UNGA FIRST COMMITTEE THEMATIC DISCUSSION REGARDING WMD

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Sixty-Ninth UNGA First Committee Thematic Discussion on Other Weapons of Mass Destruction

Remarks

Ambassador Robert A. Wood, Alternate Representative, Delegation of the United States of America

New York City

October 24, 2014

Mr. Chairman,

Last year the international community welcomed UN Security Council Resolution 2118 and the September 27th OPCW Executive Council decision that legally mandated the complete elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons program. These decisions were an historic and unprecedented achievement that allowed for the removal and verified destruction of Syria’s declared chemical weapons -- a significant step toward the complete dismantling of the Syrian chemical weapons program. This effort could not have been accomplished without the commitment and resolve of the international community. President Obama expressed his gratitude to the OPCW-UN Joint Mission and the entire international coalition for this extraordinary achievement. President Obama also made clear that the task of ensuring that Syria’s chemical weapons program has been entirely eliminated is far from over. Serious concerns remain; including Syria’s continued use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people in direct contravention of its obligations under Resolution 2118, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the decisions of the OPCW Executive Council.

Mr. Chairman, the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission, set up by the Director-General to establish the facts around allegations that chlorine has been used as a chemical weapon, has confirmed the use of such a chemical in its second report dated 10 September 2014. The United States commends the courage and dedication of the Mission and its professional and impartial efforts to ascertain the facts regarding chemical weapons use in Syria. We join the rest of the international community in strongly supporting the Director-General’s decision to have the Fact-Finding Mission continue its work.

This second report contains a compelling set of conclusions and evidentiary findings implicating the Syrian government in deadly chemical weapons attacks against three villages in northern Syria during April and May of 2014. The Fact-Finding Mission concluded that the testimony of primary witnesses and supporting documentation, including medical reports and other relevant information, constitutes a compelling confirmation with a high degree of confidence that chlorine was used as a weapon, systematically and repeatedly in the villages of Talmanes, Al Tamanah, and Kafr Zeta in northern Syria. The Fact-Finding Mission emphasized that “in describing the incidents involving the release of toxic chemicals, witnesses invariably connected the devices to helicopters flying overhead.” It is well known that the Syrian Government is the only party to the conflict in Syria possessing helicopters or any other aerial capability.

Mr. Chairman, the use of chlorine or any other toxic chemical as a weapon is a clear breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention and of Resolution 2118. Such a breach raises serious concerns about the willingness of Syria to comply with its fundamental treaty obligations not to possess or use chemical weapons.

We are also concerned about Syria’s declaration, as it contains gaps, discrepancies and inconsistencies which give rise to important questions and concerns about the declaration’s accuracy and completeness. We call on Syria to cooperate fully with the OPCW and promptly begin destruction of its remaining chemical weapon production facilities. The Syrian Arab Republic must provide the international community with credible evidence to support its assurances that it has fully abandoned its chemical weapons program. This cannot be achieved while use of chemical weapons continues and new allegations of such use continue to be made. Complete and accurate declarations must be provided, and destruction operations must be completed promptly and in full in order to prevent further use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. The Syrian CW file remains open and will not be closed until all of these issues are addressed and Syria complies with its obligations under the CWC and UN Security Council Resolution 2118.

Mr. Chairman, on other CWC related matters, the United States looks forward to working closely with States Parties to meaningfully advance the work and recommendations of the Third Review Conference held in April 2013. While there is more work to be done in our efforts to further strengthen the implementation of the CWC, we remain encouraged by the progress made by the OPCW and its extraordinary efforts in working toward a world free of chemical weapons. The OPCW has accomplished a great deal and remains an indispensable multilateral body with a global responsibility.

For our part, the United States continues to act on opportunities to accelerate destruction and has safely destroyed almost 90 percent of our chemical weapons stockpile under OPCW verification. We continue our steadfast commitment to the CWC and will continue working in a transparent manner towards the complete destruction of our remaining chemical weapons.

The United States remains fully committed to the charge given in the preamble of the Chemical Weapons Convention, that all States Parties “determined for the sake of all mankind, to exclude completely the possibility of the use of chemical weapons, through the implementation of the provisions of this Convention….” We must stand together to make this goal a reality.

Mr. Chairman, as we pursue these important goals, we must not lose sight of the threat posed by biological weapons, whether in the hands of states or non-state actors. The Biological Weapons Convention bans the development, production, and stockpiling of such weapons. It embodies an aspiration as profound as that of the CWC: to completely exclude the possibility of biological agents and toxins being used as weapons. The United States strongly supports the BWC.

