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U.S. Accuses Iran, Iraq and North Korea of Building Germ Warfare Stocks
GENEVA, Nov 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States accused Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria of developing or being ready to develop biological weapons in a violation of an international ban on germ warfare, news agencies reported.
U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton told a conference in Geneva on the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) that "Iraq's biological weapons program remains a serious threat to international security," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The U.S. strongly suspects that Iraq has taken advantage of three years of no U.N. inspections to improve all phases of its offensive BW [biological weapons] program," Bolton said.
However, former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who also served as a U.S. Marine during the Gulf War, has explicitly stated that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, which includes the threat of germ warfare. Commenting to IslamOnline in Washington D.C., Ritter warned against attempting to expand the "war on terrorism" by finding excuses by which to justify attacking Iraq.
The United States also singled out North Korea for developing and producing germ warfare agents.
"North Korea likely has the capability to produce sufficient quantities of biological agents for military purposes within weeks of a decision to do so," Bolton told officials from the 144 countries that have signed the BWC. He did not give a source for his claims.
Bolton said he was also "quite concerned about Iran", as well as research and development on germ warfare in Libya and Syria.
"Finally, we are concerned about the growing interest of Sudan - a non-BWC party - in developing a biological weapons program," he added.
While he said that "the existence of Iraq's program is beyond dispute" Bolton stopped short of saying that Iraq had biological weapons.
He said that North Korea "may have weaponized," while Iraq had "probably produced and
weaponized biological weapons agents." The other countries he mentioned were believed to be at the stage of research and development.
Bolton later told journalists that the United States also had other countries on its list which he declined to name publicly because it would not be in U.S. foreign policy interests.
"We will be contacting them privately," he added.
Bolton said that Osama bin Laden remained Washington's top concern.
He said that the United States was concerned that bin Laden may have been "trying to acquire a rudimentary biological weapons capability, possibly with support from a state."
The Pentagon, however, has stated that they have no reason to believe that bin Laden has any nuclear or biological weapons.
"While the U.S. is not prepared at this time to comment on whether rogue states may have assisted a possible al-Qaeda biological weapons program, rest assured that the U.S. will not rely alone on treaties or international organizations to deal with such terrorist groups or the states that support them," Bolton continued.
Bolton's remarks came at the beginning of the review conference on the 1972 BWC, which bans the production, use and stockpiling of biological weapons.
Governments taking part in the convention, which has been ratified by 144 countries, are due to review the treaty's effectiveness over the next three weeks.
Late Monday, South Korea's defense minister Kim Dong-Shin said that North Korea has up to 5,000 tons of biochemical weapons in its arsenal and is capable of cultivating lethal germs, reported AFP.
"North Korea has somewhere between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of biochemical weapons which are stored in six different facilities," he told the National Assembly late Monday.
He did not give details on where the six facilities are.
"The North is capable of staging a biochemical warfare," he said.
Biological weapons include anthrax and small pox, which the North is able to cultivate enough of to use as weapons, the defense minister said.
But he stressed the ministry had no confirmed intelligence on any links between North Korea and bin Laden.
Bolton claimed that the United States knew "that Osama bin Laden considers obtaining weapons of mass destruction to be a 'sacred duty' and wanted to use them against the United States," reported the
Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday.
More than 140 nations have ratified the treaty, including the United States. The decision to "name names," as Bolton's speech puts it, is part of a new strategy to persuade countries to stop developing germ weapons by embarrassing suspected treaty cheaters, said the
New York Times.
The allegations are intended to deflect criticism of the Bush administration from those who say that it is Washington that has undermined the treaty - which it pioneered - by rejecting an agreement this summer that was meant to strengthen compliance by establishing an inspection system, the paper said.
The administration said it would have undermined U.S. bio-defense programs.
With additional reporting by Neveen A. Salem
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