Project Clear Vision was a covert examination of Soviet-made biological bomblets conducted by the Battelle Memorial Institute under contract with the CIA. The legality of this project under the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972 is disputed.[ where?]
History
The operation
Project Clear Vision was conducted between 1997 and 2000, [1] during the Clinton Administration. [2] The project's stated goal was to assess the efficacy of bio-agent dissemination from bomblets. [3] The program received criticism due to suspicions that its findings could possibly be used in a covert US bioweapons program.[ citation needed]
Reportage
The secret project was disclosed in a September 2001 article in The New York Times. [1] Reporters Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad collaborated to write the article. [1] Shortly after the article appeared, the authors published a book that further elaborated the story. [1] The 2001 book, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, and the article are the only publicly available sources[ citation needed] concerning Project Clear Vision and its sister projects, Bacchus and Jefferson. [1]
Legality
As signatory to the BWC, the United States is committed to refrain from development of bioweapons. Moreover, the US did not disclose the secret project in its annual confidence-building measure (CBM) declarations. [3] The US maintains that the program was fully consistent with the BWC because the project was defensive in nature. [2]
References
- ^ a b c d e Enemark, Christian. Disease and Security: Natural Plagues and Biological Weapons in East Asia, ( Google Books), Routledge, 2007, pp. 173-75, ( ISBN 0415422345).
- ^ a b Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. " U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits", The New York Times, September 4, 2001. Retrieved January 6, 2009.
- ^ a b Tucker, Jonathan B. " Biological Threat Assessment: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease? Archived 2008-05-17 at the Wayback Machine", Arms Control Today, October 2004. Retrieved January 6, 2009.
Further reading
- Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, ( Google Books), Simon and Schuster, 2002, ( ISBN 0684871599).