disclosures of Soviet defectors, and the attempted biological attacks by Aum Shinrikyo in Japan.

Donald Mahley, who had been Chief Negotiator on BW for the US, told the House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations that a number of US government agencies conduct biological activities that raise "ambiguities" regarding their purpose; therefore, to protect their interests, the agencies refused to accept many of the monitoring measures proposed for the Protocol. "The kinds of agency activities that prompted Mahley's testimony and the hardline US opposition to a Protocol were illuminated by a New York Times article on September 4, 2001, exposing three secret biodefence projects that push up against the permissible limits of the BWC. Government officials knew about the article as early as May, but it was not published until after the United States had rejected the Protocol. US allies have privately said that their consternation would have been overt, had their anger not been overshadowed by sympathy on September 11.

"The secret projects detailed in the Times report were: construction from off-the-shelf materials of a plant for production of microbial anthrax simulants, known as Project Bacchus and conducted by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA); a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) plan to genetically engineer a vaccine-resistant strain of anthrax developed by the Russians; and a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project, called Clear Vision, to construct and test a Soviet-model biological bomblet.

"There is no record of concerns about the legality of the DOE aerosol project or the Edgewood bomblets, but questions about the CIA's Clear Vision bomblet programme arose from different sources on three occasions between mid-1999 and early 2001, the duration of the project. The questions were never fully resolved, but the work went ahead after CIA lawyers held that the project was legal under the BWC. CIA officials appeared to be covering all eventualities, however, by saying that the bomblets lacked explosive fuses and therefore were not functional arms.

"None of these questionable US activities has been declared in the US annual CBM reports. It appears to have been conveniently assumed that only activities conducted under the official DoD biodefence programme need be declared, although other DOD units - DIA, DTRA - and other agencies - CIA, DOE - have increasingly taken on biodefence functions.