The 7th BWC Review Conference took steps to strengthen the Convention’s contribution to international security, establishing an ambitious agenda of important topics for ongoing work. But this agenda has not been matched by the resources or political will needed to deliver results. Even as we consolidate gains under the existing process, we must begin to look toward the 8th RevCon. What issues should we seek to address over the coming years, and how should we seek to address them?

Some will call – inevitably – for another effort to negotiate an all-encompassing supplementary treaty or protocol. We’ve been down that road. The problems are well known – and, despite the popular narrative, not limited to U.S. objections. Under this approach, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. This is a formula for years of inaction. The BW threat won’t wait for us.

There is a better way. We can strengthen our intersessional process. We can – like so many other international entities – adopt decisions on the things we agree upon, while continuing to discuss those on which we do not. And there IS agreement on a great deal. We agree on the need to strengthen national implementation; on the importance of international cooperation, especially to build nations’ capacity to address challenges to health security posed by infectious disease and toxins; on the need to give practical effect to the mutual assistance provisions of Article VII. And – even if we do not agree on how to go about it – we agree on the need to find ways to strengthen confidence that Parties to the BWC are living up to their obligations.

Mr. Chairman, we HAVE a treaty. We don’t need to wait for some distant day when the stars align and another one emerges – and the threats we face will most certainly not wait. Let’s take the tools that we have, strengthen them where necessary, and put them to use.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

FUNDING BIODEFENSE INFRASTRUCTURE

Photo:  Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Eric M. Garneau prepares to administer an H1N1 flu vaccine aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan while the ship is underway in the Atlantic Ocean, Dec. 5, 2009. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Anthony Sisti 

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 
DOD Funding Contributes to U.S. Biodefense Infrastructure
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2013 - The Defense Department has contributed core capabilities to a national center funded as a public-private partnership by the Department of Health and Human Services to enhance the U.S. response to infectious diseases and biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear threats.
The HHS Texas A&M Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing is a response in part to pandemics such as the 2009-2010 H1N1 flu -- for which traditional biomanufacturing methods took 26 weeks to produce initial vaccine doses – and the future threat of biological attacks and other public health emergencies.

According to expert witnesses testifying here Oct. 11 before the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on intelligence, emerging threats and capabilities, some kinds of advances in biomanufacturing processes and DNA technologies have lowered the bar for states, and even individuals, who seek to produce biological weapons.

One of the witnesses was Dr. Brett P. Giroir, principal investigator at the Texas A&M Center for Innovation, and interim vice president and chief executive officer of the Texas A&M Health Sciences Center.

"Literally, what once took weeks during medical school to produce in a multimillion-dollar laboratory can be done [today] in an afternoon on a benchtop by someone with a relatively less degree of scientific training," he told the panel. "So the barriers to entry have decreased."

Giroir's work at the Texas A&M Center for Innovation began in 2008 after nine years at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

During his first five years at DARPA, Giroir was a member of the Defense Sciences Research Council, for which he chaired or co-chaired intensive studies on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear security and countermeasures, decontamination and warfighter performance under extreme conditions, he said in written testimony.

Then, as deputy director and later director of the DARPA Defense Sciences Office, he and a team of scientists, physicians and engineers developed a platform of research initiatives called Accelerating Critical Therapeutics, or ACT, he said.

ACT was designed to provide new, highly effective medical countermeasures and an unprecedented, flexible and rapid response to address the growing threat of genetically modified or chimeric organisms -- single organisms with two or more sets of genetically distinct cells -- for which no vaccines or countermeasures existed.

One aspect of the DARPA portfolio that was extremely challenging, even for DARPA, he said, was the ability to develop low-cost, highly flexible and adaptable biomanufacturing technologies that could provide tens of millions of doses of vaccines or medical countermeasures such as chemical-weapon antidotes within weeks of notification.

Such a capability didn't exist in the civilian or military experience, Giroir said, and profound technical and financial barriers kept the problem unsolved for several years.

"In 2008, when my assignment at DARPA was completed, I joined the Texas A&M system [and] secured a $50 million investment from the state of Texas to demonstrate those flexible manufacturing capabilities originally envisioned at DARPA," Giroir told the panel.

"Beginning in 2009," he added, "Texas A&M designed, developed, constructed and is now operating a revolutionary first-in-class, 150,000-square-foot facility that has pioneered highly flexible, adaptable and even mobile manufacturing platforms at a capital cost of about 80 percent less than the current state of the art."

