Inside USA's Biological Warfare Center

Q. A. With Citizen Activist Barry Kissin
WRITTEN BY SHERWOOD ROSS          
One legacy of the Bush-Cheney administration is the grandiose expansion of our germ
warfare research program. This was declared to be necessary because of the
September-October 2001 anthrax letters' attacks on Congress and the media---attacks
the public is now being told came not from the Middle East but from within our own
government's facilities. As a result, developmental work is going forward with
deadly and loathsome pathogens capable of triggering plagues and epidemics.

Legislation to finance this expansion rolled through Congress after the anthrax
attacks killed five persons, sickened 17 others, caused more than 10 million
Americans to go on very strong antibiotics, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars
to clean up. Laboratories at hundreds of universities and corporations have expanded
into biological warfare research centers. More than $50 billion has been lavished on
this effort—an effort critics charge is in violation of the existing treaty against
bioweapons development ratified by the United States in 1975. So much of the
nation's resources have been shifted into germ warfare research that 750 of our most
celebrated scientists signed a petition protesting the adverse effect this is having
on research into combating naturally occurring diseases.

The Government's admission the anthrax attacks came not from the Middle East but
from its own biowarfare research facilities signifies the anthrax letters
constituted a "false flag" operation designed to whip up public sentiment for the
"War On Terror." One man who saw the expansion of the Government's biological
warfare research hub at Ft. Detrick under President Bush as a danger to his
community and to the nation was Barry Kissin, a 57-year-old Brooklyn-born attorney
who moved to Frederick , Md. in 1981. Kissin and his wife, Dr. Malgorzata Schmidt,
make their home just a few miles from the main gate of Ft. Detrick . Kissin has
found himself devoting ever more of his time to challenging the expansion of
"biodefense" as well as the underlying rationale contained in our government's
mutating story about the anthrax letters.

Over the past six years, Kissin has become a leading citizen activist in the
struggle to halt the expansion of our "biodefense" program. His work evidently came
to the attention of the Homeland Security division of the Maryland State Police. The
Washington Post of October 12, 2008, reported that this Homeland Security division
had listed Kissin and 52 others as "terrorists," and furthermore that authorities
had acknowledged their wrongdoing and had agreed to purge the files. Kissin, an
unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 2006, was in good company. The activists
labeled as terrorists included two nuns, a man who challenges military recruiting in
high schools, and critics of the Iraq war. Following is my Q. and A. with this
passionate opponent of a new biological arms race---a race once shut down by
President Richard Nixon only to be stoked anew by the Bush regime.     

Q: How did you happen to get interested in Ft. Detrick ?  

A: I became a resident of Frederick , MD , home of Ft. Detrick , in 1981. I was
aware Ft. Detrick was headquarters for our bio-warfare related programs ever since
the first such program commenced in 1943. Before my move to Frederick , I was also
conscious of the Silent Vigil that was maintained from July, 1959, until March,
1961, outside Detrick's main gate that stood for the cessation of our bio-warfare
program and the conversion of Detrick's scientific facilities into a health research
center. This Vigil, conceived by a Quaker named Lawrence Scott, is credited with
laying the foundation for the decision by President Nixon in 1969 to terminate our
offensive bio-warfare program. Two years later, Nixon came to Detrick and announced
he was creating the National Cancer Institute (NCI) there which would utilize (and
continues to utilize) former Army bio-warfare buildings, thus "sending a clear
message that America could beat its swords into plowshares." I might add that it has
since become apparent that the CIA and its "Special Operations Division" at  Detrick
did not abide by the decision to terminate bio-weapons research. Various bio-warfare
related programs continued to function in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

During my formative years, I was very active in the movement against the Viet Nam
War. Since then I have been very conscious of the terrible workings of our
military-industrial-intelligence complex. Upon moving to Frederick , I quickly
became aware of how the Army at Detrick manipulated the local community and local
media. Ft. Detrick is the largest employer in Frederick County . Its unassailable
position in the community is based on a mixture of messages about its contributions
to the local economy and its patriotic role in defending against the enemy, once
Communist, now terrorist.

