Clinton: Bioweapons Threat Is Growing
By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer
Washington - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a renewed effort among nations to prevent countries, terrorist groups and criminal organizations from developing, acquiring or using deadly bioweapons.
President Obama made it a top priority to halt the spread of the world's most deadly weapons because an attack from one of them is a serious national security challenge and a significant threat to peoples' lives, Clinton said in remarks at a conference reviewing the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC).
"In an age when people and diseases cross borders with growing ease, bioweapons are a transnational threat, and therefore we must protect against them with transnational action," Clinton said December 7 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
The United States believes the bioweapons convention is the premier forum for bringing together the security, health, law enforcement and science communities to raise awareness of the ever-changing biological risks and how best to manage them, the White House said in a fact sheet. The 165 nations that signed the BWC are meeting in Geneva over the next three weeks for the seventh convention-review conference. Representatives will evaluate the convention's effectiveness and whether further modifications may be necessary for its enforcement.
The Biological and Toxin Convention, which entered into force on March 26, 1975, bans an entire category of weapons from use in war and peace. It expands on the 1925 Geneva Conventions, which initially banned the use of poison gas and bacteriological weapons in the aftermath of World War I, when bioweapons were actively used in combat.
Clinton noted the paradox of advances in modern science and technology, which make it possible to prevent and cure more diseases, but also make it easier for governments and terrorists to develop bioweapons. Not only is it easier to develop these weapons, she added, but it also remains extremely difficult to detect them.
"The same equipment and technical knowledge used for legitimate research to save lives can also be used to manufacture deadly diseases," Clinton told conference delegates.
One of the unrecognized successes of the bioweapons convention is that it engrained a global norm among nations against biological weapons, and even those countries that have not joined the convention no longer seek to acquire them, Clinton said. "Unfortunately, the ability of terrorists and other nonstate actors to develop and use these weapons is growing," she said, calling for a renewed focus to prevent proliferation.
In the 1990s the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo terrorist group unleashed two attacks in Tokyo by spraying a liquid containing anthrax spores into the air and unleashing sarin gas into the Tokyo subway system. Clinton noted that in 2001 evidence was uncovered in Afghanistan that the terrorist group al-Qaida was actively seeking the ability to carry out bioweapons attacks. And the terrorist group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula less than a year ago put out a call for people with college degrees in microbiology or chemistry to develop a weapon of mass destruction, she added.
Clinton said there are three areas where members of the BWC should take action. First, she said, the bioweapons convention nations must bolster international confidence that all countries are living up to the requirements of the convention. Part of that is to revise annual reporting requirements so that each nation is doing the same things to guard against the misuse of biological materials, she said.
Second, Clinton said, the BWC nations must strengthen each country's ability to detect and respond to outbreaks and improve international coordination.
Finally, she said, nations need thoughtful international talks about ways to maximize the benefits of scientific research while minimizing the risks.
Clinton reminded the conference that more than 85 years ago the nations of the world met following World War I and took a strong stand against the use of poison gases and bacteriological weapons, and that spirit and political will is needed again.
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)
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