Imagine a foreign government selling equipment that could be used to create biological warfare agents, over the Internet, to anyone willing to pay for it.
For about $4,000, this government will send any buyer an evaporator, incubator, and centrifuge equipment with no questions asked.
Terrible, right? I mean, if Saddam Hussein’s regime was doing this, the Bush administration would probably use this as proof as to why the war in Iraq was necessary.
The problem is this wasn’t done by Hussein, or any foreign government for that matter. The equipment was being sold by the United States Department of Defense.
As CNN began reporting yesterday, the non-partisan General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has prepared a draft report explaining that the Pentagon has been offering equipment to the public over the Internet that can be used for making biological warfare agents.
“Many items needed to establish a laboratory for making biological warfare agents were being sold on the Internet to the public from DoD’s excess property inventory for pennies on the dollar, making them both easy and economical to obtain,” the GAO draft report said.
In fact, the GAO created a phony company to see what happened when GAO investigators tried to purchase the items online.
“[The] GAO established a fictitious company and purchased over the Internet key excess DoD biological equipment items and related protective clothing necessary to produce and disseminate biological warfare agents,” the report said.
In addition to the incubator and centrifuge equipment, the GAO was able to buy 300 to 400 protective suits required for the production of biological agents. All of these materials were purchased from the Pentagon for “a little over $4,000.”
CNN reported that the Defense Department, upon learning of the purchases, halted the sale of the items on Sept. 19.
While I’m glad the items still aren’t on sale, I can’t help but wonder if the Pentagon unknowingly sold these materials to the “wrong” people. Scary thought.