Q: What steps did the Bush administration take to launch its biological warfare
program?
A: Upon coming into power, the Bush Administration immediately exercised its strong
preference for arms race over international arms control. In the realm of
bio-warfare, it promptly withdrew from negotiations to strengthen the 1975
Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the international treaty that bans the
development of biological weapons. This made the United States practically the only
country among 150 signatories to the Treaty opposed to a protocol for international
inspections and verification. Thereafter, using the anthrax letters attacks of the
fall of 2001 as a central pretext, the Bush Administration launched a massive
expansion of our so-called "bio-defense" program, much of it at Ft. Detrick .

Q: Could you briefly describe the nature of the work going forward at Ft. Detrick
and the names of agencies involved?

A: One of the programs at Ft. Detrick is under the auspices of the National Cancer
Institute (NCI). My focus of course has been upon bio-warfare related activities,
which, since termination of the overtly offensive program, have been conducted by
the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). USAMRIID
is a part of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command (USAMRMC) at Ft.
Detrick, which also manages activities unrelated to bio-warfare, such as supplying
medical materials for use by the Army.

The expansion underway at Ft. Detrick contemplates a " National Inter-agency
Bio-defense Campus" (NIBC) which upon completion would occupy 200 acres there. The
plan is for the NIBC to be the site of a new facility for USAMRIID, designed to
measure more than one million square feet (approx. 25 acres of facility space), at a
cost of $1 Billion (2005 cost estimate). Construction of two of the new NIBC
facilities has already been completed (in 2008) – namely the "National Biodefense
Analysis and Countermeasures Center" (NBACC) to be operated by the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), which measures 160,000 square feet, and the "Integrated
Research Facility" (IRF) to be operated by the National Institute of Health (NIH),
which also measures about 160,000 square feet. After the new USAMRIID facility is
completed, the plan is to erect another new facility on the NIBC, to be operated by
the Department of Agriculture (USDA). And the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has
announced that it also wants to join this campus "confederation."

Q: Please explain what BSL laboratories are and how they are graded. Also, could you
describe some of the pathogens government scientists are working on in these labs?

A: BSL labs are biocontainment facilities designed for research, development,
testing and evaluation (RDT&E) activities involving specific pathogens (germs),
exposure to which would be hazardous to lab workers as well as the "outside
environment." BSL stands for Bio-Safety Level --- the higher the level, the more
elaborate the safety and security measures, the more dangerous the germs. BSL-4 is
for maximum containment. There are dozens of diseases viewed as potential agents for
biological weapons. RDT&E upon diseases such as hepatitis A, B and C, influenza A,
Lyme disease, dengue fever and salmonella takes place in BSL-2 labs. Anthrax, West
Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Eastern equine encephalitis, SARS,
tuberculosis, typhus, Coxiella burnetii, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted
fever, and yellow fever are dealt with in BSL-3 labs. And Bolivian and Argentine
hemorrhagic fevers, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, Lassa fever, and Crimean-Congo
hemorrhagic fever are dealt with in BSL-4 labs.

The new DHS, NIH and Army facilities at Detrick alone will house approximately
60,000 square feet of BSL-4 laboratory space, specifically designed to accommodate
work with germs for which there is neither vaccine nor cure. This amount of space is
four times the total amount of BSL-4 space that existed in the entire country as of
2004.

Q: How have you attempted to slow or stop the expansion of these laboratories?

A: Since 2003, I and others in the community have been participating in proceedings
under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) designed to examine the
environmental impacts posed by new bio-warfare related facilities at Ft. Detrick.
Though NEPA treats as a priority the consideration of public input, our input has
essentially been ignored as one facility after the other has been approved. I and
others have also been conducting demonstrations in downtown Frederick against the
expansion.  

Q: In some ways the community's activism has paid off, has it not?    