The facility is called the National Center for Therapeutics, or NCTM, and a key feature there is the use of modular and mobile stand-alone biopharmaceutical clean rooms, called modular clear rooms, or MCRs. The initial MCR concept was funded by DOD through DARPA and the Army Research Office, Giroir said.

NCTM is the core facility and main site for developing and manufacturing medical countermeasures and vaccines against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats for the Texas A&M Center for Innovation, he added.

Another part of the Center for Innovation's biomanufacturing infrastructure is the Caliber Biotherapeutics Facility, Giroir said. Caliber was developed and built through Texas A&M and G-CON Manufacturing, with funding from the DARPA Blue Angel Program.

According to a 2012 DARPA news release, the Blue Angel Program demonstrated a flexible and agile capability for DOD to rapidly react to and neutralize any natural or intentional pandemic disease.

Building on a previous DARPA program, Blue Angel targeted new ways to produce large amounts of high-quality, vaccine-grade protein in less than three months in response to emerging and novel biological threats. One of the research avenues explored plant-made proteins for producing a candidate vaccine.

In a milestone development under the program, researchers at Medicago Inc. in North Carolina produced in one month more than 10 million doses of an animal-model H1N1 flu-vaccine candidate based on virus-like particles, the DARPA statement said.

The work was part of a rapid-fire test that ran from March 25, 2012, to April 24, 2012, and showed that a single dose of the H1N1 vaccine candidate induced protective antibody levels in an animal model when combined with a standard immunological additive, according to DARPA.

The Texas A&M Center for Innovation has partnered with Caliber Biotherapeutics to make Caliber's plant-made pharmaceutical facility available for HHS task orders, including vaccines, Giroir told the panel.

"The facility has the capability to produce up to 20 kilograms of purified protein per month through its highly automated, Nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative of tobacco, plant-based production system," Giroir said.

"We consider this program to be the most responsive, secure and capable plant-made vaccine program currently available worldwide," he added.

Giroir said the Center for Innovation's high-level objectives are:

-- To provide a national vaccine response against pandemic flu, defined as 50 million doses delivered in 4 months, with initial doses available to the federal government in 12 weeks;

-- To perform what's called advanced development -- the final steps -- in manufacturing vaccines and medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats as tasked by HHS; and

-- To train the future domestic U.S. workforce.

To achieve these objectives, Texas A&M leads a multidisciplinary team with expertise that spans research to clinical trials, including GlaxoSmithKline, or GSK Vaccines, the world's largest vaccine developer, Giroir said.

The center also is expanding domestic U.S. infrastructure, he added, building a new, dedicated pandemic flu vaccine facility to meet its 50-million-dose requirements, and building a new live-virus vaccine facility at biosafety level 3, designed specifically for research with hazardous biological agents.

Giroir said Texas A&M is highly motivated to continue its history of service to the nation by supporting DOD and supplying improved vaccines and countermeasures to the warfighter.

"Of particular interest would be DOD partnerships to develop and manufacture products for their stockpile and special immunizations programs," he added, "and perhaps more importantly, to be the cornerstone for an emergency response to genetically modified or chimeric organisms [and] other unexpected agents that we believe are a growing, real threat to our national security and public health."

Because the center's contract with HHS indicates that 50 percent of its capabilities are available for non-HHS projects, there is an immediate opportunity for DOD to use center capacity and expertise already funded by HHS, Giroir said.

"We believe such collaborations would not only reduce DOD operational risks," he added, "but would reduce DOD expenditures, potentially by hundreds of millions of dollars, that could then be reallocated to provide additional vaccines, countermeasures and capabilities to our warfighters."

U.S. PRESIDENT OBAMA WARNS SYSRIA NOT TO USE WMDS

President Barack Obama thanks Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, center right, and former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, center, for their work to help in denuclearizing countries after the fall of the Soviet Union at the National Defense University in Washington D.C., Dec. 3, 2012. Prior to the president's speech, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, left, presented Nunn and Lugar with the Defense Civilian Service Award, the highest award the Defense Department can give a civilian. DOD photo by Erin Kirk-Cuomo

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Obama Warns Syria Against Using Chemical, Biological Weapons
By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2012 - President Barack Obama today warned Syria's Bashar Assad regime that the use of chemical biological weapons would be "unacceptable."

Speaking to at the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Symposium at the National Defense University here, Obama addressed concerns of the use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in Syria.

"Today, I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command [that] the world is watching," he said. "The use of chemical weapons is, and would be, totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there where be consequences, and you will be held accountable."

