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May 5, 2000

SOVIET GERM WARFARE STILL THREATENS US

http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=84113

Friday, 5 May 2000 14:15 (ET)

Soviet germ warfare still threatens US By PAMELA HESS

WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) -- A U.S. program to help defang the old, largely defunct Soviet biological weapons program could actually be keeping it alive to threaten the United States in the future, according to a new study from the General Accounting Office.

The Clinton Administration is asking Congress for $220 million -- a 10-fold increase over the last five years -- to address the threat between 2000 and 2004. About half of it would be awarded to underpaid Russian scientists to do legitimate work in the civilian sector. That program includes $36 million to fund collaborative research with Russian institutes on dangerous pathogens, an attempt to improve U.S. defenses against biological weapons, according to the GAO.

The GAO warns, however, that same program may actually be increasing the risk to the United States by furthering Russia's biological research in biological weapons and keeping scientists' skill levels high. Further, without proper oversight, the funds or research may be diverted into a new offensive weapons program.

There may be as many as 5,000 senior former Soviet biological weapons scientists who could pose significant proliferation risks and another 10,000 personnel who have weapons-relevant skills, Russian officials told GAO investigators.

Scientists' salaries' buying power has dropped by 75 percent on average, according to Russian officials. Many now earn between $40 and $80 a month. Russian institutes' operating budgets have dropped precipitously: One had a budget of $25 million in 1991 that has now dropped to $2.5 million, according to the report.

That these scientists could be tempted to sell their services to another country or terrorist organization is not the only reason the United States should be concerned, according to the GAO. These same workers have access to viruses and pathogens that could easily be slipped out of laboratories and smuggled abroad.

No steps the United States is now taking to mitigate that risk "would prevent Russian project participants or institutes from using their skills or research outputs to later work on offensive weapons activities at any of the Russian military institutes that remain closed to the United States," the report states.

Russia has granted American scientists and defense officials access to 30 of the roughly 50 civilian biological weapons institutes in Russia but 15 remain closed to the United States, largely because it has not funded programs for those institutes.

The Russian Ministry of Defense still has at least four military biological weapons institutes to which the United States has not been granted access.

"Dire financial conditions at former Soviet biological weapons institutes could encourage the proliferation of weapons expertise to countries or groups of concern," according to the April 28 report.

According to the CIA, Russia is a "significant source of biotechnology expertise for Iran," and Iran has intensified its efforts over the last three years to acquire biological and weapons expertise and materials from at least 15 former Soviet institutes, the GAO reports.

The United States halted its biological weapons program in 1969. In 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union as well as other countries agreed not to produce or stockpile biological agents for offensive purposes. The same year, the Soviet Union established the Biopreparat, a civilian agency that ultimately employed 60,000 and produced weapons employing smallpox, anthrax, the plague and other pathogens.

Then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged the program in 1992 and pledged to follow the terms of the 1992 agreement. By 1994, the United States established two programs to fund former weapons scientists to do research. They have received about $20 million over the last five years.

The institutes maintain thousands of strains of viruses, including Ebola, anthrax and Marburg, ostensibly for public health research. The same viruses, however, could be the basis for a new biological weapons program, the GAO warns.

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