A: In August, 2007, for the first time in history, an elected official, namely a
Frederick County Commissioner, publicly expressed concerns about what was going on
at Ft. Detrick . This opened a floodgate. Unprecedented columns and editorials in
the local newspapers appeared questioning what was going on at Ft. Detrick . And in
November, 2007, upon the occasion of a public meeting hosted by the County
Commissioners , more than 150 members of the community filled Frederick City Hall to
express their many concerns.  

Under much pressure, both of Maryland 's U.S. Senators----Barbara Mikulski and Ben
Cardin---got behind the demand for a review by the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) of the public health and environmental hazards posed by the new facilities
being built at Ft. Detrick . Though the appropriation for this NAS review was passed
by Congress in September, 2008, we continue to wait for the Army to fulfill its
obligation to enter into a contract with the NAS for this review.  

Q: Are you a member of any citizen groups concerned about research underway at Ft.
Detrick ?  
A: Frederick Citizens for Bio-lab Safety; Frederick Progressive Action Coalition
(FredPAC); Frederick County Peace Resource Center (PRC). There are also national
organizations concerned about our national "biodefense" program, a central part of
which is being implemented at Ft. Detrick . A most important example of such an
organization was the "Sunshine Project" based in Austin , Texas . This non-profit
organization was instrumental in procuring the Congressional hearing in October,
2007, regarding the alarming (if not reckless) proliferation of high-security
bio-laboratories in the U.S. Unfortunately, the Sunshine Project has since ceased
its operation for lack of funding.

Q: As I understand it, with most of the rest of the world on record as opposed to a
new bioweapons arms race, the United States is setting a terrible example by its
research at Ft. Detrick .

A: In 2004, Milton Leitenberg, Senior Research Scholar at the University of
Maryland, James Leonard, head of the U.S. delegation that negotiated the
international arms control treaty known as the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)
that bans the development of bio-weapons, and Richard Spertzel, former deputy
Commander of USAMRIID and Senior Biologist on the United Nations inspection team in
Iraq, co-authored a commentary containing the following statements:

"The rapidity of elaboration of American biodefense programs, their ambition and
administrative aggressiveness, and the degree to which they push against the
prohibitions of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), are startling. . . . [The
Deputy Director of DHS's NBACC himself] noted that one NBACC objective, the
creation of genetically engineered agents, might raise BWC compliance questions. .
. Reportedly, the US intelligence community is under orders to carry out studies. .
. . Surely, the 'intelligence community' is the least appropriate place in the US
government to 'carry out' such work — and the most likely to lack adequate
oversight."  

Q: According to some critics, "biodefense" activity at Ft. Detrick will violate
Federal criminal law, is that correct?  

A: In 2007, International Law Professor Francis Boyle, who drafted the "Biological
Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989" that criminalizes violations of the BWC, stated:

"The proposed construction and operation of new facilities at Fort Detrick is an
integral part of the program that is referred to as 'Biodefense for the 21st
Century' in Homeland Security Presidential Directive - HSPD-10, released on April
28, 2004. In my expert opinion, said program constitutes clear violations of the
[BWC]. . . . [This] so-called 'biodefense' program . . . [has the] unmistakable
hallmarks of an offensive weapons program. . . . In my expert opinion, participants
in this so-called 'biodefense' program are subject to criminal liability [under the
Act that I drafted.]"  

Q: Have you been inside Ft. Detrick ?

A: Numerous times. As an attorney, I have represented before the Magistrate's Court
at Ft. Detrick individuals charged with misdemeanors committed on post. More to the
point, I have attended various "community meetings" on post hosted by the Army for
the purpose of answering questions about the expansion. Furthermore, on March 5,
2008, I personally was given a three-hour-long tour of the USAMRIID facility by then
USAMRIID Commander Colonel George W. Korch, which included an inspection (through
windows) of the "biological containment" laboratories [like the ones portrayed in
the Dustin Hoffman film, "Outbreak" (1995)].

Q: How many acres does Ft. Detrick cover and what's it like?

