[Peace-discuss] us tests

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

This continues now. So who is the evil one?  

Records: Bioweapons Tested in U.S.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Filed at 7:13 a.m. ET


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States secretly tested chemical and biological 
weapons on American soil during the 1960s, newly declassified Pentagon 
reports show.

The tests included releasing deadly nerve agents in Alaska and spraying 
bacteria over Hawaii, according to the documents obtained Tuesday.

The United States also tested nerve agents in Canada and Britain in 
conjunction with those two countries.

The summaries of more than two dozen tests show that biological and chemical 
tests were much more widespread than the military has acknowledged previously.

The Pentagon released records earlier this year showing that chemical and 
biological agents had been sprayed on ships at sea. The military reimbursed 
ranchers and agreed to stop open-air nerve agent testing at its main chemical 
weapons center in the Utah desert after about 6,400 sheep died when nerve gas 
drifted away from the test range.

But the Pentagon never before has provided details of the Alaskan, Hawaiian, 
Canadian and British tests. The Defense Department planned to formally 
release summaries of 28 biological and chemical weapons tests at a House 
Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing Wednesday.

The documents did not say whether any civilians had been exposed to the 
poisons. Military personnel exposed to weapons agents would have worn 
protective gear, the Pentagon says, although the gas masks and suits used at 
the time were far less sophisticated than those in use today.

The head of the House Veterans Affairs panel called for further investigation 
of the tests.

``Our focus must be on quickly identifying those veterans who were involved, 
assessing whether they suffered any negative health consequences and, if 
warranted, providing them with adequate health care and compensation for 
their service,'' said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.

The tests were part of Project 112, a military program in the 1960s and 1970s 
to test chemical and biological weapons and defenses against them. Parts of 
the testing program done on Navy ships were called Project SHAD, or Shipboard 
Hazard and Defense.

The United States scrapped its biological weapons program in the late 1960s 
and agreed in a 1997 treaty to destroy all of its chemical weapons.

Some of those involved in the tests say they now suffer health problems 
linked to their exposure to dangerous chemicals and germs. They are pressing 
the Veterans Affairs Department to compensate them.

Earlier this year, the Defense Department acknowledged for the first time 
that some of the 1960s tests used real chemical and biological weapons, not 
just benign stand-ins.

The Defense Department has identified nearly 3,000 soldiers involved in tests 
disclosed earlier, but the VA has sent letters to fewer than half of them. VA 
and Pentagon officials acknowledged at a July hearing that finding the 
soldiers has been difficult.

The tests described in the latest Pentagon documents include:

-- Devil Hole I, designed to test how sarin gas would disperse after being 
released in artillery shells and rockets in aspen and spruce forests. The 
tests occurred in the summer of 1965 at the Gerstle River test site near Fort 
Greeley, Alaska. Sarin is a powerful nerve gas that causes a choking, 
thrashing death. The Bush administration says it is part of Iraq's chemical 
arsenal.

-- Devil Hole II, which tested how the nerve agent VX behaved when dispersed 
with artillery shells. The test at the Gerstle River site in Alaska also 
included mannequins in military uniforms and military trucks. VX is one of 
the deadliest nerve agents known and is persistent in the environment because 
it is a sticky liquid that evaporates slowly. Iraq has acknowledged making 
tons of VX.

-- Big Tom, a 1965 test that included spraying bacteria over the Hawaiian 
island of Oahu to simulate a biological attack on an island compound, and to 
develop tactics for such an attack. The test used Bacillus globigii, a 
bacterium believed at the time to be harmless. Researchers later discovered 
the bacterium, a relative of the one that causes anthrax, could cause 
infections in people with weakened immune systems.

-- Rapid Tan I, II, and III, a series of tests in 1967 and 1968 in England 
and Canada. The tests used sarin and VX, as well as the nerve agents tabun 
and soman, at the British chemical weapons facility in Porton Down, England. 
Tests at the Suffield Defence Research Establishment in Ralston, Canada, 
included tabun and soman, the records show.

Tabun and soman are chemically related to sarin and produce similar effects.

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On the Net:

Descriptions of some of the tests: 
http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/current--issues/shad/shad--intro.shtml