External probe for US role in labs sought

GENEVA－A former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq has stressed that it is necessary to investigate the alleged US-led biolabs in Ukraine to ensure they are operated within the framework set forth by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, or BTWC.

"There is an absolute requirement for stringent confidence-building investigations into what the United States was doing, so that the world can be confident that the United States operates within the framework" of the BTWC, said Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency.

Ritter is also a former US weapons inspector to the Soviet Union overseeing the implementation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, before serving as a UN chief weapons inspector tasked to implement the 1991 UN Security Council Resolution 687 by disarming all weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, including biological ones, in Iraq.

He resigned from the UN position in 1998 to protest what he saw as "American interference in the work of the inspectors". Later, Ritter warned the then US administration against going to war with Iraq in 2003 on false pretenses, which were vindicated later when no WMD was found in Iraq.

Ritter believes the biolabs present on Ukrainian soil are, beyond any doubt, led by the US.

"They are US-led biolabs, that's not up for debate. They may be on Ukrainian soil, they may be operated by Ukrainian scientists, but they operate in accordance with the 2005 memorandum signed between the Ukrainian government and the United States Department of Defense under legislation that's called Nunn-Lugar Act," he said.

The act is part of the cooperative threat reduction legislation passed by the US Congress in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union to bring WMD capability under control, he said.

For Ritter, the US-led program appears "very responsible on the surface" as it was in the US interest to ensure that these Soviet-era programs were in fact closed down.

Different set of rules

However, "the problem with the United States though, is that we operate on a different set of rules, so to speak, we then have others abide by".

"This very footloose and fancy-free approach I believe infected the legitimate intent of the Ukrainian labs," he said, referring to so-called level three safety labs built by the US in Ukraine to carry out what they claim to be legitimate biological research, and on occasion, "defensive biological warfare research".

Ritter drew special attention to 26 of these labs, which he said "is something the United States probably needs to answer for".

"I also don't understand how programs as have been alleged by the Russians could be allowed to exist," he said, citing Russian claims that one such program focuses on the development of the weaponization of bird flu H1N1 that can be vectored or delivered by migratory birds flying from Ukraine into Russia.

Ritter said it is legitimate to investigate the "potential natural vectors" for security concerns, but bioresearch targeting specifically the migratory birds flying into Russia and not the other way around is very disturbing.

Xinhua