A: Ft. Detrick comprises 1200 acres, (about 10% of the total land area of the City
of Frederick , population 60,000). "Area A" contains all of the buildings for the
activities summarized above, as well as a substantial number of recently-constructed
single-family homes for Army families, a very large gymnasium, commissary, etc.
(Though remarkably it still has places in it that would be easy to penetrate), the
perimeter fencing has recently been bolstered, which critics describe as
contributing to a militaristic presence in the middle of a densely populated
community.

Q: What is going on in "Area B?"

A:  "Area B" is about 400 acres and is separated from "Area A," and has livestock
on it used in testing by USAMRIID. Area B was a landfill site. Though questions
were raised beginning in the 1970s about possible leakage from Detrick dumping, it
was not until the early 1990's that monitoring wells were installed that revealed
in the ground water the presence of TCE and PCE, both cancer-causing chemicals, at
levels between 1,000 and 5,000 times the levels determined to be safe by the EPA.
It became clear that the water supplies of nearby residents had been severely
contaminated. On July 1, 2003, the local Frederick News-Post published a front-page
article "Cancer questions: Residents point finger at Detrick," based on the
statements of many of Detrick's neighbors about the high incidence of cancer in
their families.

Q: How have Ft. Detrick authorities and the Army responded?

A: The clean-up has dragged along ever since the early 1990s. Two thousand metric
tons of hazardous waste have been unearthed. In 2003, sanitation crews were shocked
to find vials containing live germs. The discarded biological agents included
anthrax, Brucella melitensis, which causes the virulent flu-like disease
brucellosis, and klebsiella, a cause of pneumonia. (On May 28, 2003, The Guardian, a
prominent English newspaper, published an article entitled "US finds evidence of WMD
at last -- buried in a field in Maryland .")

Q: Surely, public officials would raise questions about this situation.

A: On November 13, 2008, both of Maryland's U.S. Senators, ordinarily quite
protective with respect to Ft. Detrick, stated in a letter to then President-elect
Obama: "[W]e write to draw your attention to the Department of Defense's (DOD)
position that it is not subject to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
authority to administer federal environmental protection statutes.  The Department
of Defense has been in flagrant and repeated violation of these statutes at
installations in Maryland and around the country. . . . [A]dmitting flaws in its
characterization of contamination at Ft. Detrick Maryland as well as the handling of
the clean-up there, Secretary Davis promised that the Army would not oppose EPA's
decision to list Area B at Fort Detrick Maryland on the National Priorities List.
Yet, we now have a clear sign that DOD appears to be shirking its responsibilities
and legal obligations to protect the health and welfare of our constituents,
particularly . . . neighbors outside the gate.  As recently as November 3, 2008,
Secretary Davis wrote to the EPA asking that the Agency refrain from placing Ft.
Detrick on the Superfund list in spite of the fact that the site meets all the
listing criteria."      

Q: Wow. Have there been any injuries or deaths as a result of the biological
research at Ft. Detrick ? I understand some of its streets are named after fallen
employees.

A: In general, secrecy in the name of "national security" has concealed the
consequences of biological research at Ft. Detrick . According to the official
account, three people have died as the result of contracting diseases being
cultivated at Ft. Detrick , all before the overtly offensive program was terminated
in 1969. A microbiologist and an electrician died from anthrax, and an animal
caretaker died from the Machupo virus. The official account does not acknowledge
what has come to light about one of the anthrax cases, namely that, at first, the
victim was placed by his personal physician in a Frederick hospital, and that
"bronchial pneumonia" was listed on his death certificate.

Q: Sounds like a cover-up.

