Project Clear Vision

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.