The bacterium Bacillus anthracis is the causative agent of an infectious disease that is very dangerous for animals and humans. It is characterized by high stability in the environment, since it forms spores that can persist for years and survive dryness, heat, and even disinfectants, which makes it especially dangerous.
Anthrax bacteria have previously been used by terrorists as weapons of mass destruction. For example, following the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, in the U.S. there was an incident with anthrax bacteria in which terrorists sent letters to several media offices and two Democratic senators, killing five people and infecting seventeen more. Then the investigation led to a virologist who worked for some time at the American Institute of Military Medical Research of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, MD.
As reported by Reuters, the dangerous leakage of bacteria on June 16 this year originated from a higher security laboratory in Atlanta, in which employees working with live anthrax bacteria produce inactivated samples.
It should be noted that due to the active work of many American “scientific institutions” working on assignments and direct financing from the Pentagon, both in the United States and in many other countries where the Pentagon implants such “biological research centers”, there is a growing direct biological threat of infection. Of particular concern is the fact that the process of expanding biohazard laboratory facilities has gone out of the control of authorities. These “centers”, originally created to solve the task of countering bioterrorism, have themselves become a source of new threats not only within the United States. Because of the weak control, incidents of loss and theft of dangerous germs and viruses have become possible, as well as acts of bioterrorism using a variety of highly dangerous pathogens and attempts to obtain access to technologies by mentally unstable and criminal members of terrorist organizations.
According to published data, as of 2006, in the U.S. alone, there were officially more than 400 such institutions conducting secret programs of the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies paid for by the county’s taxpayers. However, even the FBI can not accurately determine the number of high-level biohazard laboratories operating in the country. No public reports on the activities of these “centers” are available.
Hiding behind the slogan “war on terror”, Washington in recent decades has begun to actively create, in addition to National Missile Defense System (NMD), a National Biological Defense Program (NBD) on the territory of the country and abroad. In this context, Washington has traditionally considered the following as potential sources of threats: dangerous pathogens, the creation of various biological weapons technologies , the formation in different countries of relevant theoretical knowledge and practical professional skills.
Current U.S. partners in this program are sovereign states around the perimeter of Russia: Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
The White House is constantly expanding coverage of the NBD, actively expanding it to, in particular, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, India, Iraq, Tanzania, South Africa, and other countries. Total Pentagon spending for these purposes amounted to more than $60 million in 2012 alone.
The citizens of these countries are not being informed of these secret projects by the Pentagon.
This work is carried out by the NBD with the active participation of the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services. One specific piece of evidence is the functioning of the Georgian-American laboratory in Alekseevko, headed by the former head of the Intelligence Service of Georgia, A. Zhvania, and its work is personally overseen by the US Adviser to the Minister of Defense on nuclear, chemical, and defense programs, E. Weber. We also know that this center is staffed by U.S. military personnel, and its experiments are conducted in conditions of strict secrecy. The Armenian publication “Yerkramas” suggests that in the Georgian laboratory the Pentagon is conducting applied research on the military use of biological weapons. The involvement of the Georgian-American Center in Alekseevko in spreading the African swine fever virus in the Russian regions has been mentioned by Russian Surgeon General, Gennady Onishchenko, many times before.
However the Alekseevko center is not the only one close to the borders of Russia where the Americans can conduct research in the field of biological weapons. In the foreign press there are ever increasing reports on the establishment of such laboratories in Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.
On the territory of Ukraine alone, the Pentagon has deployed 11 biological laboratories conducting research and development with particularly dangerous biological organisms. These laboratories are located in major cities such as Lviv, Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Vinnitsa, Kherson, Lugansk, and these “centers” can certainly be construed as foci of mortal danger for the local population, judging by the incident that occurred on June 16 in Atlanta, where the system of control is much higher than it is now in Ukraine. Incidentally, according to unofficial reports, anthrax has been found in the Odessa region in late spring.
And against the backdrop of the ongoing instability now in this country, the risk from the activities of such “centers” in Ukraine are significantly increased, not only for this country but for its neighbor states. Indeed, who can prevent armed militants of the same “right sector” from establishing control over such “centers” and using their “products” to their advantage.
We should not forget that the city Lugansk, where one of the Pentagon’s laboratories is located, is now in a war zone undergoing a massive bombing by the Ukrainian army, which immeasurably increases the risk of infection by dangerous pathogenic bacteria and viruses for the entire population of the region.
At the headquarters of the Kazakhstan Scientific Center for Quarantine and Zoonotic Infections named after M. Aikimbayev in Alma-Ata, according to the 2004 agreement between the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the U.S. Department of Defense, the Central Reference Laboratory (CRL) was created, construction of which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014 This CRL is to store strains of and perform experiments with collections of especially dangerous diseases, including plague, anthrax, and different species of cholera. CRL is a leading center for biological research in Central Asia. There will be laboratories at security levels 2 and 3.
Funding in the amount of 108 million dollars and project management is provided through the U.S. Department of Defense Threat Reduction Agency under the Nunn-Lugar program.
On January 17, 2014, former Deputy Defense Minister of Kazakhstan (1997-2000). A.Togusov spoke in an interview with Tengri News Agency about the possible dual purpose of the facilities being created: deployment by the Pentagon of a research center that can be used in the interests of the USA’s military-biological developments.
According to some experts, by creating such “centers” and biological laboratories abroad, Washington solves, in particular, the following problems:
– Use them to conduct biological research with especially dangerous pathogens outside its territory without fear of protests by the American public;
– Bypass international agreements, in particular the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, including in respect to the refusal to permit visits to the laboratories located abroad by representatives of other countries dissenting from the actions of the United States;
– Study pathogens aimed at killing a particular species of animals in the world or the population of such animals in certain areas in the interests of the Pentagon and for possible military action in the regions in which these “centers” are located.
In the euphoria of global hegemony, Washington prefers not to comply with the requirements of the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, and to establish its own mechanisms for total control of microbiological research in the world. Washington does not hide its satisfaction with the results of the “collaboration” of the NBD with foreign states: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and many other states have now handed over to the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology their national collections of pathogens, thereby giving the Pentagon the right to assess the level of biological threats in their territory and make decisions on the application of appropriate countermeasures.
In this difficult situation, there is one solution – to publicize the activities of all the “centers” and “biological laboratories” in the United States and similar “institutions” created with the participation of the Pentagon abroad, and to reveal the conditions of the contracts concluded between the Pentagon and foreign governments to operate these facilities in order to put their activities under the control of the global community. Otherwise, the U.S. population and many countries are at risk of becoming a hostage of biological weapons.
Vladimir Platov, an expert on the Middle East and a columnist for the internet journal, New Eastern Outlook