A: One must study Pulitzer Prize-winning Seymour Hersh's seminal work, Chemical &
Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal (Doubleday & Company, 1969) to discover
the case of an enlisted laboratory technician at Detrick contracting pneumonic
plague. In a memo classified as secret, Detrick officials cautioned that this lab
technician was also a life guard at a public swimming pool in the community. But no
attempt was made to inform Frederick residents of the danger, or to provide
preventative antibiotic treatment. There was also a case of an enlisted man residing
off base who contracted meningitis, which can be highly contagious. The Frederick
County Health Commissioner was not informed of this case until weeks after it was
discovered. Regarding the plague case, this Health Commissioner told Hersh: "I
co-operated with [ Ft. Detrick officials]. I had an obligation to them – I had a
secret clearance. They told me not to report the case [because] we didn't want to
alarm anyone." Referring to "funny cases" related to Ft. Detrick , this Commissioner
also told Hersh about questionable incidents involving typhoid fever and
tuberculosis.

Then there was the case of Frank Olson, whose death back in 1953 was attributed by
officials to suicide. Largely as the result of ongoing efforts by one of Frank
Olson's sons, Eric, it has come to light that Dr. Olson was actually in charge of
the CIA's "Special Operations" at Ft. Detrick, that he was gradually becoming more
and more disturbed by the CIA's secret programs at Ft. Detrick, and that after he
expressed some of his misgivings and shortly before his death, he was given LSD by
CIA agents. In 1994, Dr. Olson's son Eric retained Dr. James Starrs, a noted
forensic pathologist at the George Washington University Medical Center , to
assemble a team of experts to conduct an exhumation and autopsy on Frank Olson.
After months of tests and investigation, Dr. Starrs concluded that the circumstances
of Dr. Olson's death had been deliberately covered up by the CIA, and that his death
was the result of "homicide deft, deliberate, and diabolical." (Dr. Olson's son Eric
has also uncovered documents that establish that Dick Cheney became personally
involved in this cover-up – see Eric's website,www.frankolsonproject.org).

Q: Are there any other examples of deaths or injuries at Ft. Detrick ?

A: With regard to injuries resulting from biological research at Ft. Detrick, it is
instructive to consider an article written by several medical doctors who work at
USAMRIID entitled "Experience in the Medical Management of Potential Laboratory
Exposures to Agents of Bioterrorism at USAMRIID" that appeared in the Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine: Volume 46(8), August 2004, pp. 801-811:

"The large number of exposure incidents reported . . . serves as a reminder that
work in a laboratory of this type is inherently hazardous. . . . [W]e recognize
that work in containment laboratories is inherently hazardous because of the need
to work with sharp objects (ie, needles) and animals, which can be unpredictable.
In addition, personal protective equipment may inadvertently increase the potential
for incidents by limiting the field of vision, tactile sensation, and
communication. . . . A laboratory worker was evaluated for a potential ocular
exposure to orthopox viruses resulting from a splash of condensate. . . .[A]ll 17
persons involved in the [anthrax] letter handling were considered at potentially
significant risk for exposure due to the readily aerosolizable spores. . . .  The
route of exposure [in another case] was probably inhalational as the result of a
malfunction (leak) of the filter in the bio-safety cabinet that was subsequently
discovered. . . . As research on the agents of bioterrorism becomes more
widespread, an increase in occupational exposures to bioterrorist agents may be
expected . . .

"Much of our knowledge about biosafety has come from investigations into the
mechanisms and activities that caused workers to become infected . . . However,
historically the majority of individuals, over 80% in one report, diagnosed with
laboratory-acquired infections, could not identify a known incident or breach in
laboratory policy responsible for their infection. . .  There were 77 individuals
evaluated for potential exposures to 107 viral agents . . . [N]o vaccine existed for
many of [these] viral agents. . . ." This Journal article also refers to instance
after instance of the failure of existent vaccines to prevent infection.

The experience of one USAMRIID scientist who accidentally contracted a disease
called "glanders" was described in the article as follows: "The individual, after a
diagnostic liver biopsy, subsequently went into respiratory failure, necessitating
intubation, [followed by] a 6-month course of treatment." There is explicit
acknowledgement in this article of "the risk of introducing communicable illnesses
into the community at large."

