GAO: Pentagon sold biolab gear

[truthseeker1]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Defense Department sold equipment to the public that can be used for making biological warfare agents, according to a draft report by the General Accounting Office.

The Defense Department agency responsible for the sale of excess property to the public, the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, halted the sale of such items September 19 while the practice is reviewed.

"Many items needed to establish a laboratory for making biological warfare agents were being sold on the Internet to the public from DoD's excess property inventory for pennies on the dollar, making them both easy and economical to obtain," the GAO draft report said.

"As requested, GAO established a fictitious company and purchased over the Internet key excess DoD biological equipment items and related protective clothing necessary to produce and disseminate biological warfare agents."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/10/06/gao.pentagon/index.html

[Sexgott]

1. Pentagon needs

the money to rebuild Iraq.

[lazarus]

2. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=152665

[fsbooks]

3. looked like standard equipment

From the items I saw on the news last night, it really didn't look like much more than is a standard high school biology/chemistry lab. Technical equipment of all types certainly loses value quickly, so 10 cents on the dollar is not unreasonable (I recently picked up a computer discard for free that was $100000 7 years ago). Perhaps we should all live in straw huts (us plebians) and let the technology be for the elite.

Not that I want to excuse pentagon waste, but this basically seems a little ridiculous to me. The best way to stop the spread of biological warfare agents is to stop the pentagon research on the subject.