Is the U.S. Funding Biological Weapons Laboratories Abroad?

Ever since Russian officials announced on March 7 that documents had been found in Ukraine indicating that the United States has been funding some 30 biological laboratories in that country, that were working on potential biological weapons, there has been an uproar on the issue. Finally, on March 12, the UN Security Council held an emergency session called by Russia to discuss the information, which was presented in detail by Russian UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya and is also available online on Russia government websites. According to the Ambassador, the labs “host extremely dangerous biological experiments, aimed at enhancing the pathogen properties of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other lethal diseases with the help of synthetic biology”. The funding, he reported, comes the US Department of Defense’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).

The U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield called all this “lies and utter nonsense”, before proceeding to accuse Russia of planning to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine. Western spokesmen and media, by the way, have been churning out that same accusation.

As for the Pentagon, it acknowledges that the DTRA funds labs in Ukraine conducting only “legal” research, but it nonetheless instructed the facilities to destroy all samples when the hostilities began. And the notorious Victoria Nuland, who is now U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, admitted unintentionally on March 9, that the U.S. is “working with the Ukrainians” to prevent Russian forces from gaining access to the research materials in the country’s “biological research facilities” funded by the U.S..

Scott Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer who served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq, who has both knowledge of bioweapons and excellent sources in the military, was interviewed on the subject on March 9 by George Galloway on his MOATS TV channel. “The U.S. is walking a thin line regarding what is legal and what is not under the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention,” he said, as was recognized by the head of that Convention. Ritter added that several of the labs were formerly used to work on Soviet weapons, and scientists save their work. “So yes, these are weapons labs.”

Calls have come from China, among other countries, for the World Health Organization to investigate the claims that, beyond Ukraine, the Pentagon is running some 300 biolabs throughout the world, that could produce biological weapons. That seems to be a reasonable proposal that should be supported.