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United States to announce new germ warfare stand to treaty body

By Alexander G. Higgins, Associated Press, 11/18/2001 21:56

GENEVA (AP) Arms control experts are eager to hear the latest U.S. position on how to strengthen the global ban on germ warfare now that the United States has come under an anthrax attack.

American officials shocked other countries last July by rejecting more than six years of negotiations on enforcement measures of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, arguing they were ineffective.

On Monday, John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, was to spell out the new U.S. approach to enforcing the treaty, officials said. The three-week meeting in Geneva is planned as a review of the agreement.

The emergence of anthrax-tainted letters in the United States in the weeks following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack has thrust the issue biological warfare into the spotlight.

''Since Sept. 11, America and others have been confronted by the evils these weapons can inflict,'' said a statement by President Bush earlier this month.

''This threat is real and extremely dangerous,'' said Bush. ''Rogue states and terrorists possess these weapons and are willing to use them.''

Bush demanded that all 144 countries that have signed the treaty enact ''strict national criminal legislation'' against violations of the treaty and apply strict extradition requirements.

He also urged creation of ''an effective United Nations procedure for investigating suspicious outbreaks or allegations of biological weapons use.''

Arms control experts said they were waiting for the details of the U.S. proposals, but that what they had seen so far had fallen short of the 210-page draft protocol Washington has rejected.

Days after the first anthrax cases last month, Avis T. Bohlen, assistant secretary of state for arms control, told a panel of the U.N. General Assembly in New York that the Bush administration continued to reject the protocol.

''The measures that were proposed to enforce the ban against possession and development are neither effective nor equitable,'' Bohlen said.

The terrorist attacks on the United States ''have reinforced our view that the priority focus must be on use,'' she said. ''We must strengthen our national laws criminalizing use and transfer.''

Under the proposed protocol, there would be a limited number of inspections of biotech industries and defense facilities.

The United States said the enforcement proposal would be ineffective in stopping countries from developing biological weapons while it would pose risks to U.S. national security and to commercial secrets of the U.S. biotech industry.

The treaty drafters omitted an enforcement mechanism when they negotiated the accord during the Cold War, in part because no one seriously thought anyone would try to use germ warfare.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001