US Enhances its Bacteriological and Chemical Weapons Capabilities

 Vladimir Danilov

The imperative for the US to give up the development, stockpiling and use of chemical and bacteriological weapons banned by multiple international conventions is now receiving increased global attention due to substantiated condemnation of Washington’s actions in Ukraine and a number of other countries in recent years.

The US attempts to create bacteriological weapons in Ukraine and even the involvement of US President Joe Biden’s family in funding of the secret US biolabs, and not only in Ukraine, have already been documented.

News broke out that, in addition to hundreds of such secret biolabs in countries bordering Russia, the US is planning to open another one in Mongolia. The main customer for biological programs there would presumably be a unit of the US Medical Directorate of the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (USAMD-AFRIMS). The Pentagon plans to set up this biolab at the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, which is based in Ulaanbaatar and is allegedly planning to “research” such particularly dangerous diseases as plague, cholera, malaria, hepatitis, coronavirus and encephalitis there.  It is also reported that the US “research” activities will include the collection of biological material from Mongolians in areas that are in close proximity to Russia and China. In doing so, the United States expects Mongolia to agree to study dangerous pathogens in that country, which are often found in areas along the border with Russia and China.

Such plans and actions by the US cannot but worry the international community, especially after numerous reports that the US has deployed three hundred biolabs around the world. There is no doubt that a detailed examination by the international public of such US activities will take place soon, as will the punishment of those responsible!

As for the US intention to destroy stockpiles of another internationally banned weapon to which the US is also a signatory, namely chemical weapons, this was announced by President George H. W. Bush in 1991, at the end of the Cold War. Two years later, the US joined the International Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a foundational document that called for the destruction of all chemical weapons stockpiles, production facilities and dispersal systems. At that time, the US stockpiles contained chemical warfare agents such as VX, BZ, mustard gas, sarin, various binary weapons components and precursors.

The deadline for final liquidation was set in April 2012. However, by that deadline, the US was “incapable” of completely destroying its own stockpiles. At that time, 89.75% of the originally declared 31,100 tons remained in storage. The US then attributed this to an allegedly heightened focus on the possible environmental consequences of disposal. All this despite the fact that another major former chemical weapons possessor, Russia, completely destroyed all its stockpiles of chemical weapons in 2017, as officially confirmed by international experts.

Thus, thousands of tons of such substances, including nerve agents, are now officially stored in the US. It is virtually the only member of the Chemical Weapons Convention to have yet to destroy its stockpiles in the nearly 30 years since Washington signed the Convention!

In response to demands from around the world for Washington to provide a full report to the international public on the United States’ stockpiles and programs for developing banned chemical and bacteriological weapons, the White House merely says that it has no plans to use such weapons under any circumstances. In particular, this is what Joe Biden’s national security assistant Jake Sullivan did at a briefing for journalists on March 25, stating that “the US does not use chemical weapons”.

However, another of these White House lies is refuted by numerous reports from various media and civil society organizations. For example, it is well known that the United States has used banned chemical weapons in a number of countries in recent years. White phosphorus munitions were used by the Pentagon during the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. For example, in 2004, the US Air Force actively used white phosphorus bombs to break the resistance of the unruly Iraqi city of Fallujah. Then video footage of the characteristic milky-white explosions in the city’s residential areas and pictures of the terrible burns suffered by the locals hit the media. In the end, the then Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable, had to acknowledge the use of such munitions.

In June 2017, the US-led Coalition used incendiary shells filled with poisonous white phosphorus in Raqqa, Syria.

When in contact with human skin, phosphorus causes severe burns. Moreover, these weapons have the additional lethality of producing asphyxiating and poisonous gases when they burn. The use by the United States of these banned chemical weapons has been exposed by the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch. According to HRW representatives, the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces storming Raqqa were actively using US-made white phosphorus artillery shells. It should be noted that white phosphorus munitions, also known as Willie Pete (an acronym for white phosphorus), are prohibited by the 1977 Additional Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Convention – their use is prohibited where civilians may be endangered. On September 8, 2018, the US again bombed the town of Hajin in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor Governorate. Two F-15 fighter-bombers were reportedly involved in the raid, using white phosphorous munitions. The US command did not deny the use of toxic munitions, but noted that it used them supposedly for camouflage, obscuration and target designation. Meanwhile, escaping coalition strikes, tens of thousands of people fleeing Syrian cities hit by US phosphorus weapons have already spoken out about the price of peace extracted by Washington’s banned chemical weapons.

And recently the US publication Veterans Today has learned that under direct orders from the White House, the transfer of secret US chemical weapons stockpiles from the Richmond, Kentucky, facility to trans-shipment bases in Poland has begun. The plan is to use chemical weapons themselves in Kiev or Odessa and blame it on Russia, which could undoubtedly lead to a full-scale nuclear war. And this is no hoax, as the data comes from very well-informed, high-level military circles!

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.