The Sunshine Project news release, 8 May 2003

US Army Patents Biological Weapons Delivery System Violates Bioweapons Convention

The United States Army has developed and patented a new grenade that it says can be used to wage biowarfare. This is in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention, which explicitly prohibits development of bioweapons delivery devices.

US Patent #6,523,478, granted on February 25th 2003, covers a ‘rifle-launched non-lethal cargo dispenser’ that is designed to deliver aerosols, including - according to the patent’s claims - ‘crowd control agents, biological agents, [and] chemical agents …’

The development of biological weapons delivery devices is absolutely prohibited - ‘in any circumstance’ - by Article I of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, to which the U.S. is a party. There is no exemption from this prohibition, neither for defensive purposes nor for so called non-lethal agents.

‘The development of weapons for biological payloads produces great uncertainty about the US commitment to the Biological Weapons Convention,’ says Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project U.S. ‘Thirty four years after the US renunciation of biological weapons, the Pentagon is back in the bioweapons business.’

‘Hans Blix might have an easier time finding illegal weapons if he were inspecting near Baltimore instead of Baghdad,’ says biologist Jan van Aken from the Sunshine Project Germany, referring to the fact that two of the inventors work at the Army’s Edgewood Arsenal north of Baltimore, Maryland. Other inventors work at an engineering firm in Orlando, Florida, where the US Special Forces operate from MacDill Air Force Base.

This grenade is yet another indication of prohibited biological and chemical weapons development projects in the US. It stands in a row with an illegal chemical weapons program focusing on so called non-lethal agents (see below), uncovered last September by the Sunshine Project, with research activities on material degrading microorganisms by the US armed forces (see below), and with a range of questionable biodefense activities that may well suit offensive purposes (see New York Times, 4 September 2001).

Eroding Prohibition

So-called non-lethal weapons are blurring the lines between permissable and illegal weapons research. The Army says the new grenade is for the dispersal of ‘non-lethal’ agents. Claims are the legally crucial and most carefully crafted part of a patent. The Army is fully aware of its obligations under the BWC, yet a new bioweapons device was patented. This underscores why ‘non-lethal’ weapons pose such a serious threat. The Pentagon now considers bioweapons work that has been off limits for three decades to be acceptable - if the word ‘non-lethal’ is appended. But not only do many ‚non lethal’ agents violate treaties themselves, it is worse: US ‘non-lethal’ research is creating and testing hardware that can deliver the full spectrum of biological and chemical weapons.

Pre-emptive Diplomacy

US diplomatic-military policy coordination on ‘non-lethal’ weapons can be seen in its firm resistance to efforts to place the subject on the international arms control agenda. In September 2002, US diplomats vetoed the Sunshine Project’s accreditation to a Chemical Weapons Convention meeting because the Project wanted to discuss ‘non-lethal’ chemical (and biological) weapons. Last week, US diplomats again pre-empted discussion of ‘non-lethal’ weapons, when they blocked the International Committee of the Red Cross from making a speech at the Chemical Weapons Convention Review Conference.

‘This grenade is another example of how the Pentagon’s so called ‚non lethal’ weapons programs are consistently chipping away at restrictions on two of the most deadly kinds of arms, biological and chemical weapons. Programs that develop so called non-lethal chemical and biological weapons should simply be abolished,’ says Hammond. 

Source: www.sunshine-project.org

Commentary

Stop the Thief!

by Moritz Nestor, Switzerland

Using an enormous lie, the US have been trying to lead the world by the nose to make their attack on Iraq look like an act of ‘defense’: they claimed that Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction’. Those who know how wars are made never seriously expected that the ‘smoking gun’ would really be found! Instead, a country has been bombed back into the Stone Age, thousands upon thousands of people have been killed or wounded, for millions of years the country has been contaminated with uranium dust from western nuclear power plants, and its cultural heritage has been destroyed. And now the US are sitting in the Middle East controlling the former Iraqi oil wells! The ‘liberators’ are handing over the country in an anarchic state: in broad daylight people are executed by firing squad while Anglo-American soldiers stand by shrugging their shoulders: It’s not my business! Arms trafficking is flourishing. After 8 p.m. nobody dares to go out because of armed fighting between rival groups. But also during the day there are shootings so that sick persons do not dare to go to hospital, and there are no medicines for those who do come. Please note, this situation has been produced (and is being maintained) with the cynical explanation that those responsible wanted to trace ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ which were threatening the world.

A report has now shown where the ‘smoking gun’ is really to be found: in the hands of the Americans! The US-Army had long planned the deployment of chemical and biological weapons and disregard the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which was also signed by them: one day before the 11 September attacks the US Army Secretary Thomas White, former board member of the scandal-plagued company Enron, filed an application for a patent on a grenade which could be used to wage biological and chemical warfare. Such weapons are ‘in any circumstances’ prohibited by Article I of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. According to US Patent No 6,523,478 this grenade was patented on 25 February 2003 and thus the Biological Weapons Convention, which is international law, was openly breached.

This is utter cynicism: the grenade is euphemistically called a ‘non lethal weapon’! The US is therefore trying to prevent any public international discussion of their ‘non lethal weapons’: in 2002 experts of the Sunshine Project were prevented from appearing at a meeting of the signatory states of the Chemical Weapons Convention, because Sunshine intended to discuss those ‘non-lethal’ chemical and biological weapons. Three weeks ago US diplomats blocked the International Committee of the Red Cross from making a speech at the Chemical Weapons Convention Review Conference in The Hague.

The world was considered stupid: in December 2001- the weapon had been developed and the patent applied for (!)- the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention was re-negotiated in Geneva in order to make it tighter. The U.S. participated as a matter of form. In a loudmouthed way they warned of the ‘international terrorism’, and US president Bush senior even demanded a tightening of the international Biological Weapons Convention! After weeks of discussions the US delegation refused any further discussion, and have continued to do so until today! In reality they never intended to prohibit their own biological weapon production! For that reason the performance proved useful, in order to wage a war. Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project U.S. says, ‘Thirty-four years after the U.S. renunciation of biological weapons, the Pentagon is back in its bioweapon business.’ This grenade is another indication of the current biological and chemical weapons development projects in the US. Already last September the Sunshine Project uncovered further questionable U.S. army projects which display strong offensive character. That occurrence is highly explosive. With the development of such ‘non lethal weapons’ the U.S. are intentionally blurring the lines between permissible and illegal weapons research. In this way the prohibition of biological weapons becomes wastepaper.

‘This grenade is another example of how the Pentagon’s so called ‘non lethal’ weapons programs are consistently chipping away at restrictions on two of the most deadly kinds of arms, biological and chemical weapons. Programs that develop so called non-lethal chemical and biological weapons should simply be abolished,’ Hammonds demands.

We follow this demand: The US fear nothing more – as those callous covering up tactics show - than the light of the public. Such violations of international law and planning of crimes against humanity have to be condemned in public and stopped by widespread protests.