06/18/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09953

GUARDING AGAINST BIO-WEAPONS

On September 11^th, as President George W. Bush pointed out, "the world learned how evil men can use airplanes as weapons of terror." Shortly thereafter, terrorists attacked Americans with anthrax. "We learned," said President Bush, "how evil people can use microscopic spores as weapons of terror. Bioterrorism is. . .a threat to every nation that loves freedom. Terrorist groups seek biological weapons; we know that some rogue states already have them."

Biological weapons, as Mr. Bush said, "are potentially the most dangerous weapons in the world." As part of the effort to protect the United States, President Bush recently signed the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Response Act. Among other things, the new law calls for tightening security at water treatment plants, improving food inspections, improving communications among federal, state, and local public health authorities, and increasing stockpiles of vaccines against smallpox and other diseases.

But these measures are not enough to guard against the threat posed by biological weapons. The U.S. and its allies cannot afford to relent in their efforts to keep biological weapons and other weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. The U.S. is especially concerned that a number of countries that support international terrorists have violated the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention by developing, producing, or stockpiling these gruesome weapons.

Foremost is Iraq. The U.S. strongly suspects that Iraq has taken advantage of more than three years of no United Nations inspections to improve its offensive biological weapons program. North Korea also has devoted large portions of its scarce resources to acquiring biotechnology infrastructure capable of producing infectious agents, toxins, and other crude biological weapons. And the U.S. believes that Iran has produced biological agents and made them into weapons. Other countries listed by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism are also pursuing or have the potential to pursue biological weapons. They include Syria, Libya, and Cuba.

By providing weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, such countries could, in President Bush's words, give "them the means to match their hatred." But as President Bush made clear, the U.S. "will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most dangerous weapons."