Also relevant to this question about death and injuries is the apparent incidence of
cancer afflicting neighbors of Ft. Detrick due to water contamination, as outlined
in my answer to a previous question. Also, there is the matter of the anthrax
letters of 2001. It bears pointing out that according to the official account, the
anthrax in the letters was developed at Ft. Detrick .

Q: Do you know what the budget is for biological research programs?

A: Spending on so-called "bio-defense" research greatly increased immediately after
the anthrax letters. In the seven fiscal years following the anthrax letters, $48
billion was spent on "bio-defense." There is another $9 billion budgeted in fiscal
year 2009. Much of this is for the stockpiling of pharmaceuticals -- vaccines and
remedies such as Cipro for anthrax.

The General Accounting Office and scientists like Richard Ebright of Rutgers
University have suggested that the spending on research since 2001 has actually made
this country less safe by vastly increasing the number of researchers and labs
authorized to handle bacteria and viruses of bioterrorism concern, known as "select
agents." Ebright estimates that the number of labs so engaged has increased 20-fold
since 2001. Today, there are about 1,400 public and private labs and about 14,000
scientists known to be involved.

Q: Arms control expert Milton Leitenberg has said there is no evidence of biowarfare
capability on the part of any terrorist group. What do you make of that?

A: I have read two books by Mr. Leitenberg that pertain to the bioterrorism threat,
and I have spoken to him several times about his work. Mr. Leitenberg is a
conservative academic. In Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat,
Mr. Leitenberg demonstrates that billions of federal expenditures have been
appropriated in the absence of virtually any real threat analysis, and that the risk
and imminence of the use of biological agents by non-state actors/terrorist
organizations has been "systematically and deliberately exaggerated" by our
government. It is noteworthy that this book was published in December, 2005, by none
other than the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College . On its
title page can be found the following statement: "This publication is a work of the
United States Government . . ."

Q: Turning to the anthrax letters, what is Amerithrax?

A: Amerithrax is the FBI's name for its investigation into the anthrax letters
attacks of September-October, 2001. This investigation has become a cover-up and a
fraud, a systematic and deliberate fraud that now attempts to pin exclusive
responsibility for the attacks upon a USAMRIID immunologist named Bruce Ivins. After
months of intense harassment by the FBI, Ivins died in July, 2008, it appears by
suicide.

Q: Do you believe the anthrax attacks on Congress and the media in 2001 emanated
from Ft. Detrick ?

A: The anthrax in the letters was of a particularly pernicious strain called the
"Ames strain" of anthrax. After being discovered in a dead cow from Texas in 1981,
the Ames strain made its way to Ft. Detrick , where it was originally cultivated as
a potential bio-weapon. Bruce Ivins worked with the Ames strain at Ft. Detrick in
the course of his efforts to derive an effective vaccine. According to the FBI's
genetic analysis, the anthrax in the letters was of a specific genotype designated
RMR-1029. RMR-1029 was created by Bruce Ivins in 1997. Thereafter, Dr. Ivins was
called upon to send RMR-1029 to various laboratories, including those at the Army's
Dugway Proving Ground in Utah , as well as those in Ohio owned and operated by the
company named Battelle. So, it is likely that the anthrax came from Ft. Detrick .
But the attacks "emanated" from either Battelle or Dugway, where the anthrax was
converted from the "wet slurry" form it was in at Detrick to the powdered weaponized
form found in the letters addressed to the Senators.

Since the FBI announced that Dr. Ivins was the lone culprit, two articles of mine
have been published on the internet that set forth the strong evidence that the real
source of the anthrax letters was one of our own secret anthrax weaponization
projects being conducted by the CIA and the DIA at Battelle's labs in Ohio and at
the Army's labs in Utah. "FBI Sweeps Anthrax Under the Rug" can be accessed at
http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/46413512/fbi-sweeps-anthrax-un....
"Amerithrax Hoax" can be accessed at

http://www.opednews.com/articles/AMERITHRAX-HOAX-by-Barry-Kissin-090113-263.html   
or at   
http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2009/01/critique-of-chemical-signatur....  

