WPpg1: Soviet Germ Factories Pose New Threat: Lack Security

[DeepModem Mom]

Soviet Germ Factories Pose New Threat
Once Mined for Pathogens for Bioweapons Program, Labs Lack Security

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 20, 2005; A01


ODESSA, Ukraine -- For 50 years under Soviet rule, nearly everything about the Odessa Antiplague Station was a state secret, down to the names of the deadly microbes its white-coated workers collected and stored in a pair of ordinary freezers....

***

Today, the Soviets are gone but the lab is still here, in this Black Sea port notorious for its criminal gangs and black markets. It is just one of more than 80 similar "antiplague" labs scattered across the former Soviet Union, from the turbulent Caucasus to Central Asian republics that share borders with Iran and Afghanistan. Each is a repository of knowledge, equipment and lethal pathogens that weapons experts have said could be useful to bioterrorists.

After decades of operating in the shadows, the labs are beginning to shed light on another secret: How the Soviet military co-opted obscure civilian institutes into a powerful biological warfare program that built weapons for spreading plague and anthrax spores. As they ramped up preparations for germ warfare in the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet generals mined the labs for raw materials, including highly lethal strains of viruses and bacteria that were intended for use in bombs and missiles.

The facilities' hidden role is described in a draft report of a major investigation by scholars from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The main conclusions of the report, which was provided to The Washington Post, were echoed in interviews with current and former U.S. officials familiar with the labs. Most scientists who worked in antiplague stations in Soviet times knew nothing of their contributions to the weapons program, the report says.

The labs today are seeking to fill a critical role in preventing epidemics in regions where medical services and sanitation have deteriorated since Soviet times. But an equally pressing challenge is security: How to prevent the germ collections and biological know-how from being sold or stolen....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081901507_pf.html

[phantom power]

1. I've never understood the logic of germ warfare.

A weapon is only effective if you can control it. Bacteria and viruses do their own thing, once you let them loose. I mean, even an atom bomb is more controllable than microbes.

[kodi]

2. not a single word about how bush tried to cut funding for nunn-lugar

http://www.lugarcamp.com/cats/nunn-lugar.asp

the US government under Clinton was working to stop the spread of this sort of thing. under bush the program was in danger of being cut completely until lugar started screaming on the floor of the senate, and with the current state of affairs at DoD the program has been run so poorly that millions have been wasted.

this crap has happened on bush's watch and he and his gang of pirates don't give a shit.