From: Richard Lathrop (lathrrs@snip.net)
Date: Tue Oct 07 2003 - 02:19:46 PDT
But did they have to get a EUC and how did they get it so fast if they had to?
Rick
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Nigel Hay" <Nigel@Milweb.net>
Reply-To: MVlist@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:23:08 +0200
>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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>>
>>
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