Q: The anthrax letters had "Death to Israel ," "Death to America " and "Allah is
Great" printed in them. This seems like a crude propaganda plant to make the public
believe the letters were sent by persons from the Middle East or their sympathizers.
I've also heard it said the Bush Administration leaked information at the time of
the anthrax attacks that the letters came from the Muslim world. What do you make of
that?

A: This aspect of the anthrax letters is what makes the anthrax letters a "false
flag" operation. A "false flag" operation is one wherein a country stages an attack
made to look like an attack by an enemy, so as to justify an (aggressive) attack
upon that enemy. Clearly, elements in the Bush administration and in the media, for
as long as they could get away with it, pretended that the anthrax letters came from
Iraq . This played an unmistakable role in gathering support for the invasion of
Iraq .

Q: What do you believe was the motivation for the anthrax attacks?

A: The practice of inventing or exaggerating an attack or a threat in order to
stimulate demand for military build-up and war has been in place forever. (The Gulf
of Tonkin incident and the fabrication of Iraqi soldiers throwing Kuwaiti babies out
of incubators before the first Gulf War are important, relatively recent  examples.)
In his 1961 Farewell Address, President Eisenhower warned about the "unwarranted
influence" and "misplaced power" of the "military-industrial complex." Before that,
General Douglas MacArthur declaimed: "Our country is now geared to an arms economy
bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant
propaganda of fear." And before that, General Smedley Butler: "War is a racket. It
always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the
most vicious." And while we are at it, let's also heed James Madison, the primary
author of our Constitution: "The means of defense against foreign danger
historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." And: "If Tyranny and
Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

Q: Are you saying the motivation traces back to the profit motive of the
military-industrial complex?

A: For many involved in this practice of inventing/exaggerating threat, this is part
of an effort to maximize profits. Others are believers in the need for a military
build-up, and justify the invention/exaggeration as necessary to establish priority
among competing demands for appropriations. No matter the quality of the motivation,
the practice is fraudulent, and is directly responsible for the ignored phenomenon
that the U.S. spends more on its military than all of the other countries in the
world combined.

Q: And is the world's No. 1 arms merchant as well, plus the U.S. has ringed the
globe with 700-800 military installations, all for "defense" of course but, taken
together, giving the appearance very much of an aggressive posture, the stance of an
imperialist superpower.

A: The neocons who controlled policy under Bush were of course very closely
connected to the "defense" sector of our economy, and the profits made in that
sector have of course skyrocketed during the past eight years. What distinguished
the neocons in this context was that they did not only rely upon
inventing/exaggerating threat, they also explicitly espoused "full-spectrum
dominance" for the sake of the ascendance of American empire.

Q: So where do the anthrax letters fit in?

A: The anthrax letters must be viewed in this historical context. In the case of the
anthrax letters, the invention/exaggeration of threat took the perverse form of an
inside job. The Bush Administration has had to officially acknowledge that the
anthrax letters were an inside job. But in order to minimize the implications of
this fact, the official account resorts to the flimsy claim that the insider was a
lone nut named Bruce Ivins, peculiarly driven to stimulate demand for his anthrax
vaccine.

The obvious cover-up in Amerithrax, which depends on the complicity of not only our
FBI and Department of Justice, but also of our mainstream media, demonstrates how
economically and politically powerful are our military-industrial-intelligence
forces. Remarkably, despite the admission of inside job, the anthrax letters
continue to serve their dual purpose of generating profits and of achieving
dominance in the ghastly realm of bioweapons.

Q: Thank you, Barry Kissin.

(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations consultant who formerly reported
for the Chicago Daily News and wire services. He is the author of the article, "
America The Beautiful's Germ Warfare Rash" published in The Humanist magazine.
Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com. Reach Kissin atbarrykissin@hotmail.com)  

Barry Kissin leads a march in downtown Frederick to protest plans for the new
"biodefense" campus at Fort Detrick . A variety of peace groups came together to
express concerns that this campus will threaten local health and safety as well as
international arms control.