From: Nigel Hay (Nigel@milweb.net)
Date: Tue Oct 07 2003 - 02:23:08 PDT
President Blairs most feared programe BBC "Today" is carrying it as a main
item each news slot
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Lathrop" <lathrrs@snip.net>
To: <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Cc: <MVlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 11:10 AM
Subject: [MVlist] DRMS article on Cnn
> Anyone else see this article?
>
> 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."
>
> The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress.
>
> A congressional source said the GAO front corporation was able to buy
evaporator, incubator and centrifuge equipment that can be used to produce
biological warfare agents.
>
> It also bought 300 to 400 protective suits required for the production of
biological agents, the source said.
>
> The fictitious GAO company spent "a little over $4,000" for equipment that
the Defense Department originally bought for some $46,000, according to the
source and the report.
>
> "That's less than 10 cents on the dollar," the source said.
>
> Much if not all of the equipment sold to GAO investigators is available to
the public at full price on the open market, the source said, but "we
certainly don't need DoD to be a discount shop for potential bioterrorists."
>
> He conceded that "only nominal controls" are now in place to prevent the
sale of such items to the public, but at least those sales are "not with the
U.S. government seal of approval [and] for pennies on the dollar."
>
> The GAO investigation was requested by the House Subcommittee on National
Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, which is a unit of
the Government Reform Committee.
>
> "According to the GAO, due to poor controls, there is little assurance
excess [chemical-biological] equipment has not already fallen into the wrong
hands," a subcommittee statement said.
>
> The statement said some of the protective suits "had previously been
identified by DoD as defective," but they "were still circulating in the
surplus supply chain."
>
> An unknown number of defective suits were issued to state and local law
enforcement agencies before being returned to the Defense Department to be
disposed of, according to the statement.
>
> The congressional source said those suits should not have been resold
under any circumstances.
>
> The subcommittee will hold a hearing on the matter Tuesday with testimony
from Pentagon officials, GAO investigators and a chemical-biological weapons
expert.
>
>
>
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