The president said it has been critical to continue investing in threat reduction programs over the past four years of his administration.

"We simply cannot allow the 21st century to be darkened by the worst weapons of the 20th century," Obama said. "And even as we make some very tough fiscal choices, we're going to keep investing in these programs, because our national security depends on it."

The president noted even after the destruction of thousands of missiles, elimination of bombers and submarines and deactivation of warheads, much work remains to be done.

"There's still much too much material -- nuclear, chemical, biological -- being stored without enough protection," he said. "There are still terrorists and criminal gangs doing everything they can to get their hands on it."

If these criminals get these weapons, they will use them, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people and perhaps triggering a global crisis, the president said.

"[This is] why I continue to believe that nuclear terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to global security," he added. "[And] why working to prevent nuclear terrorism is going to remain one of my top national security priorities as long as I have the privilege of being president of the United States."

The president emphasized that the United States must sustain efforts across the government to strengthen threat reduction programs such as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which he called "one of our most important national security programs."

"[This is] why we haven't just sustained programs like Nunn-Lugar over the past four years," Obama said. "We've worked with all of you to strengthen it, expanding it to some 80 nations, far beyond the old Soviet Union - moving ahead with the destruction of chemical weapons - partnering with others, countries from Africa to Asia and global health organizations to prevent the spread of deadly diseases and bioterrorism."

The work ahead will not be easy, Obama said. "It took decades and extraordinary sums of money to build those arsenals," he explained. "It's going to take decades and continued investments to dismantle them."

Obama also said while this painstaking work rarely makes headlines, it is "absolutely vital to our national security and to our global interests."

"Missile by missile, warhead by warhead, shell by shell, we're putting a bygone era behind us," he said. "Inspired by Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar, we're moving closer to the future we seek -- a future where these weapons never threaten our children again, [and] a future where we know the security and peace of a world without nuclear weapons."

The president also told the audience that the United States will continue to support the "legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people" by engaging with the opposition and providing them with humanitarian aid and by working for a transition to a Syria that's free of the Assad regime.

NEW BIO-THREAT SENSORS WILL BE TESTED IN BOSTON SUBWAY SYSTEM

Photo:  S&T scientists will spray small quantities of killed Bacillus subtilis in the subway tunnels.  Credit:  DHS

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Boston Subway System to be Used to Test New Sensors for Biological Agents
Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate’s "Detect to Protect" program will assess trigger and confirmer sensors designed to detect biological agents within minutes
The idea that disease and infection might be used as weapons is truly dreadful, but there is plenty of evidence showing that biological weapons have been around since ancient times. Bioterrorism, as it is dubbed, is nothing new, and although medicines have made the world a safer place against a myriad of old scourges both natural and manmade, it still remains all too easy today to uncork a nasty cloud of germs.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) has scheduled a series of tests in the Boston subways to measure the real-world performance of new sensors recently developed to detect biological agents.

S&T’s "Detect-to-Protect" (D2P) Bio Detection project is assessing several sensors (made by Flir Inc., Northrop Grumman, Menon and Associates, and Qinetiq North America) to alert authorities to the presence of biological material. These devices with "trigger" and "confirmer" sensors have been designed to identify and confirm the release of biological agents within minutes.

In 2009, and in early August this year, inert gasses were released in the Boston subway system in an initial study to determine where and how released particulates would travel through the subway network and to identify exactly where to place these new sensors. The current study will involve the release of a small amount of an innocuous killed bacterium in subway stations in the Boston area to test how well the sensors work. After the subway stations close, S&T scientists will spray small quantities of killed Bacillus subtilis in the subway tunnels. This common, food-grade bacterium is found everywhere in soil, water, air, and decomposing plant matter and, even when living, is considered nontoxic to humans, animals, and plants.

S&T’s Dr. Anne Hultgren, program manager for the D2P project, says, "While there is no known threat of a biological attack on subway systems in the United States, the S&T testing will help determine whether the new sensors can quickly detect biological agents in order to trigger a public safety response as quickly as possible."

DHS leads federal efforts to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a possible domestic biological attack. The testing will continue periodically for the next six months and will be monitored by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority as well as state and local public health officials.

The particles released in the stations will dissipate quickly. But before they do, their brief travels will provide invaluable data for DHS’ ongoing effort to protect American travelers from potential hazards. Unlike the "Charlie on the MTA" made famous by the Kingston Trio folk group, these particles will NOT ‘ride forever ’neath the streets of Boston.’