Pentagon 'a Discount Shopping Outlet for Bioterrorists'
NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2003
WASHINGTON – The Defense Department did not properly monitor Internet sales of equipment that could be used to make chemical and biological weapons, congressional investigators say.
As a result, says the General Accounting Office report being released today, there is little assurance that excess chemical and biological equipment has not already been obtained by dangerous people.
The House Government Reform subcommittee on national security has a hearing today to examine the findings, which outline weaknesses in Pentagon controls over surplus biological and chemical lab equipment and protective clothing.
"The cheap, virtually unregulated availability of low-cost biological laboratory equipment poses a risk to national security," Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., the subcommittee chairman, said Monday night. "The Department of Defense should not be a discount shopping outlet for would-be bioterrorists."
At the subcommittee's request, GAO bought surplus items though a shell corporation, acquiring operating lab equipment and other items at less than one-tenth of the original cost to the Pentagon, the report says. The GAO also was able to buy protective suits and other items, despite a department policy that prohibits public sale of the items, according to the GAO.
Some protective suits bought by the GAO had previously been determined defective, yet they were still circulating in the surplus supply chain, with some issued to state and local law enforcement units, the report says.
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Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bioterrorism
Homeland/Civil Defense
War on Terrorism
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