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The Foundation for Economic Trends forces the Department of Defense to divulge its
operation of 127 chemical and biological warfare research sites in the US. This
despite a treaty at the time banning research and development of biological agents.
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The US Senate approves legislation that restricts international inspections of
chemical sites in the United States, effectively killing the Chemical Weapons
Convention.
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CNN and Time magazine report on the use of nerve gas by US special forces in Laos.
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CNN and Time magazine are forced to retract their reports under pressure from the
US military, the CIA and figures such as Kissinger, Helms and Colin Powell. The two
reporters who brought us the story stand by it and are fired.
An independent review by CNN however acknowledges that the reporters conscientiously and
honestly amassed a considerable basis of evidence to support their conclusions,
and that the confidential sources interviewed by the reporters were reputable.
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Dutch media claim that an Israeli plane which crashed in Holland was carrying a chemical
used for nerve gas from a US factory to the Institute for Biological Research
in Ness Ziona near Tel Aviv. The Dutch health ministry believes that up to 300 residents
could be suffering from effects caused by the accident.
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Israel (the world's top recipient of US military aid) uses poison gas on Palestinian
civilians. Symptoms are typical of nerve gas poisoning.
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US renounces efforts to negotiate a verification process for the Biological Weapons
Convention and brings an international conference on the matter to a halt.
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US refuses to sign an international treaty banning germ warfare, saying it
would put national security and confidential business information at risk.
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Some of the anthrax spores used in the recent anthrax attacks in the US are found to be
biologically identical to bacteria secretly manufactured at a US germ warfare facility
at the Dugway Proving Ground (about 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah)
during the last decade. The lab has a long history of secret research (including dengue fever and a
controversy in the 60s when thousands of sheep and other animals died downwind of the
facility, showing symptoms of having been exposed to nerve gas), and the revelation that
it has been secretly producing Anthrax only adds to concerns.
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For the second time in the month, an anthrax leak is found at an Army
biodefense research building in Frederick.
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The Pentagon acknowledges using two kinds of nerve gas and a biological toxin in
tests on over 1000 US sailors in the 1960s.
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Pentagon documents reveal that the US held open-air biological and chemical weapons tests in
at least three states - Alaska, Hawaii and Utah - during the 1960s 'to try to develop defenses
against such weapons', using the nerve agents sarin, soman, tabun and VX . According to the
Defense Dept, an unknown number of civilians were exposed at the time to 'simulants', or what
were then thought to be harmless agents meant to stand in for deadlier ones, however some of
which were later discovered to be dangerous.
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Respected scientists on both sides of the Atlantic warn that the US is developing a new
generation of weapons that undermine and possibly violate international treaties on biological
and chemical warfare, including research into the possibility of genetically engineering a new
strain of antibiotic-resistant anthrax, a programme to produce dried and weaponised anthrax
spores, and 'non-lethal' weapons similar to the gas Russian forces used to break the Moscow
theatre siege.
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A Sunday Herald investigation reveals that Britain is supplying chemical warfare technology
to 26 countries including Libya, Syria, Sudan, Israel and Iran (which was labelled part of the
'axis of evil' by Bush). The lethal chemicals being exported are illegal under international law
and controlled under the chemical weapons convention because they can be used in weapons of mass
destruction.
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Iraq releases weapons declaration. Before releasing to the public, the US Government
confiscates all 12,000 pages, saying they contained "sensitive information" which needed
"a little editing". Sensitive indeed. The original Iraqi documents listed 150 American,
British and other foreign companies that supplied Iraq with its nuclear, chemical and
missile technology, many of them in illegal transactions. In 2000 Peter Hain, then a
Foreign Office Minister, blocked a parliamentary request to publish the full list of
lawbreaking British companies. He has never explained why.
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Artillery shell found to be leaking mustard gas (a poisonous chemical compound used in World War I)
at the US Blue Grass Army Depot which stores about 55,000 rockets, land mines and other artillery with
about 523 tons of chemical weapons.
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Donald Rumsfeld reveals that military planners are preparing for the US to
use incapacitating biochemical weapons in an invasion of Iraq, including use of gas or aerosols
on unarmed Iraqi civilians, in caves, and on prisoners (thus violating the same
treaties it purports to defend).
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US army scientists genetically reconstruct the 'Spanish Flu' influenza virus
that killed 20-40 million people in 1918.
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The US develops an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox virus,
through genetic engineering. The cowpox virus, which infects a range of animals including
humans, is also genetically altered in a similar way.
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Vietnamese continue to suffer from Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant used by US forces during the
Vietnam war, which has been blamed for huge numbers of birth defects.
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